Background: Patient portals are digital health tools adopted by healthcare organisations. The portals are generally connected to the electronic health record of the healthcare organisation and offer patients functionalities such as access to the medical record, ability to order repeat prescriptions, make appointments or message the healthcare provider. Patient portals may be beneficial for patients and for the healthcare system. Patient portals can widely differ from one context to another due to the differences in the portal functionalities and capabilities and it is anticipated that outcomes associated with the functionalities to differ as well. Current systematic reviews report outcomes associated with patient portal uptake but do not explicitly specify the patient portal functionalities.
Objective: The aim of this systematic review is to synthesise the evidence on health and healthcare quality outcomes associated with patient portal use among adult (18 years or older) patients. The review research questions are: What kind of health outcomes do tethered patient portals and patient portal functionalities contribute to in adult patients (18 years or older)? and What kind of healthcare quality outcomes including healthcare utilisation outcomes, do tethered patient portals and patient portal functionalities contribute to in adult patients (18 years or older)?
Methods: The systematic review will be conducted by searching the Medline, Embase, and Scopus databases for relevant literature. The review inclusion criteria will be studies about adult patients (18 years or older), studies only about tethered patient portals and studies with or without a comparator. We will report patient portal-associated health and healthcare quality outcomes based on the patient portal functionalities. All quantitative primary study types will be included. Risk of bias of included studies will be assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s quality assessment tools. Data will be synthesised using narrative synthesis and will be reported according to the patient portal functionalities, country, disease and healthcare system model.
Results: Searches will be conducted in September 2019, and the review is anticipated to be complete by the end of June 2020.
Conclusions: This systematic review will provide an overview of health and healthcare quality outcomes among adult patients, associated with patient portal use providing detailed information about the functionalities of the portals and their associations with the outcomes. The review could potentially help patient portal evaluation studies by providing insights into outcomes associated with the different functionalities of patient portals.