Palo Alto Medical Foundation

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation for Health Care, Research and Education is a not-for-profit health care organization that is a pioneer in both multispecialty group practice of medicine and outpatient medicine.

Situation

In the past, patients had only two choices if they wanted to seek advice from their physician or health-care provider – they could call or make an appointment to be seen. Both of these traditional methods of interacting with their physician have a high cost of non-productive time associated with it, for both the patient and the provider.

Solution

We have implemented an online patient portal, PAMFOnline, that allows patients to view key aspects of their medical record (e.g., test and radiology results, diagnoses, medications, allergies, immunizations, health maintenance schedules), communicate electronically with their physicians, renew prescriptions, make appointments, and review medically endorsed health information resources.

Better Health and Lower Costs

We currently have approximately 50,000 patients enrolled in PAMFOnline, which represents over 30% of our primary care base. In our most recent survey from 2005, 92% of patients were satisfied or very satisfied with the service. Fifty-nine percent of patients said that using PAMFOnline saved them one or more visits to the office and 75% of patients felt that using PAMFOnline saved them more than two telephone calls to their physician offices.