Lancaster General Health Patient Portal User Base Grows 211 Percent with LexisNexis® Identity Verification

Lancaster General Health, a 631-licensed bed non-profit health system located in Lancaster, PA, encompasses Lancaster General Hospital (LGH), Women & Babies Hospital, and a network of outpatient centers and primary and specialty practices. A Magnet hospital for nursing excellence, LGH has been recognized for its cardiovascular, intensive care and orthopedic services. The health system is dedicated to engaging patients in their own health care to strengthen the relationship between the physician and the patient, while also giving the patient greater control over his or her health and well-being. This commitment to patient engagement is a core aim of Lancaster General Health.

Engaging patients in their own health care is an effective way to strengthen the relationship between the physician and the patient, while also giving the patient greater control over his or her health and well-being. Consequently, this is one of Lancaster General Health’s main aims. Corey Meyer, Director, Mobile and Virtual Health Services at Lancaster General Health, explains his situation: “It’s essential for our patients to have the proper tools to help them manage their own health; therefore, access to their medical information is a key factor to staying healthy outside the hospital. However, the verification process to allow patients to view their EHRs was difficult. They had to physically come into a health system location – either a doctor’s office or an outpatient site – to complete a registration form. People don’t want to have to drive to their practice to fill out a form, get a code, go home, and then register.” Such inconvenience meant Lancaster General Health was not seeing as much patient access to its portal as it would have liked. This created a barrier between the patients and their own health, and possibly limited the health system’s access to government subsidies under the Meaningful Use (MU) statute. MU is a set of standards defined by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Incentive Programs. It governs the use of EHR, and hospitals that follow MU receive additional funding. Consequently, low take-up of health care technologies can cost health care organizations millions of dollars a year. The system therefore needed to increase use of its patient portal both for its patients’ benefit and to enable it to align better with MU and secure more funding. Ease of access to the portal was of paramount importance, as was protecting sensitive patient health data with the utmost security.

Meyer reflects on the decision process: “We were aware of the concept of knowledge based authentication and had seen it work well in other sectors, like online banking, so we knew it would be intuitive for users. People are already familiar and comfortable with the concept and are embracing it in their health care as well. We spoke to another health care organization that had a similar situation, and already used LexisNexis to secure its patient portal. After hearing how happy they were with the results, we decided to go with LexisNexis® Identity Verification.” The solution makes patients’ access to their EHR through the portal much more convenient, allowing them to log on remotely and verify their identity without coming to a health system location in person for initial sign-up. “We cut down a multi-step process to one that accommodates our patients’ lives,” says Meyer. Patients can now register at home by answering some dynamic knowledge-based authentication questions to confirm their identity. If the questions are answered correctly, an access code is automatically generated on the next screen. After just three days of support from LexisNexis, members of the security team were able to gain a full understanding of how the technology could best suit the hospital: “LexisNexis provided informed, relevant answers to all of our questions – making sure they were tailored to our specific business needs,” Meyer recalls. The system began the project by offering a pilot version to a group of employees. This helped patients feel more comfortable, as they knew it was tried and tested by their own physicians. “We’re delighted to provide both our physicians and our patients with a security system they can really trust,” says Meyer.

• The benefits from this increased adoption of our patient portal are huge – both for us and our patients. For them, the patient experience has been enhanced, encouraging a strong relationship between the parties.
• For us, we have furthered our eligibility for government subsidies thanks to closer alignment with MU requirements.
• One of the important criteria of MU is to provide patients with access to lab results within a specific time period. Lancaster General Health is not just meeting the target, but significantly surpassing it.
• A patient can have a test at 9:00 a.m. and then log in to see their results later that day. They’re amazed how quickly they can get results.
• Thanks to these improvements, the patient can take a more active role in managing their health. They can check their EHR on their smartphone, email their physicians, and have electronic visits.

• Before implementing LexisNexis Identify Verification, Lancaster General Health had reached a flat line at 9,000 users of its online portal. It took three years to get there.
• Once LexisNexis Identity Verification was in place, it took just eight months for the number to grow 211 percent to 28,000 users.
• The health system has currently set a goal of 52,000 users in a six-month time frame.