Patient portal registration and healthcare utilisation in general practices in England

Abstract

BackgroundPatient portals introduced in most of England’s General Practice (GP) practices since 2015 have the potential to improve healthcare efficiency. There is a paucity of information on the use of patient portal within the National Health Service (NHS) GP practices and the potential impact on healthcare utilisation.AimTo investigate the association between patient portal registration and care utilisation (measured by the number of GP practice consultations) among GP practice patients.Design & settingA longitudinal analysis using electronic health record data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD).MethodWe analysed patients registered for patient portals (n=284,666), aggregating their consultations one year prior to and one year after registration. We ran a multilevel negative binomial regression model to examine patient portal registration’s association with face-to-face and remote consultations.ResultsPatients who registered to the portal had a small decrease in the total number of face-to-face consultations after registering to the patient portal (incidence rate ratio =0.93, 95% CI:0.93, 0.94). Patients who registered to the portal had an increase in the total number of remote consultations after registering to the portal (incidence rate ratio =1.16, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.18).ConclusionThe study found minor changes in consultation numbers post-patient portal registration, notably with an increase in remote consultations. While causality between portal registration and consultation number remains unclear, the potential link between patient portal use and healthcare utilisation warrants further investigation, especially within the NHS, where portal impacts are not well-studied. Detailed portal utilisation data could clarify this relationship.