I may be preaching to the choir, or, perhaps, I’m speaking to myself. Here I am, a member of the both the health IT community and a member of the PR community. One of my tasks is to help educate and inform those within and those on the outside of the healthcare community about the benefits of technology that’s designed and created for the betterment of physicians, caregivers and patients.
Being in my somewhat unique position, where I publish a site dedicated to healthcare technology and my role as a PR professional, I get to see things from both sides of the fence, in many cases several times in a given day.
I do a lot of pitching to media sources, sending stories and ideas that have been developed by my clients to best educate the community about a plethora of subjects to the media. I live by a credo established by myself to approach the media only with topics I feel are specific, educated and advance the overall conversation about a certain subject. Never do I blindly pitch ideas simply for the sake of landing coverage in obscure outlets.
Perhaps Electronic Health Reporter is an obscure outlet. I’d like to think not. Nevertheless, I get pitched by fellow PR practitioners a lot. More than you might think; several times a day. As regular readers of this site know, I tend to focus on healthcare information technology and it peripheral topics. But, that’s more than I receive from my colleagues for story ideas.
Some of the topics in my inbox are enlightening and some are entertaining; some of completely off topic and some should never have been sent. So, why is this important; why take the time to dedicate to a post about the subject?
Perhaps I’m a purist. Maybe I have a sense of self importance, but I tend to think that the conversations taking place with the media, things that are being positioned for the press by leaders in the HIT community, just might not be what the market – those serving patients and others in the practice of healthcare – really need, want or like.
At its very base, this is the sort of thing that makes me wonder just how much “innovation” there is because those in the position of creating a product for the purpose of selling it to make money are convincing those that are counting on them for the newest products to advance their mission in the field according to innovation and need.
I’m often called a cynic. It’s true. I’m suspicious of a lot of things. It’s something that I developed during my days as a reporter when, like now (as a site publisher and blogger), I get pitched a lot of stories that were not worthy of my time.
I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised by this disconnect. It’s somewhat eye opening to me that the vendors serving the healthcare community seem so far from synched up with those actually providing the care.
If I’m wrong, I hope you’ll let me know. If I’m right, I promise not to be part of the problem.
According to a recent report issued by KLAS Research, “Patient Portals 2012: The Path of Least Resistance,” published by HIT Trends health systems and practices are turning to patient portals more than ever before. Meaningful use is an obvious reason, but convenience and “the ease of integration that comes from having an established relationship with an EHR vendor are the primary factors providers use to choose a patient portal.”
In light of the expanding need of patient portals, the KLAS study focused on solutions that providers use, and what role the portals play in the long-term strategies each organization for patient engagement. The report included respondents from a mix of health systems, hospitals, and clinics.
“Providers are feeling increased pressure to engage with their patients at deeper levels than ever before. About one-half of interviewed providers already had a portal in place, primarily from their current EHR vendor. Providers needing to connect a number of disparate EHRs were the only group more likely to opt for a best-of-breed solution.”
“The existing EHR vendor relationship appears to be more important than any other factor when choosing a patient portal,” said report author Mark Allphin. “While functionality and ease of use are important to providers, they take a backseat compared to providers’ desire to manage fewer vendors and interfaces.”
Although many providers are choosing to stay with incumbent EHR-based patient portals, KLAS did report significant interest and engagement with third-party vendors.
Access to the patient clinical record is the most implemented function. Other functions in place or planned include: appointment scheduling, provider messaging, bill pay, online registration and patient education.
Of those interviewed for the report, 57 percent of providers surveyed report a patient portal in place.
According to Michael Lake, publisher of the monthly healthcare IT newsletter, HIT Trends sums up the report this way: “Providers are putting patient portals in place to meet meaningful use requirements for access and messaging. Some are looking at kiosks and mobile solutions, too. In single EHR organizations, using portals from their current vendor makes tactical sense. Niche solutions may fare better when providers look at long-term strategies and required functionalities.”
From my perspective, and probably yours, serious portal conversations have taken place for about the last three years, and with the mandates of meaningful use, it was only a matter of time before they started to proliferate the market.
