01 Ease of Accessing Patient Information through Smartphones and Wearables In recent years, several methods have emerged for accessing patient portals. The most popular way to access a patient portal is through a computer, but some users use smartphones to access their portals. The US federal regulations that were intended to make it simpler for patients and their caregivers to share, access, and use electronic health information were completed by the ONC in May 2020. By adopting secure, industry-recognized Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), specific licensed health IT developers must comply with the 21st Century Cures Act. This act mandates that users be able to access and manage their medical records through a smartphone health app of their choice.Americans also reported greater use of mobile health apps for managing their health and making healthcare decisions. Over 80% of people in the US who said they had used an app in the previous year stated they had a mobile health app on their smartphone or tablet. In 2021, roughly 7 in 10 people who had health apps stated they used them to track the progress of health-related goals, and roughly half said they used apps to facilitate discussions with their healthcare providers and make treatment decisions. In the end, ONC hopes these factors will make it easier for patients to access and use their health information across patient portals from different healthcare providers, which will help the market grow.
02 Growing Patient Engagement and Optimization of Expenses for Healthcare Providers The growing amount of data in the healthcare industry has made the adoption of big data techniques to improve the quality of healthcare delivery inevitable. Recently, the number of data sources in the healthcare industry has increased due to the broad usage of mobile and wearable sensor technologies, which have flooded the industry with vast amounts of data. Therefore, it will become challenging to perform healthcare data analysis based on traditional methods that must be fit for handling a high volume of diversified medical data.Healthcare organizations are building their IT infrastructure to be more flexible and scalable to meet the growing data demand. EHRs, EMRs, PHRs, Medical Practice Management Software (MPM), and many other health data components collectively have the potential to store data, improve quality and service efficiency, reduce the cost of healthcare, and reduce medical errors. As a result, patient portals can be beneficial for storing, using, and accessing healthcare data.
01 Security and Privacy Risks with Patient Portals Security and privacy issues pose significant challenges to the use of patient portals because the authentication of users is a challenge. Security issues regarding patient confidentiality, authorization issues, identity authentication, scalability, availability, and reliability are of the most significant concern. In addition, patient portal websites are hosted on the internet, exposing them to different vulnerabilities and threats. Insurance for protecting sensitive information from hacking activities is needed. These portals are prone to attacks because they contain large volumes of patient-specific information. Regarding privacy, parents of minors can be in a dilemma regarding the information. They should have access without signed authorization from the minor, thus hampering the patient portal market's growth.
01 Integration of Ai in Patient Portal Software The adoption of AI is already widespread in various essential areas related to clinical care. One of these areas includes using chatbots or bots in patient portals. Concerning these patient portals, bots can significantly impact several functions that serve the patient experience and simplify mundane processes for providers. Bots can learn from interactions and understand natural language patterns, which will continue to increase the demand for bots.Additionally, tracking the patient portal inbox is crucial for medical providers as healthcare shifts toward remote patient-provider communication. The ability to manage one's inbox, recognize urgent patient inquiries, and maintain a schedule for responding to patient messages are all necessary for providers. AI and machine learning tools can help sort patient portal messages that pose high-risk inquiries and push them to the top of the inbox. More providers are using patient engagement tools, such as patient portals, that leverage AI to drive a personalized and convenient healthcare experience. As health care becomes more digital, AI and other related technologies will become more critical.
March 2026 Oracle Health expanded its patient engagement solutions with enhanced patient portal capabilities integrated into cloud healthcare platforms, supporting improved digital access, communication, and personalized healthcare experiences.
January 2026 Epic Systems expanded its MyChart patient portal ecosystem with new digital health features, improving patient-provider communication, virtual care access, and healthcare data management.
November 2025 MEDITECH expanded its Expanse patient engagement platform with enhanced portal functionalities, supporting secure messaging, appointment management, and patient access to medical information.
September 2025 athenahealth expanded its cloud-based healthcare platform with improved patient portal and digital engagement tools, helping healthcare providers enhance communication and administrative efficiency.