Meaningful use of the electronic patient portal - Virginia Mason's journey to create the perfect online patient experience.

We present a case study of Virginia Mason Medical Center's successful implementation of the online patient portal. The organization exceeded its Meaningful Use 2 View/Download/Transmit targets and national benchmarks, with over 70% of unique patient encounters being provided timely online access to their health information, over 50% viewing, downloading, and transmitting health information electronically, and potential cost savings to the institution. Key lessons learned in our implementation process were.