NYeC Patient Portal Utilizes Mobile

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Accessing patient portals via smartphones is paving the way to greater mobility for health information exchanges is New York state.

The New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) is one step closer to using its new patient portal created by Mana Health which, last year, won NYeC’s contest to design it. According to MedCity News, New York legislature has approved $55 million in funding to combine the regional exchanges into a statewide network making testing and development of this statewide portal possible.

'It's a patient portal with the patient in mind," said Chris Bradley, Mana's CEO and co-founder, who joined executive chairman and co-founder Raj Amin to discuss the company's goals with mHealth News. "It's a one-stop shop for healthcare data."

Mana Health’s model for the portal allows consumers to feel comfortable accessing their information while providing the state with a solution that was not tied to just one specific provider or organization, but the entire exchange. Paul Wilder of the NYeC says the portal is something that didn’t really exist before and calls it a “true democratization of data” because it pulls in information from any source for the consumer.

“New Yorkers do everything else online. It’s imperative that they also be able to access their healthcare data online, whenever they need it," said NYeC executive director David Whitlinger in a press release. "This is the most important information a person has about him or herself."

"We already have all the data. This isn't your traditional off-the-shelf portal where you have to push stuff into it," Whitlinger told mHealth News. This kind of mobile portal not only gives consumers access to all their data, but enables the NYeC to keep track of what providers are making available as well.