Making the Patient Portal Relevant at Community Health Alliance

Patient portals and digital patient engagement stymie many healthcare providers, especially small ones with few resources. Community Health Alliance (CHA) a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) serving 27,000+ patients in Reno, Nevada, is using an old-school way to encourage use of its online patient portal – by having in-person conversations about it. Healthcare IT Today sat down with Carlos Aros, Director of Operations at Community Health Alliance to find out how they are driving the adoption of and engagement their patient portal. Adoption Though Conversation CHA uses eClinicalWorks as their EHR. In 2021 they rolled out the eClinicalWorks online patient portal to allow patients to securely access their medical records and communicate with their care team. The CHA team worked hard to “make the portal relevant” to patients, but as adoption slowly ramped up, the CHA team realized that they needed to put in more effort to get patients to enroll and use the portal. “Our patients responded when we talked to them about enrolling them,” explained Aros. “We made the portal relevant to the conversation with them. For example, we would explain to them that if they can’t make it to their appointment, you can just send us a message through the portal and we can reschedule it or cancel it. Same thing if you need to get an important message to your doctor.” CHA has trained their staff to “talk up” the portal with patients, w...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Ambulatory C-Suite Leadership Communication and Patient Experience EMR-EHR Health IT Company Healthcare IT Carlos Aros CHA Community Health Alliance eClinicalWorks eCW FQHCs Healow Healthcare IT Video Interviews Healthcare Scen Source Type: blogs