ArticleTelemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association2014
Impact of patient portal secure messages and electronic visits on adult primary care office visits.
Article in Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The impact of eHealth use on general practice workload in the pre-COVID-19 era: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2024Pooled it
- Understanding How the Design and Implementation of Online Consultations Affect Primary Care Quality: Systematic Review of Evidence With Recommendations for Designers, Providers, and Researchers.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Pooled it
- The Impact of Digital Patient Portals on Health Outcomes, System Efficiency, and Patient Attitudes: Updated Systematic Literature Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Pooled it
- Quantifying Patient Portal Use: Systematic Review of Utilization Metrics.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Pooled it
- The Empirical Foundations of Telemedicine Interventions in Primary Care.Telemedicine journal and e-health : the official journal of the American Telemedicine Association · 2016Pooled it
- Defining and Assessing Empathic Communication in Patient Portal Secure Messages: Adapted Coding Framework Development Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- Asynchronous Telehealth for Dysphagia Management: Evidence, Possibilities, and Practical Examples.Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groups · 2025Article
- Cost minimization analysis of digital-first healthcare pathways in primary care.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- The impact of telemedicine on physician time invested in primary care: a large population-based descriptive study.Primary health care research & development · 2025Article
- Patient-Health Care Professional Communication via a Secure Web-Based Portal in Severe Mental Health Conditions: Qualitative Analysis of Secure Messages.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Automatic uncovering of patient primary concerns in portal messages using a fusion framework of pretrained language models.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2024Article
- Short- and intermediate-term impact of DTC telemedicine consultations on subsequent healthcare consumption.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2024Article
- Understanding Primary and Secondary Concerns from Patient Portal Messages through Clinical Data Annotation, Analysis, and Modeling.AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings. AMIA Symposium · 2024Article
- MiQuit: A Study Protocol to Link Low-Income Smokers to a State Tobacco Quitline.Ethnicity & disease · 2023Article
- Impact of virtual visits on primary care physician work flows.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2023Article
- The State of Telehealth Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic.Primary care · 2022Review
- Review
- Analyzing Patient Secure Messages Using a Fast Health Care Interoperability Resources (FIHR)-Based Data Model: Development and Topic Modeling Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Association between Patient Portal use and Office Visits.Journal of medical systems · 2021Article
- Twenty-first Century Bedside Manner: Exploring Patient-Centered Communication in Secure Messaging with Cancer Patients.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionSecure messages and electronic visits ("e-visits") through patient portals provide patients with alternatives to face-to-face appointments, telephone contact, letters, and e-mails. Limited information exists on how portal messaging impacts face-to-face visits in primary care. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study of 2,357 primary care patients who used electronic messaging (both secure messages and e-visits) on a patient portal. Face-to-face appointment frequencies (visits/year) of each patient were calculated before and after the first message in a matched-pairs analysis. We analyzed visit frequencies with and without adjustments for a first message surge in visits, and we examined subgroups of high message utilizers and long-term users.
resultsPrimary care patients who sent at least one message (secure message or e-visit) had a mean of 2.43 (standard deviation [SD] 2.3) annual face-to-face visits before the first message and 2.47 (SD 2.8) after, a nonsignificant difference (p=0.45). After adjustment for a first message surge in visits, no significant visit frequency differences were observed (mean, 2.35 annual visits per patient both before and after first message; p=0.93). Subgroup analysis also showed no significant change in visit frequency for patients with higher message utilization or for those who had used the messaging feature longer.
conclusionsNo significant change in face-to-face visit frequency was observed following implementation of portal messaging. Secure messaging and e-visits through a patient portal may not result in a change of adult primary care face-to-face visits.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.