December 2019

The Portal Periodical brings you updates on changes and additions to Portal, alerts you to relevant news & information, and solicits feedback to help us improve the Portal. Want to get in touch? Please provide Feedback.

It's the time of year for looking back, and, with the close of 2019, there is an extra bonus of looking back that all that has been done over the last decade. Here is a brief snapshot of Portal content development over the last ten years.

• Diagnoses & Conditions
  • January 2010: 21 Modules
  • December 2019: 55 Modules
• Newborn Disorders
  • January 2010: 31 Newborn Screening pages
  • December 2019: 38 Newborn Screening pages
• For Parents & Families
  • January 2010: 49 pages
  • December 2019: 179 pages, including 49 Parent Diagnosis FAQs
• For Physicians & Professionals
  • January 2010: 17 pages
  • December 2019: 69 pages
• Portal Team
  • January 2010: 9 part-time staff and consultants
  • December 2019: 4 full-time staff and 10 part-time staff and consultants

The Portal is excited to announce the publication of our latest diagnosis module for clinicians: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Every new module on the Portal is written by clinical experts working in the field. The POTS module was authored by Dr. Phil Fischer, professor of pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic, who has been caring for adolescents with POTS since 1999.

In September, we told you about upcoming improvements to search on the Medical Home Portal. We are excited that a number of these improvements are now live.

The main change that is visible to users is the ability to filter search results by section/audience (professionals, families, services). While we welcome all Portal users to visit any part of the Portal, we know that helping people, especially parents and families, find information that is written for them, can improve their Portal experience.

A second change is an improvement in the ability to search within a group of categories. Most Diagnosis Modules and other pages suggest specific service categories; however, some will suggest a group of categories. The new improvements allow you to search Service Providers across those categories. You can also use the Service Category search field to search a set of related service categories from your region's Services Directory.

Meet Efrain Chu-Jon! Efrain is a Software Engineer at the Medical Home Portal. Efrain joined the Portal team in July 2013. Efrain works on a variety of projects at the Medical Home Portal, such as the improvements to site search mentioned in this email and enhancing the Services Directory. He also works on the Portal's user interface design and making it more mobile friendly.