Even as practices look to engage their patients more, portals will likely be the first tool considered to do so. As the report suggests, the biggest question here may be whether to add a portal from your current vendor or to find a third-party solution.
Are you going through a portal implementation? What’s your strategy going to be?
Having spent most of my career on one side of a note pad while looking at a source on the other, I’ve often wondered if others have felt the way I have about trying to connect with the story tellers I’ve come to rely upon for my professional endeavors.
As professional reporter and freelancer, I’ve spent much of my life trying to connect with and extrapolate information from those who have it to give and turn that information into compelling stories for the world to read. And, in many cases, even as a public relations professional who worked for an EHR vendor to tell stories to the media about our technology and how physicians used it to improve practice efficiencies and establish their electronic health records, I asked myself the same question: Am I connecting with those I’m speaking with while I work to paint their pictures with my words.
Even now, as a blogger and freelance PR professional I continue to ponder the same question. And, I’ve wondered, if I feel this way when I’m writing a story and the only thing coming between me and my source is a pad of paper, how must it be then for physicians that are now using computers to take notes and build cases histories for their patients during their exams?
One day this argument will be settled as a new generation of docs enters the workplace and take over practices left by their predecessors as they will never know an exam room without some sort of technology – computer or mobile device – but one can’t but help feel (at least now in the infancy of the true EHR days) that there has been a change in the way your physician practices now that he or she has a computer next to your exam table in the exam room.
I’ve noticed that the doctor seems to be some great distance away from me as if I’m having a conversation with someone 1,000 miles away. It’s the same thing as when you are in a conversation with someone while you are toying around your iPhone or Blackberry. You’re there physically, but in mind you are a long way away.
The same can be said for drivers who chose to talk on their phones. Clearly, the individual is behind the wheel letting their body’s muscle memory carry them through the task of shifting, steering and turning, but their cognitive thoughts are in the place of purgatory somewhere between the road in which they are driving and the person on the other end of the line.
With this in mind, just how much is being conveyed and captured by the physician who’s tapping away at their keyboard while their trying to guide you through the eight-minute office visit?
Speaking from the perspective of a professional journalist who has made a career of trying to capture the facts, figures and stories of those sitting next to me while I’m typing or writing away, I can safely say that much is being lost. This is especially true since shorthand and transcription is a skill not being taught at our top medical schools and residency programs throughout the United States. Heck, we can’t even get our young med students trained on using electronic health records prior to graduating into real life so why should we expect our doctors to have the skills of a professional journalist or court reporter.
So, if I still have problems at times with connecting to sources even with nearly 15 years of experience, I can guarantee you that physicians, who don’t make a living at capturing the heart of a story or even its most important elements, that not all of a patient’s most important information will end up in their health record.
Guest post by: Sarah Armstrong, a consultant at ARRYVE, a strategy consulting firm.
A recent study published by the RAND Corporation indicates that implementation of electronic health records (EHR) has not yielded the cost reduction predicted in 2005[i]. Their study identified process efficiency and patient safety savings as two primary outcomes of EHR implementation, leading to a forecasted $81 billion annual drop in healthcare costs. Instead, costs have risen significantly. RAND cites a number of reasons for this: sluggish adoption of health IT systems, coupled with the choice of systems that are neither interoperable nor easy to use; and the failure of healthcare providers and institutions to reengineer care processes to reap the full benefits of health IT.
While the latter can be attributable to the inability or unwillingness of care providers to change, the former places blames on the institutions’ IT departments and software companies. These parties know that disparate EHRs leave a significant gap, but providers are not empowered to bridge the gap. Furthermore, software companies may struggle to differentiate themselves should they modify their product to be compatible with that of a competitor. Assuming either option presented a real possibility, modified software products and altered care processes lie years down the road at best.
If something breaks, you fix it. Fixing this problem will not be easy, however, and many opinion pieces point to our federal government as the catalyst required to affect change. But instead of a major, time-consuming overhaul by the producers and users of health IT, I propose we consider incremental ways to mitigate some of the effects of the problem. I see great opportunity for 2013 to be a year not of rigorously planned change, but of simple workarounds. Specifically, these workarounds would be performed by the people most affected by 1) poor or nonexistent interoperability of EHRs and 2) their caregiver’s inability to effectively use the technology: patients.
