Patient portals provide digital access to a person’s health records. These portals can be accessed on smartphones and computers and require the creation of an account and secure login. While beneficial, there are quite a few challenges associated with patient portals. And in some cases, these challenges can negatively impact your health.
Patient portals are preferable to paper copies of medical records, but they have drawbacks of their own. Consider that many hospitals, clinics, and medical offices use different types of patient portal technology and applications, and these programs aren’t always compatible with one another.
What does that mean for patients? You may need to access several patient portals to get an understanding of your health history. And if different portals are incompatible with one another, you won’t be able to keep all your information in one place.
Medical records are notoriously difficult for regular people to understand. Along with incomprehensible visit notes, you may be faced with confusing terminology and complex medical jargon. As a result, you’ll fail to fully comprehend what your personal health data is actually communicating.
While you can research terms and jargon online, there’s a chance of stumbling onto inaccurate information. You may also inadvertently access the wrong information on the internet, which can cause further confusion.
Along with limiting your understanding of personal health information, complex medical terminology makes it difficult to detect errors in records. Sadly, medical records errors are common, and inaccuracies can negatively impact your healthcare in the future.
While patient portals provide access to medical information, they don’t make it any easier to read. As a result, an error in medical records could be hiding in plain sight without the patient ever realizing it.
DrOwl works similarly to patient portals in that our innovative healthcare app offers convenient digital access to medical records. Unlike patient portals, we enable users to store all personal health data in one convenient digital hub, as we’re partnered with thousands of providers. DrOwl also converts confusing jargon into plain language, so users have a full grasp of their health history.
Contact us today to learn more. When you’re ready, create an account to begin adding records to your digital healthcare hub.
