By Eric Andrew Kristof, RN, CAHIMS | Healthcare IT Professional | HIMSS Arkansas Chapter Member
About This Series: The HIMSS Word of the Day is a running blog series drawing from the HIMSS Dictionary of Health Information and Technology Terms, Acronyms, and Organizations, 6th Edition (2025) — the authoritative reference for healthcare IT professionals and the primary study resource for CAHIMS and CPHIMS certification. Each post paraphrases the term in plain language, grounds it in real-world healthcare IT context, and adds a bedside nursing perspective you won’t find in a textbook.
📖 The Term: Patient Portal
Source: HIMSS Dictionary of Health Information and Technology Terms, Acronyms, and Organizations, 6th Edition (2025)
🔍 Plain-Language Definition
A patient portal is a secure website or app, run by a provider organization, that lets patients see their own health information at any hour and from anywhere with an internet connection. After signing in, patients can review recent visits, discharge summaries, medication lists, immunizations, allergies, and lab results.
The HIMSS Dictionary notes that many portals go further, letting patients message their care team securely, request refills, book routine appointments, check coverage, update contact details, pay bills, complete forms, and read educational materials. In practice, the portal has become the digital front door to the health system.
Portal functions fall into five broad groups:
| Function | What Patients Can Do |
|---|---|
| View | Read test results, clinical notes, medication and allergy lists, immunizations, and visit summaries |
| Communicate | Send and receive secure messages with the care team |
| Transact | Schedule appointments, request refills, check in, complete questionnaires, and pay bills |
| Share | Download or transmit records, connect third-party apps, and grant proxy access to caregivers |
| Learn | Access condition-specific education and after-visit instructions |
⚠️ Exam Alert: A patient portal is usually tethered to a provider’s EHR and controlled by that organization. A personal health record (PHR) is controlled by the patient and may combine data from many sources. Know the Meaningful Use phrase view, download, and transmit (VDT), the Stage 2 requirement that pushed portals into nearly every hospital and practice. And know that under the 21st Century Cures Act, unnecessarily delaying patients’ electronic access to their results and notes can count as information blocking.
🌐 Why It Matters: Real-World Healthcare IT Context
Portals went from optional convenience to expected infrastructure in about a decade, first because of Meaningful Use and then because of the 21st Century Cures Act.
ONC survey data show how far that shift has gone. In 2022, about three in four individuals reported being offered online access to their medical records, and about three in five were offered access and used it, a 50 percent increase from 2020. Among people who accessed their records, about 90 percent viewed test results and about 70 percent read clinical notes. Half used an app, alone or alongside a website.
The Cures Act changed the timing. Its information blocking provisions, in effect since 2021, led most organizations to release results and many notes to the portal as soon as they are final, often before the ordering clinician has reviewed them. Narrow exceptions exist, such as preventing substantial harm, but the default is now immediate access.
Failure modes of portal programs:
- Patients seeing abnormal results with no explanation and no way to reach anyone after hours
- Message volume that overwhelms clinician and nursing in-baskets
- Enrollment gaps by age, income, language, disability, and broadband access
- Proxy access set up incorrectly, exposing adolescent confidential information or blocking caregivers
- Portals that duplicate one another across providers, so patients juggle many logins
Strengths of mature portal programs:
- Enrollment built into check-in and discharge workflows, with teach-back
- Clear expectations for message response times and routing to the right role
- Plain-language result explanations and patient education attached to results
- Thoughtfully configured proxy access for minors, adolescents, and caregivers
- Multilingual and accessible design, plus support for patients without smartphones
- Standards-based patient access APIs so patients can use the apps they prefer
Some organizations now bill qualifying patient-initiated portal exchanges as online digital visits, which reflects a broader reality: portal messaging is clinical work, not a free side channel.
🏥 The Nurse’s Perspective: Clinical, Bedside, & Workflow
The portal was built for patients. A large share of the work it generates lands on nurses.
At the Bedside
For inpatients, the portal often enters the conversation at discharge. Nurses enroll patients, show them where to find the after-visit summary and medication list, and explain that results still pending at discharge will appear online. A two-minute teach-back at the bedside can prevent a frightened phone call three days later.
