ArticleBMJ health & care informatics2026
Unlocking digital health: inequalities in the adoption of a patient portal.
Article in BMJ health & care informatics, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The productivity illusion: performance measurement and the invisibility of digital clinical work.Future healthcare journal · 2026Article
- Impacts of epic MyChart and healthy planet on clinical care measures: a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveDigital health apps and patient portals are proposed as part of the drive from 'analogue to digital' care for the National Health Service (NHS) 10-Year Plan. Without mitigation strategies, digital inequalities could arise as a result, and more evidence is needed to understand how to mitigate this.
methodsAs part of an equality impact assessment, a retrospective cross-sectional analysis was conducted examining patient portal activation among patients invited to outpatient appointments at two large south-east London Hospital Trusts between 1 May and 1 November 2024.
resultsOf the 503 688 patients invited to attend outpatient clinics during the study period, 52.7% had activated the patient portal. Availability of email contact details was the strongest determinant of onboarding likelihood (OR 10.86). Multivariate logistic regression models showed that the following groups were less likely to activate the patient portal: men (OR 0.84), individuals at the extremes of age (71-80 or 11-20 years), those of mixed or undefined ethnicity (OR 0.58), those of black ethnicity (OR 0.62) and those with the highest degree of socioeconomic deprivation (Index of Multiple Deprivation group 1; OR 0.68).
conclusionThis large-scale roll-out of a digital health portal provides empirical evidence of factors that drive digital inequalities for patients of two major London NHS Trusts. The observed disparities across demographic and socioeconomic dimensions and simple reliable digital contact mechanisms highlight the risk that digital healthcare initiatives may inadvertently produce new types of inequalities.
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Registered trials
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