So you’ve made the decision that your practice needs a presence on the web —a portal through which you could provide valuable information to your patients. You then contracted with a website developer for such a site and populated it with things such as the practice’s office hours, contact information, services provided, pictures, and some biographical information on your staff. The problem, however, is that you need to keep this information fresh and updated.
Having a web presence is good and a step in the right direction for many practices, but unfortunately having a static unrefreshed site, which happens more frequently than imagined, could be a waste of time and effort. With a practice website the real benefits are derived from interactivity. When you develop a website always give patients a reason to keep coming back, doing so will enable you to answer affirmatively the question of, is it worth the cost to have a web presence or a practice portal?
For some practices, launching a web portal arises out of a natural need or desire to extend the reach of their practice, and make communication and healthcare delivery more efficient and effective for both patients and doctors. For some having a practice web portal was a logical and efficient way to reach both current and potential patients. In some cases prospective patients have chosen a practice on the fact that they had a web presence while others did not.
The decision to be present on the web is a matter of remaining competitive and meeting the patient demand for secure, efficient, electronic communication. To fulfill these requirements a practice web portal needs to be very secure for the type of information that will be handled through this means of interaction. Web portals need to be compliant with medical regulations to ensure that they meet these standards.
On the surface, then, it would be easy to think that having a practice portal is more about being patient-centered rather than simple money, but both elements determine a practice portal’s worth. To be able to answer 15 e-mails in less than 10 minutes is much more efficient than taking three or four times as long to field the same number of phone calls and staff time is also maximized by not having to spend as much time on the phone to schedule patient appointments, if they can do that themselves online. Or if a patient only wants to know the results of a recent test it only takes one or two sentences in an email compared to having a phone conversation which could take up to 5 minutes.
Being able to broadcast a patient newsletter or get information out fast is also another great incentive to having a web portal, as patients can register to receive updates. This makes the portal equitable, in that all patients are alerted at the same time and it saves staff time and money not having to call patients, or having patients calling the office and asking about the availability for something like the flu shot.
So does having a web presence give you benefits in money alone, the answer is quite simply no, it needs to be alive and active with things that patients want. The quality of the patient–physician interaction and the degree of the engagement of the patient in their own care is also a benefit, giving them the choice to make decisions in their healthcare, to be able to make appointments, track results or get questions answered is all part of improving people’s health.
So the cost of having a web presence is invaluable and if done right, the benefits of a practice portal extends beyond mere dollars and cents.
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