Impact of Patient-Clinical Team Secure Messaging on Communication Patterns and Patient Experience: Randomized Encouragement Design Trial
UMass Chan Affiliations
Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science, Department of Population and Quantitative Health SciencesDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2020-11-18Keywords
communicationcontinuous care
design
effectiveness
engagement
patient
patient experience
patient portal
patient portal adoption
provider autonomy supportsecure messagingHealth CommunicationHealth Information TechnologyHealth Services AdministrationHealth Services Research
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Show full item recordAbstract
BACKGROUND: Although secure messaging (SM) between patients and clinical team members is a recommended component of continuous care, uptake by patients remains relatively low. We designed a multicomponent Supported Adoption Program (SAP) to increase SM adoption among patients using the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for primary care. OBJECTIVE: Our goals were to (1) conduct a multisite, randomized, encouragement design trial to test the effectiveness of an SAP designed to increase patient engagement with SM through VHA's online patient portal (My HealtheVet [MHV]) and (2) evaluate the impact of the SAP and patient-level SM adoption on perceived provider autonomy support and communication. Patient-reported barriers to SM adoption were also assessed. METHODS: We randomized 1195 patients at 3 VHA facilities who had MHV portal accounts but had never used SM. Half were randomized to receive the SAP, and half served as controls receiving usual care. The SAP consisted of encouragement to adopt SM via mailed educational materials, proactive SM sent to patients, and telephone-based motivational interviews. We examined differences in SM adoption rates between SAP recipients and controls at 9 months and 21 months. Follow-up telephone surveys were conducted to assess perceived provider autonomy support and self-report of telephone communication with clinical teams. RESULTS: Patients randomized to the SAP had significantly higher rates of SM adoption than the control group (101/595, 17.0% vs 40/600, 6.7%; P < .001). Most adopters in the SAP sent their first message without a motivational interview (71/101, 70.3%). The 10-percentage point difference in adoption persisted a full year after the encouragement ended (23.7%, 142/600 in the SAP group vs 13.5%, 80/595 in the control group, P < .001). We obtained follow-up survey data from 49.54% (592/1195) of the participants. SAP participants reported higher perceived provider autonomy support (5.7 vs 5.4, P=.007) and less telephone use to communicate with their provider (68.8% vs 76.0%, P=.05), compared to patients in the control group. Patient-reported barriers to SM adoption included self-efficacy (eg, not comfortable using a computer, 24%), no perceived need for SM (22%), and difficulties with portal password or login (17%). CONCLUSIONS: The multicomponent SAP was successful in increasing use of SM 10 percentage points above standard care; new SM adopters reported improved perceptions of provider autonomy support and less use of the telephone to communicate with their providers. Still, despite the encouragement and technical assistance provided through the SAP, adoption rates were lower than anticipated, reaching only 24% at 21 months (10% above controls). Common barriers to adoption such as limited perceived need for SM may be more challenging to address and require different interventions than barriers related to patient self-efficacy or technical difficulties. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02665468; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02665468.Source
Shimada SL, Zocchi MS, Hogan TP, Kertesz SG, Rotondi AJ, Butler JM, Knight SJ, DeLaughter K, Kleinberg F, Nicklas J, Nazi KM, Houston TK. Impact of Patient-Clinical Team Secure Messaging on Communication Patterns and Patient Experience: Randomized Encouragement Design Trial. J Med Internet Res. 2020 Nov 18;22(11):e22307. doi: 10.2196/22307. PMID: 33206052; PMCID: PMC7710447. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.2196/22307Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/41675PubMed ID
33206052Related Resources
Rights
Copyright © Stephanie L Shimada, Mark S Zocchi, Timothy P Hogan, Stefan G Kertesz, Armando J Rotondi, Jorie M Butler, Sara J Knight, Kathryn DeLaughter, Felicia Kleinberg, Jeff Nicklas, Kim M Nazi, Thomas K Houston. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 18.11.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © Stephanie L Shimada, Mark S Zocchi, Timothy P Hogan, Stefan G Kertesz, Armando J Rotondi, Jorie M Butler, Sara J Knight, Kathryn DeLaughter, Felicia Kleinberg, Jeff Nicklas, Kim M Nazi, Thomas K Houston. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 18.11.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
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