Skip to main content
Back

Blog

Progress with patient portals

A conversation between Alies Maybee and Anna Greenberg

Anna Greenberg: One of the widest chasms in digital health care today is the divide between people’s wish to access their own medical records electronically and their ability to do so. According to a 2018 Canada Health Infoway survey, 74% of Ontario residents who currently have no access would like electronic access to their health records, and only 31% currently can access their own health records.

One of the most convenient ways for patients to access their medical information is through a patient portal. These have existed for more than a decade at individual hospitals and are now becoming more widespread – but still only to provide information from one institution.
Depending on the portal, patients can view:

• Physician notes, personal medical history and medication records
• Laboratory and test results
• Appointment details
• Electronic means of communicating with your physician
• General medical and health information

On our own patient and family advisory council, only a few members have had experience with such a portal. Those who did told us it made a world of difference. Others talked of struggling to assemble this type of information themselves.

Alies Maybee: I recently attended a conference hosted by Canada Health Infoway where Julie Drury, chair of the Ontario Minister’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, described the challenges of compiling and managing information about her daughter’s care at multiple hospitals. She showed the huge mound of paper binders of medical information that she had to cart around and keep updated. And this was only a few years ago. I think patient portals have the potential to significantly ease this burden, but portals need to give patients access to more of their information and be better connected with each other when they exist at different care settings.

Digital health: Transforming care and adding value

By Lee Fairclough

This week is Digital Health Week, a yearly acknowledgement of the transformative power of digital health technologies to support the delivery of health care.

That such a transformation is desired by patients and caregivers is not in doubt. Canada Health Infoway notes that 80% of patients want access to their own records and other digital health solutions. This enthusiasm was confirmed recently in a survey commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association which found:

  • Three-quarters of Canadians would like to see more technology as part of the health care system
  • 7 in 10 Canadians would take advantage of virtual physician visits and many believe that it would lead to more timely care, convenience and overall care.
  • Over half (56%) would likely wear a mobile device that monitored their health continuously.

Despite these figures, digital care has been relatively slow in coming to Ontario and the rest of Canada for a variety of reasons related to the challenges of putting the proper infrastructure in place, privacy and security concerns and some resistance from health care providers and patients.

Let’s make our health system healthier

Join Our Patient, Family and Public Advisors Program

Patients, families and the public are central to improving health quality.


Man smiling

Sign up for our newsletter

Are you passionate about quality health care for all Ontarians? Stay in-the-know about our newest programs, reports and news.

Health Quality Connect - Health Quality Ontario's newsletter - on an iPad and a cell phone