Aetna Healthline Patient Portal taps

Under guideline of significant use of the Government, health agencies must provide a patient with a copy of his medical data within 48 hours to ask. To achieve that, many health care organizations are deploying portals of patients. And while they are at it, they build also in other features, such as the appointment planning and Messaging.

Insurers have been adopteurs early Web portals, help to check the status of applications and locate doctors in their health plans. But some insurers take these services further, by making it easier for members to find other information, such as information on diseases, comparisons of the cost of treatment and doctors in a certain zip code is for a particular affection.

Aetna is one of the insurers this through its Web portal, powered by software from Healthline networks, which recently introduced a new suite of "Medically guided" tools which highlight semantic search technology, which uses the context of terms to help find information.

Aetna, which, for years, had a relationship with Harvard Medical School and Columbia University College of Dental Medicine to provide content for the site of the Aetna, extends the capabilities of research on its Web portal, said John BahlHead of the Aetna of strategy digital media in an interview. Rather than having to click through to long lists of results of research or on multiple places on a Web site, "we are provides one-stop," for portals visitors find medical information, Bahl said. In less clicks, portals, visitors can more quickly and easily track down the information that they are in research, he said.

Which includes services for advanced research for the general public seeking information about a specific medical condition and its symptoms, but also more amenities for Aetna members who have a coverage of health through the company.

Medical taxonomy connections and threaded research are making it easier for members to find information about health conditions in the context of what is most relevant for them, based on their sex, age, postal code, as well as information on other conditions in the Aetna personal health record, said. For example, if the search for information on migraines, visitors portals can also easily make a list of physicians in their area who deal with the headaches.

Aetna also provides an option of presenting medical data in colorful "HealthMaps," which are graphics formats for members navigate through information about different aspects of a disease or condition, such as the causes and costs associated with treating migraines. The HealthMap option can be particularly useful to Visual learners, Bahl said.

Aetna is the addition of the advanced features of door to make it easier for members to find detailed information on their benefits, such as the question of whether their plan covers specific medical treatment as a bariatric surgery or alternative therapies that may not be covered by said AetnaBahl plans. Features could be added to allow "dives more deep" on a medical condition or diagnosis and to see more "tailor-made" information on treatments that are covered by their employers benefits plans, he said.

These types of Web portals features advanced strengthen the mobilization of members, to strengthen self-service and reduce calls to customer support lines, while educating the patients on their specific medical conditions and their treatment options.

In passing, functionality and ease of use of the Web portals offered by particular care providers and insurers will likely become a bigger competitive focus because more patients depend on these sites to monitor their health informationinstead of turning to more integrate personal e-health record sites, such as Google Health, whose future is uncertain would now that Google co-founder Larry Page is stepping back in the role of CEO.

In the meantime, suppliers of electronic health record systems continue to spruce up their offerings of patient portals, too.

For example, Patient Fusion the Fusion, a system of free practice on the Web e-health, offers physicians an interface that allows patients to see their drugs, vaccines, and other online health information. That gives patients access to a personal health record assembled in line, rather than having to enter their own information to a third party site.

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee is a senior editor for InformationWeek.

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