Personal Health Information at Your Fingertips: The Growing Pains and Possibilities of a Patient Portal

[...]there were lots of other features to explore in the portal, an out-of-date medication list, an empty section for test results, and helpful prompts from the app to invite friends and family to join and to leave a review in the App Store. The test results section contains diagnostic imaging and blood work, so the narrative and impression for any ultrasounds, CTs, or MRIs are included, and blood tests are displayed on a bar chart with the normal range so I can easily see if I am above or below the target number. Having access to my digital health record with this level of detail is hugely empowering as a patient but has the potential to be overwhelming and bewildering at the same time, and it is in addressing this concern that the patient portal demonstrates its real power to support patient health.