Meaningless Use: Pediatric portal example

I love my family's pediatrician. He's an old school guy who keeps up with the literature, is a great diagnostician, has an informative and comforting manner, and uses the hospital system's medical records and phone calls to track the progress of his sicker patients as they deal with specialists. He's available for a call-in hour every morning.The practice's patient portal from eClinicalWorks is another matter. The "PHR-View" has tabs for Allergies, Vitals and Immunizations. The information appears to be complete, which is nice, but where is the standard form that I need for school, camp, etc? It's nowhere to be found and I have confirmed with the practice that it isn't available. The practice doesn't like to use the secure message system, which anyway doesn't allow attachments.Bottom line? I obtain the forms the same way I did close to 20 years ago: Call the practice and ask them to fax the form. They are always happy to do it, but it seems a little silly. Surely we can expect more from patient and family portals in 2015.

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By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams, president of Health Business Group.