Nurses also see the portal from the other side. A patient who has already read the night’s lab results on a phone may arrive at the morning conversation with questions the care team has not yet discussed. Immediate release has made patients better informed and, at times, more anxious, and nurses are often the first clinicians asked to interpret what the patient has already seen.
In Clinical Workflow
In ambulatory settings, nurses commonly triage portal messages: symptom questions, refill requests, result questions, and requests that should really be appointments. Each message is a small clinical encounter that needs judgment, documentation, and sometimes escalation, and the volume can rival or exceed a full clinic schedule.
Proxy access adds another layer. Parents, adult children, and caregivers often manage portals for others, and nurses field questions about who can see what. Rules for adolescent confidentiality vary by state and by organization, which makes correct configuration and clear explanation essential.
In EHR Implementation (Go-Live Perspective)
During an Epic Go-Live, MyChart activation is often one of the most visible patient-facing changes. Build decisions include which results release immediately, which notes are shared, how proxy access works for different age groups, and where messages route. Each choice shapes nursing workload for years.
End-user support analysts at Go-Live field questions from both sides: staff who cannot find where portal messages land, and patients who cannot activate accounts. Separating patient-facing issues from staff workflow issues, and routing each to the right team, keeps the front door working while the rest of the system settles.
🎓 CAHIMS / CPHIMS & HIMSS Perspective
CAHIMS Exam Domain Mapping
Patient portals appear across the CAHIMS content outline:
| CAHIMS Domain | How Patient Portals Appear |
|---|---|
| Healthcare & Technology Environments | Meaningful Use VDT requirements; Cures Act information blocking; CMS patient access rules; HIPAA right of access |
| Clinical Informatics | Patient engagement; immediate release of results and notes; secure messaging workflow; patient-generated health data |
| Healthcare Information & Systems Management | Portal configuration; identity proofing and account security; proxy access; patient access APIs |
| Management & Leadership | Digital equity strategy; message volume and staffing; patient experience measurement |
Key Terms to Know Alongside Patient Portal
- PHR (Personal Health Record) — a patient-controlled record that may combine information from many sources
- View, Download, Transmit (VDT) — the Meaningful Use requirement that patients be able to access and share their records electronically
- Information Blocking — practices that unreasonably interfere with access to electronic health information, prohibited under the Cures Act
- Proxy Access — permission for a parent, caregiver, or other authorized person to use a patient’s portal account
- Patient Access API — a standards-based interface that lets patients retrieve their data into apps of their choice
- Digital Divide — gaps in access to devices, broadband, and digital skills that shape who benefits from portals
HIMSS Organizational Position
HIMSS advocates for patient access and digital health equity through its public policy work, and its Global Health Equity Community addresses the digital divide that limits portal adoption. Members can find patient engagement research and implementation guidance through the HIMSS Resource Center.
🔗 Explore Further: External References
- ONC — Individuals’ Access and Use of Patient Portals and Smartphone Health Apps, 2022 (Data Brief) https://healthit.gov/data/data-briefs/individuals-access-and-use-patient-portals-and-smartphone-health-apps-2022/
- ONC — Patient Access to Health Records https://healthit.gov/patient-access-to-health-records/
- ONC — Information Blocking https://healthit.gov/information-blocking/
- CMS — Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule (CMS-9115-F) https://www.cms.gov/initiatives/burden-reduction/overview/interoperability/policies-regulations/cms-interoperability-patient-access-final-rule-cms-9115-f
- Open Notes — Shared Clinical Notes Research and Resources https://opennoteslabs.org/
- HIMSS — Resource Center https://www.himss.org/resource-center
Term source: HIMSS Dictionary of Health Information and Technology Terms, Acronyms, and Organizations, 6th Edition (2025). All definitions in this series are paraphrased for editorial purposes. Readers are encouraged to consult the primary source for exact language.
Eric Andrew Kristof, RN, CAHIMS is a Healthcare IT professional and HIMSS Arkansas Chapter member based in Hot Springs Village, AR, with hands-on Epic Go-Live experience and a diverse healthcare and IT background. He writes at kristof.org at the intersection of clinical care and healthcare technology.
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