The following is a summary of “Status of patient portal use among Emergency Department patients experiencing houselessness: A large-scale single-center observational study,” published in the April 2023 issue of Emergency Medicine by Holmes, et al.

For a retrospective observational study, researchers sought to investigate the use of patient portals (PP) among houseless patients who visit the Emergency Department (ED) and whether their PP use was associated with increased clinic visits.

The study included houseless patients who presented at the ED from March 1, 2019, to February 28, 2021. The PP use status, including passive PP use (log-on only PP) and effective PP use (using PP functions), was compared between houseless and non-houseless patients. The number of clinic visits was also compared between these two groups. Multivariate logistic regression was analyzed to determine the association between houseless status and PP use.

Of the 236,684 patients included in the study, 13% (30,956) were houseless at the time of their encounter. Fewer houseless patients had effective PP use than non-houseless patients (7.3% versus 11.6%, P < 0.001). In addition, houseless patients with effective PP use had more clinic visits than those without (18 versus 3, P < 0.001). The adjusted odds ratio of houseless status associated with PP use was 0.48 (95% CI 0.46–0.49, P < 0.001).

The study suggested that houselessness may prevent the use of patient portals and that using patient portals could potentially increase clinic visits among the houseless patient population.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0735675723000335