Association of Mobile Patient Portal Access With Diabetes Medication Adherence and Glycemic Levels Among Adults With Diabetes

Abstract

IMPORTANCE Online patient portals support self-management, and mobile devices expand portal access, but whether this translates to improvements in diabetes outcomes is unclear.OBJECTIVE To examine the association of adding mobile patient portal access with diabetes medication adherence and glycemic levels among adults with diabetes.

Effect of Voluntary Participation on Mobile Health Care in Diabetes Management: Randomized Controlled Open-Label Trial

“…Although over 1100 diabetes-related smartphone apps are currently available [ 27 ], and prior studies [ 6 , 10 - 13 , 28 , 29 ] have emphasized their impact on HbA 1c , there are limited data available on improving self-care skills or other clinical endpoints in patients with type 2 diabetes [ 30 ].…”

Impact of Digital Divide on the Adoption of Online Patient Portals for Self-Motivated Patients

“…Patient engagement is a set of behaviors by patients, family members, health professionals, and a set of organizational policies and procedures that foster the inclusion of patients and family members as active members of a collaborative healthcare team in partnership with providers and provider organizations [ 6 ]. Patient engagement translates to public health benefits on a larger scale because it results in increased levels of screening and preventive care, efficient utilization of health resources, and reduction in overall healthcare cost [ 5 , 7 ]. Linking patient portals to the aggregated data stored in Health Information Exchange systems, organizations can increase access to comprehensive patient records and improve population health surveillance and management [ 8 ].…”

“…overall healthcare cost [5,7]. Linking patient portals to the aggregated data stored in Health Information Exchange systems, organizations can increase access to comprehensive patient records and improve population health surveillance and management [8].…”

“…Patient portal adoption is impacted by health inequity and disparity in socioeconomic status (income, education level, insurance type, chronic disease status, health literacy, age), and consequently, the digital divide [11]. The digital divide is the uneven distribution of access to, use of, and impact of information technologies between demographics and regions [2,7]. Low patient portal use in vulnerable populations may result in intervention-generated inequity, which is a situation whereby an intervention inadvertently worsens existing health disparities instead of improving them [11,12].…”

Are residents receiving the training needed within their residency programs to optimally manage patients with diabetes?

“…Additionally, recent research has shown the importance of considering measures other than hemoglobin A1C, including time-in-range [14] and glycemic variability [15]. Previous research has also shown that the use of an online patient portal for web-based disease management can improve patient outcomes for diabetes [16][17][18][19][20][21] and prediabetes [22]. However, few PCPs utilize these portals [23].…”