Increasing Patient Portal Activation in a Pediatric Subspecialty Clinic

BACKGROUND: Online patient portals are not widely used, despite their advantages for efficient communication, especially for patients with chronic conditions. A hospital-based group practice of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatricians initiated this quality improvement (QI) project with a goal to increase the percentage of patients with an active MyChart (Epic Systems Corporation’s patient portal) account and ultimately improve efficiency of communication between families and clinical staff. METHODS: Using QI methodology, we identified staff commitment, workflow issues, and family awareness as gaps and implemented progressive Plan, Do, Study, Act cycles aimed at developing standard processes for activating families on MyChart. We tracked our project measures with statistical process control methodology and sustained our progress with improving awareness and regular feedback. RESULTS: Patient portal activations increased from 1.8% to 30% in a 6-month time period. Highly successful interventions included development and implementation of a standard process for activation, staff education to ensure comfort and commitment, having families opt out instead of opt in, and completed activation of accounts before families leaving clinic. CONCLUSIONS: Patient portal activation can be significantly increased through systematic application of QI methodology to address staff training and workflow in a busy subspecialty clinic. Engagement of operations staff and completion of the activation process while the family is still in clinic seemed to be effective in getting families activated in MyChart. It is possible to improve patient portal activation with minimal impact to workflow.