Increasing patient demands for convenient access to their own health care information has led to the development of "patient portals" that allow limited patient access to ambulatory electronic health records (EHR). Little is known about clinicians attitudes towards this new model of health care. In our study, we collected baseline information about primary care providers (PCP) usage of a secure, web-based patient portal linked to the ambulatory EHR. We also assessed providers initial perceptions of these technologies as facilitators of patient-provider communications and the potential for these tools to improve quality of outpatient care.