{"doi":"10.2196/45641","title":"Patient Perceptions of e-Visits: Qualitative Study of Older Adults to Inform Health System Implementation","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Electronic visits (e-visits) are billable, asynchronous patient-initiated messages that require at least five minutes of medical decision-making by a provider. Unequal use of patient portal tools like e-visits by certain patient populations may worsen health disparities. To date, no study has attempted to qualitatively assess perceptions of e-visits in older adults. OBJECTIVE: In this qualitative study, we aimed to understand patient perceptions of e-visits, including their perceived utility, barriers to use, and care implications, with a focus on vulnerable patient groups. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study using in-depth structured individual interviews with patients from diverse backgrounds to assess their knowledge and perceptions surrounding e-visits as compared with unbilled portal messages and other visit types. We used content analysis to analyze interview data. RESULTS: We conducted 20 interviews, all in adults older than 65 years. We identified 4 overarching coding categories or themes. First, participants were generally accepting of the concept of e-visits and willing to try them. Second, nearly two-thirds of the participants voiced a preference for synchronous communication. Third, participants had specific concerns about the name \"e-visit\" and when to choose this type of visit in the patient portal. Fourth, some participants indicated discomfort using or accessing technology for e-visits. Financial barriers to the use of e-visits was not a common theme. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that older adults are generally accepting of the concept of e-visits, but uptake may be limited due to their preference for synchronous communication. We identified several opportunities to improve e-visit implementation.","journal":"JMIR Aging","year":2023,"id":339674,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":16,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.958,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1073646,"name":"Meera Subash","orcid":"0000-0002-9675-301X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":778299,"name":"James D. Harrison","orcid":"0000-0002-7761-7039","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1073647,"name":"Jan Yeager","orcid":"0009-0008-8401-3592","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1073648,"name":"Aimée M Williams","orcid":"0009-0000-2839-7888","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1073649,"name":"Carrie K. Grouse","orcid":"0009-0000-8875-535X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1073650,"name":"Maria Byron","orcid":"0009-0001-9371-0970","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":942346,"name":"Timothy J. Judson","orcid":"0000-0001-8376-6260","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":31,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:10:49.535464Z","pmid":"37234031","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}