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Technology holds the key to the long term sustainability of the existing healthcare system in the United Kingdom. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) system developers have already swooped down on the UK healthcare market. Tele-health and RPM are forerunners to the oncoming patient portals. It certainly holds the promise for massive cost savings for the healthcare industry in the UK. Riding the wave – Hospitals in UK Cambridge Healthcare is already working with NHS Midlands and East to develop and promote an e-Health portal for patients and healthcare professionals. Integrated with the NHS IT infrastructure, the portal will provide the platform for several healthcare applications. Another web-based patient portal is getting ready at Birmingham hospital and is expected to be in action by the end of July this year. "For patients with long-term or terminal illnesses, patient portals make a perfect setting to keep track of their medication" says Jim Williams, application development manager at University Hospitals Birmingham. Patients to Gain These portals allow patients to retrieve health records online, monitor disease parameters, set personal health goals, obtain results of tests, get refills and schedule appointments whenever they like and share the healthcare information with their doctors to improve the coordination of care. They can access follow-up instructions once they get home. Patients are probably most interested in their immediate clinical condition and viewing lab test results is one of the most popular portal functionalities. Accessing information comfortably through internet and smart phones is an attractive aspect of patient portals, says Jason Goldwater, vice president of programs and research at the e-Health Initiative in Washington, DC. This single product can manage all clinical, administrative and business functions of a practice through its modules. On the flip side, when patients are not in direct dialogue with the provider, it can mislead them with respect to their healthcare data from information they gather through other sources like internet and that could be alarming. As communication with providers is important to patients, a smooth patient-provider interaction is essential to eliminate such possibilities. Advantages to healthcare organizations For Health care organizations Patient portals make an excellent differentiator because each encounter encourages adoption. Major advantages to Healthcare organizations: it provides an effective communication channel with patients integrated with the EMR; reduces data entry time by importing data patient enters on the portal; generates automatic assignments of practice updates and health alerts which allows the practice to showcase its expertise, physicians and facilities; projects a better image of practice in the community; allows patients the convenience of on-line interaction and helps build customer loyalty and increases patient satisfaction. Post discharge and post-acute patients are expected to gain a lot from this as their visits to the clinics and admissions in hospitals get drastically reduced resulting in substantial saving of associated costs. "Growing health awareness improves actual delivery of healthcare and patient portals have the potential to do it," says David Rowe, global director of consumer product marketing at GE Healthcare IT. That is going to take the next generation of patient portals beyond the days of Health records.
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