Auditor-General’s report published – Ministry of Health: Supporting the implementation of patient portals

The Auditor-General’s report Ministry of Health: Supporting the implementation of patient portals was presented to the House of Representatives today.

New Zealand’s health system supports nearly every New Zealander at some time in their life. As part of providing better services to New Zealanders, the Ministry of Health is supporting the use of emerging technology to help people use those services more easily.

This report looks at how the Ministry supported primary health organisations and general practices to implement patient portals. Patient portals are secure websites that allow people to interact with their doctor and access their personal health information, such as lab results and doctors’ notes.

Patient portals are consistent with the New Zealand Health Strategy 2016’s goal of giving people access to their own health information and encouraging them to be more involved in decisions about their treatment.

As at 31 March 2017, just over 50% of general practices were offering patient portals, and about 9% of patients over the age of 18 were registered to use them. In our view, how the Ministry worked with the health sector contributed to this increased uptake of patient portals. This is a good example of different parts of the health sector working together to achieve a common goal.

We saw signs that patient portals were having a positive effect for people and general practices, including improved access to health services.

There is an opportunity for the Ministry to provide added value by collecting statistical information that would enable it to demonstrate the benefits of patient portals. We’ve made a recommendation that the Ministry collect this information, which could help encourage further uptake of patient portals by general practices.

We’ve also published a blog post about this report.

We’d like your feedback: Our online reports include a link to a feedback form. Please tell us if you found our report useful.

If you do not wish to be emailed about the Auditor-General’s announcements, please reply "UNSUBSCRIBE" to this email.

Please note that our staff are now blogging about their work at auditblog, and we have Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram pages that you can follow.

ends

© Scoop Media