Digital disparities: lessons learned from a patient reported outcomes program during the COVID-19 pandemic

The collection of patient reported outcomes (PROs) allows us to incorporate the patient’s voice into their care in a quantifiable, validated manner. Large-scale collection of PROs is facilitated by the electronic health record and its portal, though, historically, patients have eschewed the portal and completed patient-reported outcome measures in the clinic via tablet. Furthermore, access and use of the portal is associated with known racial inequities. Our institution oversees the largest clinical PRO program in the world, and has a long history of racially equitable PRO completion rates via tablet. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to remove tablets from clinics and rely exclusively on portal use for PRO completion, profound racial disparities resulted immediately. Our experience quantifiably demonstrates the magnitude of inequity that the portal, in its current configuration, generates and serves as a cautionary tale to other health care systems and electronic health records.