title: Understanding the support needs of patients accessing test results online. PHRs offer great promise, but support issues must be addressed to ensure appropriate access.
abstract: Personal health records (PHR) offer great promise in transforming the patient experience, but a number of support issues must be addressed to ensure that patients have appropriate access to their health information. Two hundred and fifty breast cancer patients registered to use a portal providing access to personal health information over a six-week period. All support calls were directed to a research triage centre and redirected either to technical, clinical or psychosocial support. Log files were coded and analyzed. Two hundred and thirty-nine support contacts were logged by 122 participants. The majority was referred to technical support; the remaining contacts were directed to clinical support. Seven categories of technical support were identified: registration problems, site access, login issues, password reset, activation key issues, result access and other difficulties. In accessing their test results, patients required support in a number of technical domains, but educational and psychosocial support were not heavily utilized.
authors.affiliation: Oncology Education and the Radiation Medicine Program, Princess Margaret Hospital/University Health Network.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wiljer
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Urowitz
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Apatu
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Leonard
authors.forename: Naa Kwarley
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Quartey
authors.forename: Pamela
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Catton
mesh_terms: D022126:Access to Information; D003955:Diagnostic Tests, Routine; D055991:Health Records, Personal; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D010361:Patients; D014481:United States