JMIR Human Factors (May 2022)

Patient Portal Messaging for Asynchronous Virtual Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Analysis

  • Ming Huang,
  • Aditya Khurana,
  • George Mastorakos,
  • Andrew Wen,
  • Huan He,
  • Liwei Wang,
  • Sijia Liu,
  • Yanshan Wang,
  • Nansu Zong,
  • Julie Prigge,
  • Brian Costello,
  • Nilay Shah,
  • Henry Ting,
  • Jungwei Fan,
  • Christi Patten,
  • Hongfang Liu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.2196/35187
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 2
p. e35187

Abstract

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BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, patient portals and their message platforms allowed remote access to health care. Utilization patterns in patient messaging during the COVID-19 crisis have not been studied thoroughly. In this work, we propose characterizing patients and their use of asynchronous virtual care for COVID-19 via a retrospective analysis of patient portal messages. ObjectiveThis study aimed to perform a retrospective analysis of portal messages to probe asynchronous patient responses to the COVID-19 crisis. MethodsWe collected over 2 million patient-generated messages (PGMs) at Mayo Clinic during February 1 to August 31, 2020. We analyzed descriptive statistics on PGMs related to COVID-19 and incorporated patients’ sociodemographic factors into the analysis. We analyzed the PGMs on COVID-19 in terms of COVID-19–related care (eg, COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 tests and results) and other health issues (eg, appointment cancellation, anxiety, and depression). ResultsThe majority of PGMs on COVID-19 pertained to COVID-19 symptom self-assessment (42.50%) and COVID-19 tests and results (30.84%). The PGMs related to COVID-19 symptom self-assessment and COVID-19 test results had dynamic patterns and peaks similar to the newly confirmed cases in the United States and in Minnesota. The trend of PGMs related to COVID-19 care plans paralleled trends in newly hospitalized cases and deaths. After an initial peak in March, the PGMs on issues such as appointment cancellations and anxiety regarding COVID-19 displayed a declining trend. The majority of message senders were 30-64 years old, married, female, White, or urban residents. This majority was an even higher proportion among patients who sent portal messages on COVID-19. ConclusionsDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, patients increased portal messaging utilization to address health care issues about COVID-19 (in particular, symptom self-assessment and tests and results). Trends in message usage closely followed national trends in new cases and hospitalizations. There is a wide disparity for minority and rural populations in the use of PGMs for addressing the COVID-19 crisis.