Sustaining patient portal use is a major problem for many healthcare organizations and providers. If this problem can be successfully addressed, it could have a positive impact on various stakeholders. Through the lens of cognitive dissonance theory, this study investigates the role of health professional encouragement as well as patients’ security concerns in influencing continuous use intention and deep structure usage among users of a patient portal. The analysis of data collected from 177 patients at a major medical center in the Midwestern region of the United States shows that health professional encouragement helps increase the continuous use intention and deep structure usage of the patient portal, while security concerns impede them. Interestingly, health professional encouragement not only has a direct positive influence on continuous use intention and deep structure usage but also lowers the negative impact of security concerns on them. The research model explains a substantial variance in continuous use intention (i.e., 40%) and deep structure usage (i.e., 32%). The paper provides theoretical implications as well as practical implications to healthcare managers and providers to improve patient portal deep structure usage and sustained use for user retention.

维持患者门户网站的使用是许多医疗保健组织和提供者面临的主要问题。如果这个问题能够成功解决，它可能会对各个利益相关者产生积极影响。通过认知失调理论的视角，本研究调查了卫生专业人员的鼓励以及患者的安全顾虑在影响患者门户网站用户的持续使用意愿和深层结构使用方面的作用。对美国中西部地区一家大型医疗中心 177 名患者收集的数据的分析表明，健康专业人员的鼓励有助于提高患者门户的持续使用意愿和深度结构使用，而安全问题则阻碍了它们。有趣的是，健康专业的鼓励不仅对持续使用意愿和深度结构使用有直接的正向影响，而且降低了安全顾虑对他们的负面影响。该研究模型解释了连续使用意图（即 40%）和深度结构使用（即 32%）的显着差异。本文为医疗保健管理者和提供者提供了理论意义和实践意义，以改善患者门户深层结构的使用和持续使用以保留用户。