(Reuters Health)—Of all the ways for patients to receive their medical test results, one option—password-protected websites—appears to be preferred much of the time, a study suggests.
U.S. researchers surveyed about 400 adults and found they were generally comfortable with web portals regardless of how sensitive the test results might be.
This was among the most popular options for getting results from routine cholesterol screenings, and the most preferred method for outcomes from tests for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and genetic abnormalities.
Even though doctors often call or email patients with test results, the study findings suggest that this isn’t necessarily what patients want, said senior author Dr. Daniel Merenstein of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
“This study makes clear that the majority of people prefer something different than what we’ve been doing,” Merenstein said.
“With highly sensitive results such as genetic tests results or tests for STIs, patients may not trust a text message or an email or voicemail to remain private if somebody else happens to see their phone,” Merenstein added. “Password-protected websites offer them some additional security and also the convenience to retrieve the results whenever they want.”
To understand patient preferences for getting test results, Merenstein and colleagues created a survey they distributed in paper form around the Georgetown campus and online, via Facebook and email sharing of the link.
The survey asked about seven options for receiving test results, other than face to face with a clinician: a password-protected patient web portal, personal voicemail, personal email, letter, home phone voicemail, fax and text message.
For STI results, the majority—51%—preferred secure patient portals. This method was also the most popular choice for genetic test results, preferred by 46%.
For less sensitive results like cholesterol screenings, there were four options that at least half of patients would be comfortable using: letter, voicemail on their personal phone, email or password-protected website.
Limitations of the study include its use of hypothetical situations in a survey, the authors acknowledge in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. The survey distribution method also didn’t allow researchers to gauge a response rate.
Even so, the results may help improve how doctors communicate with patients, the authors argue.
This may be particularly true for younger patients who are used to doing many other tasks, such as banking, online, said Mechelle Sanders, a researcher at the University of Rochester who wasn’t involved in the study.
“Using online technology for personal matters is not foreign to them,” Sanders said by email.
But when the testing situation is real rather than hypothetical, there might still be drawbacks to sharing results via patient portals, especially if it’s bad news, noted Dr. Mita Sanghavi Goel, a researcher at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
Just because doctors send results doesn’t mean patients will look at them, or that patients who log on to the portal will understand what they see there, Goel, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
Also, patients may benefit from a conversation if the results are abnormal or require follow-up testing, Goel said. With electronic communications, doctors typically don’t have a good way to verify that patients are aware of their results and understand what to do next, Goel said.
“I suspect that the appeal of password-protected sites are their convenience, their ability to provide the exact test results and the opportunity to compare current and prior test results,” Goel said.
“However, if the findings are abnormal (e.g. cancer testing) or sensitive in nature (e.g. STI testing of one member of a couple), preferences may change.” Goel added.
