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ON THE SAME PAGE; Patient-created Web sites keep family, friends informed, but for hospitals the pages carry risks as well as rewards.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Andis Robeznieks

Communicating the details of a family member's illness-or even one's own-can be a grinding process involving repeating sensitive facts over and over again to different, well-meaning individuals who want to know the latest status of a friend or family member undergoing treatment. Just keeping everyone informed can be exhausting for patients, families and providers. Technology has stepped in to help spread the word.

Several companies now offer easy-to-create, secure, customized Web sites with access tightly controlled by patients or their families. Clinicians share updates with the patient or family members, and they in turn-via the Web pages-can pass on whatever they want to pass on to whomever they want to know the news. The sites require knowledge of the patient's ID and a password in order to log on, helping to secure the information.

For hospitals, the Web sites help free staff from fielding multiple calls while offering educational opportunities, a chance to receive community feedback and even a boost in patient satisfaction.

At least four companies provide this service, and they've been around for five to six years. They operate by charging hospitals a licensing or sponsorship fee and by collecting individual donations. Although the Web pages-which often are designed to match a hospital's own Web site and link to it as well-can play a legitimate marketing role, concerns have also been raised that their use to deliver extremely sensitive communications might turn into a message board for inflammatory or inaccurate information about providers or become just another advertising vehicle.

Satisfied customers

Many hospitals do report increases in both patient and staff satisfaction as a result of using these firms. Nurses especially seem to like how some sites allow visitors to send compliments the staff's way, and how the sites free staff from making potentially hurtful decisions about who can and cannot receive patient information.

"Hospital staff says it helps avoid that `awkward HIPAA moment' when they have to stop and think about how much information they can share,'' says Tom Hills, vice president of market development for Chicago-based TLContact, which operates CarePages, a company offering patient-developed Web sites. Provisions of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 have made provider disclosure of patients' health status much more complicated.

Ann Converso, vice president of the United American Nurses union, acknowledged that these "HIPAA moments'' do occur and said she welcomes anything that can help relieve this awkwardness. "I haven't heard it termed that way, but I like...