Patient portals had their initial adopters in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And last year in 2021, the global patient portal market increased to a value of US $2905.8 million. This is the result of increasing users of healthcare portals. These portals improve the way of interaction for patients and doctors. It enhances the overall healthcare system and fuels efficiency in healthcare management. It lets the patient track their healthcare journey all by themselves through their preferable device. There are two types of patient portals: standalone system and integrated service.
The healthcare portal streamlines the workflow of the healthcare organization. It provides multiple benefits to patients as well as doctors. Scheduling appointments, paying bills, checking reports, etc., is made possible online with healthcare portals. We will see in this article we will focus on crm patient portal benefits the organization and enhances the patient’s experience. Let us get started with it.
Benefits of Healthcare Portals
- Security
When it comes to healthcare, security is the first thing you need to look for while installing any system. Data management and data security are essential parts that we need to take care of in any healthcare organization. Even if there is a minor leak from any organization’s records, it can take a hazardous turn. But as discussed ago, the patient portal gives you relief in terms of security. Healthcare portals provide your patients and doctors with secure online access to all their medical and patient data, respectively.
Also, one just needs to log in with secure login credentials from any device of their comfort to access all the necessary information. You can even get mail whenever your login credentials get approved. This way, you can know if someone else is using your credentials and report the user.
Additionally, portals save all your reports, chats, appointments securely. It is important to ensure that whichever portal solution you choose follows HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). It is a federal law that requires the creation of national standards for protecting sensitive health information of patients from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge. It will give you secure connections and guard against any kind of data breaches. Patients can also easily access all the data saved in their personal accounts on portals, pin the important ones, delete the unnecessary data, etc.
- Comfort of Device
We all are aware of how necessary it is to provide all device support in the digital world where we cannot carry our desktops everywhere or do not want to use a smartphone for everything. So, you need to provide desktop, tablet, and smartphone device support to your patients. With a patient portal, you can do this and give the patients comfort of logging in from any device of their choice. You can even make your portal compatible with every OS for letting the patients use the services seamlessly.
- Better Communication
Portals help patients to communicate easily with doctors through in-built chat systems, phone calls, and video calls. They do not have to visit the hospital to receive their reports or schedule an appointment. They can easily check their reports and schedule a meeting with the doctor of their choice on their date of convenience online through portals itself.
They need to simply log into their portal with their secure password and access their reports, use online payment methods, make a virtual appointment with doctors, etc. Also, portals save the chats done with the doctor for any further requirements. It also has a reminder feature. So, the portal sends a notification to remind the patient about the appointment to prevent them from missing it.
- Telemedicine
Healthcare portals include telemedicine tools that lead to providing effective medications to patients. The in-built software checks the drugs and cross-checks the components with your allergy lists automatically. This way, doctors can get filtered medication options to prescribe from. Doctors can even check the previous medications if they need to be repeated. Portals save all the prescriptions for further appointments.
This way, patients don’t need to worry about getting allergies or wrong medicines. With telemedicine, the organization can also reduce the number of unnecessary patient visits to the hospital. The patients can consult doctors through chats or calls. They do not have to come to the hospital just to refill the medicine dosages. Also, they can get the medicines delivered at home so that they do not have to go to the pharmacy. Portals offer payment gateways for easy online payment for medicines and appointments.
- Decrease in Medical Errors
When there are no written records of the information, it often leads to disintegrations. Sometimes when receptionists write the information that patients give them, it may lead to misunderstandings due to many factors. But if the conversation is between doctor and patient directly, then the chances of medical errors decrease to almost none. Portals give you the advantages of saving all the previous chats, prescriptions, and reports for better communication and understanding of a patient’s problem.
The only thing you will require to do is choose the best healthcare portal Development company, and how do you choose the best? Let me help you with giving some must-have features in patient portals. You just need to see if the portal has the following features to be the ideal portal:
- Clinical summaries
- Secured with HIPAA guidelines
- Multiple secure payment gateways
- Easy and attractive dashboard
- User-friendly interface
- Online ordering of telemedicine and healthcare equipment
- Reminders for different notifications regarding schedules and doses
- Saves the data securely
- Online reports
- Records the Medical history of the patient