Getty Images/iStockphoto

News

Patient portal utilization growth driven by doc engagement

Patient portal utilization rates were 30 percentage points higher among those getting encouragement from their providers to use the health IT.

Sara Heath
By
Published: 08 Jul 2025

A new data brief from the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT shows that patient portal utilization continues to climb as patients and providers alike value the technology for supporting patient activation.

The report showed that overall patient data access rates climbed between 2022 and 2024, in large part due to provider encouragement. When more healthcare providers offer patient data access and encourage patient portal use, more patients use the technology.

For example, in 2024, 77% of patients were offered online access to their medical records by their provider or payer. That's up from 42% of patients in 2014.

And when patients are offered patient portal or online medical record access, they usually accept. In 2024, 65% of patients were offered patient portal access and logged into the tool, up from only 25% of patients who did the same in 2014.

Patient portal utilization is even greater among those with chronic illness or a recent cancer diagnosis, likely because these populations visit the doctor more often and need to be more activated in their care.

In 2024, 81% of folks with a chronic illness and 86% with a recent cancer diagnosis were at least offered patient portal access. Around 69% and 76% of patients, respectively, actually used the tools, the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ASTP/ONC) reported.

Patient portal use isn't just a one-time thing. ASTP/ONC showed that the number of frequent users, or those who log into their patient portals six or more times in a year, has doubled from 15% in 2019 to 34% in 2024. This is true even among patients with chronic illness or a recent cancer diagnosis.

This growth is likely fueled by implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act, according to Chelsea Richwine, who authored the ASTP/ONC report and an accompanying blog post.

"The rule enhances patient access from a policy perspective through the information blocking regulations and technically by requiring developers of certified health IT to, as applicable, implement secure, standards-based application programming interfaces (APIs) that make it easier for patients to access and manage their health information using a smartphone health application (app) of their choice," Richwine wrote on ASTP/ONC's blog.

"This may have also led to increased availability of features available in portals for patients to access and share information that can be used to make informed decisions about their health and care."

Patient portal use hinges on provider encouragement

These findings underscore why providers should discuss health IT and the patient portal with their patients. Technologies like these help individuals manage their own care outside of the clinic or hospital and can be integral to patient engagement efforts. When providers nudge patients to access their own health data, patients often comply and increase the odds of greater patient activation.

In fact, the ASTP/ONC data brief showed that patients who were encouraged by their healthcare providers to log into the patient portal were more likely to do so. Among those encouraged by a payer or provider to use the patient portal, 87% reported logging in. By comparison, only 57% of those not encouraged by their provider used the technology.

Healthcare providers across the country should focus on these trends and consider whether and how they engage patients in portal access and use. Indeed, patient portal utilization has been linked to better health metrics, such as preventive care access, Richwine pointed out in her blog post.

As healthcare professionals strive for better healthcare access and patient engagement for all patients, closing gaps in digital health tools will be key.

"Collectively, these findings indicate patient portals and smartphone health apps that enable patients to manage their electronic health information can be powerful tools for prevention and care management," Richwine said. "Ongoing efforts to increase and enhance access for all individuals are critical to ensuring they and their caregivers have the information they need to manage their health and care."

App-based patient portals increasingly popular

The ASTP/ONC data brief also outlined trends in how patients are using their patient portals.

Notably, mobile patient portals are continuing to gain popularity, albeit at a slower rate than in previous years. In 2024, 57% of patients accessed their online records using a smartphone app, compared to 42% who said they used their web browsers.

That's modest growth compared to the insurgence of app-based patient portals in 2022. Between 2020 and 2022, the number of people accessing their medical records via a smartphone app jumped from 38% to 51%, signaling a new era of patient portal engagement where users want their health data on the go.

The 2024 numbers double down on that point, suggesting a slower but still steady shift toward remote patient engagement and care management.

But patients aren't proving entirely smartphone-savvy, or else they can't yet take advantage of some of the online offerings to enhance their mobile patient portals.

Specifically, patients aren't using smartphone apps to combine the disparate patient portal accounts they have across payers, providers and other healthcare entities.

Most patients had an online portal through their primary care provider's office in 2024, ASTP/ONC reported, with 68% of patients saying as much. It wasn't uncommon for patients to also report a portal account from another healthcare provider (40%), insurer (30%) or clinical laboratory (29%).

All told, 59% of patients said they have multiple patient portal accounts.

Disparate patient portal accounts can harm the patient experience by asking users to jump from account to account and manage multiple log-in credentials to view the full scope of their medical information. Although there are some smartphone apps that can help combine all of that information into one record -- Apple Health Records or CommonHealth -- patients aren't taking advantage of that.

Fewer than 1 in 10 (7%) patients said they use an external app to aggregate their multiple patient portals. This rate was consistent across generally healthy patients and those with a chronic illness or recent cancer diagnosis.

Still, ASTP/ONC said this figure was promising, as it represents serious growth since 2022, when only 2% of patients used a medical records app. Health IT leaders should investigate the implications of disparate patient portal accounts and strategies for encouraging patients to combine their accounts.

Sara Heath has reported news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.

Dig Deeper on Patient data access