The Auburn University Medical Clinic has recently added the Patient Portal, a secure Internet link to the clinic that allows students to access their lab reports, refill their medication, make appointments, send questions to their doctor or nurse, check to see what medications they are taking and pay their bill.
"The purpose of the Patient Portal is really to give more convenient access for patients to communicate and get information from the clinic," said Fred Kam, Medical Director at the clinic. "It's really the ability to do it from a smart phone or a computer just about anywhere in the world."
Most of the patients at the clinic are college students between the ages of 18 and 25, said John Adams, Practice Manager at the clinic.
They realized that most patients this age frequently use their phones and emails to communicate.
"We're trying to develop an app where you can message a doctor or a nurse through the app," Adams said. "It was mainly for the students and our patients who just wanted more connectivity."
The Patient Portal is relatively new, but it already has about 7,000 active users, Adams said.
Robert Cason, Family Practitioner, says that the students he has talked to have like using the Patient Portal so far.
The Patient Portal is free for students, but has been an investment for the clinic.
There is a cost to the clinic for using it, but Cason said he believes it will actually save them money in the future by making their current staff more efficient because they can get more work done instead of spending a lot of time on the phone.
"It certainly makes it easier for staff members because it cuts out a lot of telephone transfers," Cason said. "If a patient sends me a request to refill a medication, that is routed straight to my inbox and I can take care of that and notify the patient back through the portal that i've taken care of it, and none of the nurses ever have to deal with that issue at all, where as previously, they had to take the call, write the message, get the message to me to get the response back from me, call the patient back."
Cason also likes how the portal allows him to have more direct contact with the patients.
The Patient Portal can be accessed almost anywhere in the world. Adams explain how it could be useful for students who are studying abroad and may get sick or injured while on their trip.
If the patient does not know the answer to the doctors questions, they can pull up the Patient Portal on their phone and access all of their old lab results from anything they had done at the Auburn University Medical Clinic.
Adams said that this can also help the doctor of the student who is studying abroad because they will be able to see what symptoms or diseases the student has had in the past.
The Patient Portal is meant to help students locally as well.
"We have students that are ADHD and on the medication Adderall, they have to get refills every 30, 60, or 90 days," Adams said. "Instead of having to call and do that, they can go onto the Patient Portal . . . say 'hey I need a refill of my Adderall medication,' we see that, refill it, send it to Walgreens."
This can be an hour long process that could have been a three or four day process, Adams said.
The Patient Portal will change the day to day routine for both staff members of the clinic and patients who go there for medical help.
"My eyes are glued to my computer monitor now," Adams said. "We have to make sure that we're staying on top of it, making sure we're answering those questions in a timely matter, we're posting those payments or (refilling) those prescriptions."
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