Online Patient Portal Use and Time to Renal Transplantation in Patients on Hemodialysis.

Online portals have been shown to be a valuable tool for patients to improve compliance with medical treatments in numerous studies across medical specialties. Our aim was to study the effects of the use of web- based applications that allow patients to track their appointments, labs, and provider visit notes on achievement of renal transplantation.This is a retrospective chart review of patients in two outpatient dialysis centers associated with a 719 bed tertiary care academic medical center.9% of portal users at 3 years after initiation of hemodialysis were the recipients of kidney transplants vs. 9% of nonusers. At 4 years, 23% of users were transplanted vs. 13% of nonusers. At 5 years, 40% of users were transplanted vs. 14% of nonusers. There was statistically significant divergence of the curves, with the greatest difference observed at 5 years (p = 0.047). Furthermore, increased number of logins per month was associated with shortened time to renal transplantation (p= 0.0067).Online portal use is associated with a higher likelihood of being approved as a transplant candidate and increased number of logins is associated with shortened time to renal transplantation.