Enhancing Digital Health Equity: A Personalized Approach for Spanish-Speaking Patients
Presented at the 2024 2nd Annual Hispanic Cancer Care Conference.
Description
Background
Limited English Proficiency (LEP) is a barrier among Hispanic communities in accessing digital health tools including patient portals.1
Patient portals provide patients with access to their electronic medical records. With portals, patients can schedule visits, message providers, check test results, and order medication refills, among other tasks.
Portal use has been shown to help patients better manage chronic diseases, enhance doctor-patient relationships, improve patient understanding and awareness of health status, and increase adherence to therapy.2
Despite interest in using patient portals, Spanish-speaking patients often struggle to use them due to low digital literacy.3
Provision of personalized digital support during hospitalization may be an option for improving use of MyChart (the Epic patient portal used at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital) among patients. (See Figure 1 for MyChart Spanish Interface)
