The vaccination of older adults against COVID-19 begins across the country.
But in a new study, researchers found that many of them don’t yet have access to the “patient portal” online systems that could make it much easier for them to schedule a vaccination appointment.
They found that 45% of adults aged 65 to 80, and 42% of all adults aged 50 to 80, said they had not set up an account with their health provider’s portal system.
Patient portals are secure online systems, linked to a health care provider’s electronic medical record system, that patients can access using a computer or smartphone.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Michigan.
The new analysis shows wide gaps in patient portal use among different groups of older adults – with lower use by some of those who have the highest risk of a severe case of COVID-19 if they aren’t vaccinated.
Men were less likely than women to have signed up, though the gap has narrowed since 2018.
People age 65 to 80 were less likely to have a patient portal account compared with those aged 50 to 64, though use among both age groups has grown in the past two years.
The biggest gap was between adults with annual household incomes less than $60,000 a year, and those with higher incomes.
About 54% of the lower-income older adults did not have a patient portal account, where only 35% of higher-income older adults lacked an account.
Meanwhile, 53% of those with less than a high school education lacked a patient portal account, compared with 31% of those who had graduated from college.
As vaccine supply becomes more available, many public health authorities are encouraging older adults to turn to the health system that their primary care or specialist physicians are affiliated with for vaccination appointments.
The team says one important thing that doctors can do for older adults is encourage and help them to sign up for patient portal access or log in again if they haven’t in a while.
One researcher of the study is Preeti Malani, M.D., an infectious disease physician at Michigan Medicine.
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