November 2007

PAMFOnline has recently been redesigned, allowing patients greater ease of use and convenience. The e-health service’s home page is now more user-friendly with tools to help patients better navigate the site.

"The new PAMFOnline site is more attractive and accessible, and will enable users to find all the information they need to manage their health care faster and easier than ever before," said PAMFOnline Project Manager Barbara Love.

PAMFOnline is offered to all PAMF patients at no cost and allows users to log on to a secure Web site 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world. Patients can use PAMFOnline to securely and conveniently access key portions of their electronic health records (EHRs), view and graph test results, request appointments and prescription renewals, receive customized health information, and for a nominal fee, communicate electronically with their physicians.

The PAMFOnline team gathered suggestions for the site’s redesign during a recent survey, from user feedback and during a focus group, all of which helped the team know what people like about PAMFOnline and about the site design and what improvements they would like to see made, said Love. The tools that patients use most frequently were also moved to more prominent locations to make it easier and faster for patients to get the information they need.

"We know that most people access and use certain parts of their EHR more than others, such as their messages and test results, and we grouped these items together and moved them to the top of the menu to make them more accessible," she said.

For example, the PAMFOnline team grouped all items regarding test results in one section. Patients can review their test results, graph components, such as cholesterol, to see trends over time, as well as view a summary of all their latest test results. There are also new areas to the site, such as the User Center, which teaches individuals what PAMFOnline can do for them and how to use the various features of the e-health service.

"The redesigned PAMFOnline site provides patients with a more centralized view of their health record and allows them to access the information they need with fewer clicks and move around the site with greater ease," said Internet Specialist Andy Markov, who redesigned the PAMFOnline site.

In the latest PAMFOnline survey, users stated that the features they find most appealing are communicating with their physicians, viewing their test results, requesting prescription renewals and requesting appointments, as well as the convenience and time savings that PAMFOnline provides. Of the more than 6,000 users who responded to the survey, 97 percent of PAMFOnline Messaging subscribers and 90 percent of non-messaging (basic) users said that they are satisfied or very satisfied with PAMFOnline. For more information about PAMFOnline or to enroll, visit PAMFOnline.