By Aijaz Alam
What percentage of patients use a patient portal?
65% of US adults were offered and accessed their online medical record or patient portal at least once in 2024, per ASTP/ONC's analysis of the National Cancer Institute's HINTS survey, up from 25% in 2014. 77% were offered access, and 57% of people who accessed their records did so through an app.
- 65%US adults offered and using a patient portal or online recordASTP/ONC, HINTS 2024; 25% in 2014
- 77%US adults offered online access to their medical recordsASTP/ONC, HINTS 2024; 42% in 2014
- 57%Portal users who accessed their records with an appASTP/ONC, 2024; 38% in 2020
- 51%Adults who accessed a portal for someone they care forASTP/ONC, 2024; 24% in 2020
The numbers
The full breakdown
Patient portal access by group, 2024
| Group | Offered online access | Offered and accessed |
|---|---|---|
| All individuals | 77% | 65% |
| With a chronic condition | 81% | 69% |
| Managing a recent cancer diagnosis | 86% | 76% |
Chronic condition: a heart condition, lung disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or depression. The brief's summary gives 75% for the recent cancer group and its findings and chart give 76%; the table uses the chart value. Accessed means at least once in the past year.
Portal use when a provider encourages it, 2024
| Measure | Encouraged by their provider | Not encouraged |
|---|---|---|
| Accessed the portal in the past year | 87% | 57% |
| Viewed test results | 92% | 78% |
| Viewed clinical notes | 82% | 57% |
Among individuals offered online access; 89% of them said their provider encouraged them to use the portal.
How people access their online medical records
| Year | Used an app | Web only |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 38% | 60% |
| 2022 | 51% | 48% |
| 2024 | 57% | 42% |
Among individuals who accessed their online medical records or patient portal.
Where people have a patient portal or online record, 2024
| Measure | Share of individuals |
|---|---|
| Portal with their primary care provider's office | 68% |
| Portal with another health care provider | 40% |
| Portal with their pharmacy | 24% |
| Portal with a hospital | 22% |
| More than one portal or online record | 59% |
| Used an app to combine records from several portals | 7% |
| No online medical record or portal at all | 16% |
A person can have portals in several places, so the first four rows add to more than 100%. Use of portal organizing apps (for example Apple Health Records) was 2% in 2022.
US adults using the internet for health tasks in the past 12 months, July-December 2022
| Group | Looked up medical test results | Communicated with a doctor or doctor's office |
|---|---|---|
| All adults | 46.1% | 41.5% |
| Women | 52.2% | 47.2% |
| Men | 39.6% | 35.6% |
| 18-29 years | 44.2% | 41.5% |
| 30-44 years | 50.5% | 47.7% |
| 75 years and over | 29.8% | 24.3% |
CDC NCHS Data Brief 482 (October 2023), National Health Interview Survey. These are internet tasks, usually done through a portal, but the survey does not ask about portals by name. The brief gives the age groups in between only in its charts.
Over time
US adults offered and using online medical records, 2014 to 2024
| Year | Offered online access | Offered and accessed | Accessed for someone they care for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 42% | 25% | Not comparable |
| 2017 | 52% | 27% | Not comparable |
| 2018 | 51% | 30% | Not comparable |
| 2019 | 58% | 37% | Not comparable |
| 2020 | 59% | 38% | 24% |
| 2022 | 73% | 57% | 46% |
| 2024 | 77% | 65% | 51% |
HINTS 4 Cycle 4 (2014), HINTS 5 Cycles 1-4 (2017-2020), HINTS 6 (2022) and HINTS 7 (2024), shown by ASTP as one series. No survey in 2015, 2016, 2021 or 2023. ASTP says proxy (caregiver) access before 2020 used a different answer option and is not directly comparable.
