Impact of a Wellness Portal on the Delivery of Patient-Centered Prospective Care

As the number of recommended preventive services continues to increase, clinicians struggle to maintain a balance between immediate patient concerns and the time required to address prevention. Optimal delivery of primary, secondary, and tertiary preventive services will increasingly require sophisticated information processing and significantly greater patient involvement. Despite the importance of patient-centered delivery approaches, little information is available on the impact of integrated health information technologies on the delivery of patient centered, preventive care in primary care settings.

The primary purpose of this completed study was to evaluate the impact of a Web-based patient Wellness Portal on the delivery of individualized patient-centered preventive care from the perspectives of both patients and primary care clinicians. Specific objectives of this study were to:

• Develop, field test, and refine an Internet-based patient Wellness Portal linked to Preventative Services Reminder System to facilitate patient-centered, preventive care in primary care practices.
• Determine the impact of the Wellness Portal on the process of patient-centered preventive care by examining the behavior and experiences of both patients and providers and the degree to which recommended services are individualized.
• Develop model Wellness Portal practices and disseminate the Wellness Portal technology and knowledge derived from the first two objectives above.

The team found that a comprehensive patient portal integrated into the regular process of care delivery can increase the patient-centeredness of care, enhance the delivery of both age and personal risk factor -dependent preventive services, improve patient activation, promote the utilization of web-based personal health records, and increase the knowledge of clinicians about their patients' medical history in primary care settings.