ArticleBMJ open2015
Association between secure patient-clinician email and clinical services utilisation in a US integrated health system: a retrospective cohort study.
Article in BMJ open, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Impact of an Electronic Portal on Patient Encounters in Primary Care: Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.JMIR medical informatics · 2023Article
- The Causal Relationship Between Portal Usage and Self-Efficacious Health Information-Seeking Behaviors: Secondary Analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey Data.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Characteristics of Patients Using Different Patient Portal Functions and the Impact on Primary Care Service Utilization and Appointment Adherence: Retrospective Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Observational
- Patients with complex chronic conditions: Health care use and clinical events associated with access to a patient portal.PloS one · 2019Observational
- On the effect of electronic patient portal on primary care utilization and appointment adherence.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2018Observational
- Patient portal adoption and use by hospitalized cancer patients: a retrospective study of its impact on adverse events, utilization, and patient satisfaction.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2018Article
- Alternatives to the face-to-face consultation in general practice: focused ethnographic case study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2018Article
- Primary Care Practice Reengineering and Associations With Patient Portal Use, Service Utilization, and Disease Control Among Patients With Hypertension and/or Diabetes.Ochsner journal · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo assess associations between secure patient-clinician email use and clinical services utilisation over time.
designRetrospective cohort study between July 2010 and December 2013. Controlling for a utilisation surge around first secure email use, we analysed difference of differences between propensity score-matched groups of secure patient-clinician email users and non-users for utilisation 1-12 months before and 7-18 months after first email (users) or a randomly assigned index date (non-users).
settingUS integrated healthcare delivery system.
participants9345 adults with first secure email use between July 2011 and July 2012 and continuous enrolment for ≥30 months and 9345 adults without secure email use between July 2010 and July 2012 matched to users on demographics, health status, and baseline utilisation. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Rates of office visits, patient-initiated phone calls, scheduled telephone visits, after-hours clinic visits, emergency department visits, and hospitalisations.
resultsAfter controlling for multiple factors, no statistically significant differences in utilisation between secure email users and non-users occurred. Utilisation transiently increased by 88-237% around first email use. Annual rates of patient-initiated phone calls decreased among secure email users, 0.2 fewer calls per person (95% CI -0.3 to -0.1), from a mean of 4.1 calls per person 1-12 months before first use to a mean of 3.8 calls per person 7-18 months after first use. Rates of patient-initiated phone calls also decreased among non-users, 0.1 fewer calls per person (95% CI -0.2 to 0.0), from a mean of 4.2 calls per person 1-12 months before the index date to mean of 4.1 calls per person 7-18 months after the index date.
conclusionsCompared with non-users, patient use of secure email with clinicians was not associated with statistically significant differences in clinical services utilisation 7-18 months after first use.
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