Dataset Information

Insights Into Older Adult Patient Concerns Around the Caregiver Proxy Portal Use: Qualitative Interview Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Electronic patient portals have become common and offer many potential benefits for patients' self-management of health care. These benefits could be especially important for older adult patients dealing with significant chronic illness, many of whom have caregivers, such as a spouse, adult child, or other family member or friend, who help with health care management. Patient portals commonly contain large amounts of personal information, including diagnoses, health histories, medications, specialist appointments, lab results, and billing and insurance information. Some health care systems provide proxy accounts for caregivers to access a portal on behalf of a patient. It is not well known how much and in what way caregivers are using patient portals on behalf of patients and whether patients see any information disclosure risks associated with such access.

Objective

The objective of this study was to examine how older adult patients perceive the benefits and risks of proxy patient portal access by their caregivers.

Methods

We conducted semistructured interviews with 10 older adult patients with chronic illness. We asked them about their relationship with their caregivers, their use of their patient portal, their caregiver's use of the portal, and their perceptions about the benefits and risks of their caregiver's use of the portals. We also asked them about their comfort level with caregivers having access to information about a hypothetical diagnosis of a stigmatized condition. Two investigators conducted a thematic analysis of the qualitative data.

Results

All patients identified caregivers. Some had given caregivers access to their portals, in all cases by sharing log-in credentials, rather than by setting up an official proxy account. Patients generally saw benefits in their caregivers having access to the information and functions provided by the portal. Patients generally reported that they would be uncomfortable with caregivers learning of stigmatized conditions and also with caregivers (except spouses) accessing financial billing information.

Conclusions

Patients share their electronic patient portal credentials with caregivers to receive the benefits of those caregivers having access to important medical information but are unaware of all the information those caregivers can access. Better portal design could alleviate these unwanted information disclosures.

SUBMITTER: Latulipe C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6240158 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Insights Into Older Adult Patient Concerns Around the Caregiver Proxy Portal Use: Qualitative Interview Study.

Latulipe Celine C Quandt Sara A SA Melius Kathryn Altizer KA Bertoni Alain A Miller David P DP Smith Douglas D Arcury Thomas A TA

Journal of medical Internet research 20181102 11

<h4>Background</h4>Electronic patient portals have become common and offer many potential benefits for patients' self-management of health care. These benefits could be especially important for older adult patients dealing with significant chronic illness, many of whom have caregivers, such as a spouse, adult child, or other family member or friend, who help with health care management. Patient portals commonly contain large amounts of personal information, including diagnoses, health histories, ...[more]

PMID: 30389654

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Dataset Information

Insights Into Older Adult Patient Concerns Around the Caregiver Proxy Portal Use: Qualitative Interview Study.

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Insights Into Older Adult Patient Concerns Around the Caregiver Proxy Portal Use: Qualitative Interview Study.

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