NZ patient portal uptake booms

The number of New Zealanders signing up for a patient portal at their general practice has more than doubled over the last year.

The portals enable patients to access their personal health information whenever they need it, as well as book appointments, request repeat prescriptions and message staff securely from their laptop or smartphone.

“Uptake continues to go well. There were 233,839 registrations between June 2016 and June this year, taking the total patient portal users to 407,049,” said New Zealand Health Minister Dr Jonathan Coleman.

“This means over 400,000 New Zealanders are now able to access to their own health information and play a greater part in managing their own health and wellbeing.”

The Minister said that general practice staff are also embracing the portals because it saves time on administrative tasks, creates efficiencies and gives them more time with patients.

“Nearly half of all general practices now offer patient portals, with 471 general practices offering the service — up from 335 in June 2016,” said Dr Coleman.

“Patient portal registrations are encouraging, but we’d like to see even more practices putting portals in place and people signing up for them.”

In 2015, a NZ$3 million funding boost — including $500,000 for an awareness campaign — from the government gave more New Zealanders access to the portals.

An interactive map makes it easy for patients to check which general practices offer portals.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/s_l

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