Why sources differ
Same question, different answers
| Number | When | Who measured | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 65% | 2024 | ASTP/ONC, HINTS 7 | Adults offered online access who also accessed it at least once in the past year |
| 77% | 2024 | ASTP/ONC, HINTS 7 | Adults offered online access by a provider or insurer, whether or not they used it |
| 46.1% | Jul-Dec 2022 | CDC NCHS, NHIS | Adults who used the internet in the past 12 months to look up medical test results |
| 41.5% | Jul-Dec 2022 | CDC NCHS, NHIS | Adults who used the internet to communicate with a doctor or doctor's office |
Patient portal figures depend on what is counted. The headline 65% from ASTP/ONC, the federal health IT office, counts adults who were offered online access to their medical records and logged in at least once in the past year, from the National Cancer Institute's HINTS survey. The 77% beside it counts everyone who was offered access, used or not. The CDC's National Health Interview Survey asks different questions: whether adults used the internet to look up medical test results (46.1% in the second half of 2022) or to communicate with a doctor's office (41.5%). Those tasks are usually done in a portal, but the survey does not mention portals, and one task is narrower than any portal use, so the NHIS shares are lower than HINTS's 57% for 2022. Neither agency reconciles the two. Health systems and EHR vendors also publish portal activation or login rates for their own patients; those count accounts at one organization, not people nationally. Quote the ASTP figure for national portal use and say whether you mean offered or used.
What it means
How to use these numbers
Patient portals have gone from a minority habit to the norm. In 2014 a quarter of US adults used one; in 2024, 65% were offered access and used it, and only 16% said they had no online record anywhere.
The gap that remains is mostly about being offered and nudged. 77% were offered access, and among them, 87% of those encouraged by their provider logged in, against 57% of those who were not. People managing a chronic condition or a recent cancer diagnosis use portals more.
How people get in is shifting to phones: 57% of portal users used an app in 2024, up from 38% in 2020, and web-only use fell to 42%. Most people now have more than one portal (59%), but very few combine them.
For a practice, the portal is now a main front door: messages, results and bookings run through it, and a clear invitation at the visit is the cheapest way to raise use. Caregivers matter too: half of adults accessed a portal for someone else.
Method and sources
How it was measured
Method
- Publisher
- Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy / Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ASTP/ONC), Data Brief No. 77, July 2025; CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Data Brief No. 482, October 2023
- Sample
- HINTS 7 (2024): 7,278 US adults, paper and web survey, March to September 2024, weighted. NHIS: national household interview survey, July-December 2022.
- Definition
- Offered and accessed: offered online access to medical records by a health care provider or insurer and accessed the patient portal at least once in the past year. App use: among individuals who accessed online records.
- Released
- ASTP Data Brief 77, July 2025 (the PDF has moved to healthit.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/); NCHS Data Brief 482, October 2023
- Checked at source
- 31 October 2026: ASTP Data Brief 77 PDF on healthit.gov and NCHS Data Brief 482 on cdc.gov
- Next release
- HINTS runs about every two years; ASTP's brief on the next cycle is the next update
- Last changed
- 31 Oct 2026
- Data files
- CSV · JSON (stable links)
Sources
- ASTP Data Briefs (patient portals; hospital predictive AI), HHS Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy / Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Official data
- NCHS Health E-Stat 120, National Electronic Health Records Survey, CDC National Center for Health Statistics Official data
Cite this page
APA
MLA
HTML link
FAQ
More questions people ask
Do patients use portal apps or websites?
Increasingly apps. 57% of people who accessed their online records used an app in 2024, up from 38% in 2020, while web-only use fell from 60% to 42% (ASTP/ONC).
Does encouraging patients raise portal use?
Yes. In 2024, 87% of individuals whose provider encouraged them accessed their portal in the past year, against 57% of those not encouraged.
How many people have more than one patient portal?
59% of US adults had more than one online medical record or portal in 2024, but only 7% used an app to combine them (ASTP/ONC).
Can family caregivers use a patient portal?
Yes, through proxy access. 51% of individuals accessed the record of someone they care for or make health decisions for in 2024, up from 24% in 2020.
Every number on this page was checked at its original source (HHS Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy / Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, CDC National Center for Health Statistics). Free to cite with a link to this page.