Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-16-2025
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Use of digital health technology can improve patient health outcomes; however, not all patients have the knowledge and skills to download a health app and access a patient portal. Providing digital onboarding support to hospitalized patients has potential to overcome some barriers to accessing needed education in the community, including both having the time and a location to receive education. To address this, our team developed the Jefferson Digital Onboarding Taskforce (JeffDOT), a group of staff and students who approach hospitalized patients and provide one-on-one teaching on how to sign up for and use a patient portal.
METHODS AND MATERIALS: This descriptive study examined the implementation and preliminary outcomes of JeffDOT. We collected patient demographics and assessed health literacy, digital health readiness, and empowerment using the patient portal after patients received individualized support with portal enrollment.
RESULTS: We enrolled 343 hospitalized patients from a large academic medical center in the U.S. in their patient portal. Almost half of the sample (49%) was older than 55 years, 56% were male, 34% were Black, and 19% spoke Spanish at home. After receiving individualized support from the JeffDOT team, the majority of patients (84%) reported that they felt empowered to use the portal and almost half reported that they would be very interested in additional basic computer skills training if offered by the hospital.
DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that supporting hospitalized patients with enrollment into a health portal using a primarily student, volunteer-staffed model is feasible and acceptable to patients. Future research should focus on the impact of JeffDOT on patient outcomes and health behaviors.
Recommended Citation
LeNoir, Julianna; Gentsch, Alexzandra; Krishnan, Akshay; Ndubisi, Jeffrey; Witmer, Marissa; Rising, Kristin L.; Worster, Brooke; and Gerolamo, Angela M., "Implementation and Outcomes of a Digital Onboarding Taskforce in the Acute Care Setting" (2025). Jefferson Center for Connected Care Faculty Papers. Paper 6.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/jcccfp/6
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Language
English
Comments
This article is the author's final published version in Frontiers in Digital Health, Volume 7, 2025, Article number 1639828.
The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1639828. Copyright © 2025 LeNoir, Gentsch, Krishnan, Ndubisi, Witmer, Rising, Worster and Gerolamo.