Patient portal 2.0

"As healthcare reform and transformation advances, providers will seek new ways to engage patients and influence behavior beyond the point of care and will increasingly look to the more advanced solutions that are proven to consistently motivate patient compliance and sustained behavioral change," said Nancy Fabozzi, connected health principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

To meet such demand, a crop of solutions that Faboozi dubbed Patient Portal 2.0 is emerging, replete with functionality for health information exchange, integration of clinical and financial data, e-visits, as well as an array of Web 2.0 capabilities such as social networking, gaming, and avatars that serve as personalized health coaches.

According to a Frost & Sullivan report the patient portal market is poised to absolutely boom — and the firm is predicting it will soar to nearly $900 million by 2017, from $279.8 million just last year, marking a 221 percent spike.