“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.
