Partners in Care: Enhancing communication, minimizing provider burnout, and creating equitable care partnerships

Background

The rise of digital health technology, particularly patient portals, has revolutionized the healthcare landscape, fostering highly engaged patients who actively participate in their own care. This shift from paternalistic to cooperative care models has transformed patient-provider interactions, raising expectations and empowering patients. However, while patient portals enhance communication and access to information for patients, they can also be a source of provider burnout, highlighting the complex impact of technology on healthcare dynamics.

Objective

This project aims to evaluate the impact of patient portals on the patient-provider relationship. Through identifying opportunities, the goal is to optimize the design of patient portals in order to enhance communication effectiveness while minimizing potential adverse effects on provider burnout and hierarchical structures in healthcare settings.

Methods

Secondary research included unstructured review of existing literature (e.g. academic journals, healthcare publications, blogs, news articles, social media posts, etc.). Primary research consisted of eleven semi-structured interviews (n=11), including nine healthcare provider interviews (n=9) and two patient interviews (n=2).

Results

Five (5) analytical themes related to patient-provider communication and relationships were identified: provider boundaries, patient expectations, patient empowerment as a double-edged sword, redefining the patient-provider relationship, and concept of more versus better communication. From these 3 analytical themes, two (2) primary insights were revealed: a gap exists between provider boundaries and patient expectations, and the rules of engagement between patients and providers are unclear.

Conclusion

The final design concept is a two-pronged approach consisting of a PSA (public service announcement) campaign designed to raise awareness among patients of the factors contributing to provider burnout, as well as a redesign of specific patient portal interactions to nudge behavior toward decreasing non-essential or irrelevant use of portal messages. Initial testing of the concept showed increased awareness of and empathy toward healthcare providers among patients, as well as an increase in understanding of appropriate use cases for messaging providers through the portal.