KEYWORDS:
Internet Portal, Confidentiality, Authorization, and Authentication
BACKGROUND:
A recent patient survey indicated that parents/patients found it important to access the immunization histories of their children, as well as their own. Many technical and medico legal issues have been encountered through the development process, and have successfully been addressed.
OBJECTIVE:
To describe the immunization portal project and address technical and medico legal considerations when providing parent/patient access to immunization records.
METHOD:
A work team was formed to accomplish the task of giving parents/patients online access to their immunization records through a patient portal. Marshfield Clinic’s work team is comprised of medical providers, legal and IT professionals, and healthcare information management staff. A patient work group has been in place since the beginning to provide feedback to developers.
RESULT:
Through the use of a multi-disciplinary work team, the immunization portal project has had many successes in the first year of development. Overcoming technical and legal difficulties has resulted in thoroughly developed policies and procedures that assure patient confidentiality.
CONCLUSION:
More patients are turning to the Internet for healthcare information. Providing patients with on-line access to medical information is a natural extension of the patient/provider relationship. Spending time up front to overcome technical and legal barriers, and utilizing patient work groups for feedback, can lead to a successful start to an immunization portal project.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Describe benefits to providing parents/patients with Internet access to registry data.
Discuss technical barriers of a portal project.
Provide a background on how to overcome legal issues involved with an immunization portal project.
Back to The Ways and Means to Increase Registry Value
Back to The 2003 Immunization Registry Conference (October 27-29, 2003)