Consider the primary problem that arises from non-interoperable health IT systems: incomplete patient data. This problem manifests itself in many ways. For patients, treatment options may be redundant, medicines prescribed may counteract each other, and they may find themselves repeating information they already gave another provider. For providers, if their patients seek care outside their facility and do not fully report their medical history, the current state of health IT does not afford them a way to see the full picture. Additionally, the quality of a provider’s aggregate patient data diminishes.
I would argue that incomplete patient data has long been a problem associated with paper medical records. So why the recent finger pointing at EHRs? Could the problem be attributed to behavioral changes on the part of both providers and patients? Within the past five years, I have changed primary care physicians twice. I have listed the names of my previous physicians, but neither has asked me to obtain my old records. Because I have not been asked to procure these, I have not troubled myself with the task.
A patient unfamiliar with health IT or health information privacy laws might think that listing their previous physician’s name (or current specialists’ names) automatically transfers their medical record. Unless a patient signs for a record transfer, caregivers must rely on what is optimistically a factual and complete patient history form that is often filled out during the minutes before an initial visit. Years of medical care are rewritten according to one’s ability to recall vaccinations, test results, and allergies, as well as the accuracy of a data analyst inputting the record into the patient’s brand spanking new, and likely abbreviated, EHR.
Patients want the best care and we look to our caregivers to tell us what to do. We may not always listen (e.g., quit smoking, exercise, etc.), but people consistently identify their physician as the person they trust most. A simple but powerful mitigation plan for addressing incomplete patient data could be to involve patients more closely in their care:
In addition to obtaining high-level health information in the intake form, ask new patients to procure their old records. Evaluate the records and input the most important details into the EHR.
When calling with appointment reminders, ask patients to bring all current medications and supplements to the medical center. An easy task for many, it can only help providers diagnose and suggest treatment options.
During the visit, ask if the patient has sought care elsewhere. A simple question, it would likely jog one’s memory that, yes, they did see the eye doctor for an annual exam or received a flu shot at the pharmacy since their last visit.
Providers would also benefit from involving patients more closely in their care. Not only do they have countless reasons to deliver care based on complete data, but many also want to publicize to prospective patients that they provide quality care. Complete patient data helps legitimize providers’ quality claims. For example, by asking all female patients about recent cancer screenings, they can truthfully state the percentage of patients who are current on these screenings. Without asking this question, a primary care clinic might report a lower percentage of current screenings among its patients than is accurate, since they would not take into account those performed by outside providers (e.g., OB/GYN, dermatology, etc.).
When discussing the ineffectiveness of EHRs, invite all affected parties to the table. I have confidence that behavior modifications aimed at mitigating the side effects of a rapidly evolving landscape, keeping the best interests of everyone at heart, will serve us all well. I dare say that the cumulative effect of millions of small modifications will reach further and quicker than one major change by software manufacturers or Uncle Sam.
Sarah Armstrong is a consultant at ARRYVE, a strategy consulting firm, with a diverse mix of industry experience ranging from healthcare to software. Healthcare engagements have encompassed strategic planning, process design, revenue cycle, compensation planning, market analysis, quality management and regulatory compliance at academic medical centers, children’s hospitals, and both primary care and pediatric practices.
[i] Arthur L. Kellerman and Spencer S. Jones, What It Will Take To Achieve The As-Yet-Unfulfilled Promises of Health Information Technology, Health Affairs, 32, no. 1 (2013):63-68
Victor Morrison, vice president of healthcare markets, Next IT
Who would have thought that intelligent virtual assistants could be used as patient engagement tools? The same virtual assistants that live on websites you might traffic that help you find site details, search the site or ask more detailed questions about information contained on the site.
Apparently this is the exact line of thinking of the folks at Next IT, a company that develops virtual assistant technology. According to Victor Morrison, vice president of healthcare markets, virtual assistants are the “silver bullet” to the patient engagement quandary.
The Washington state-based technology firm currently supports several major companies including United and Alaska airlines, Gonzaga University, Amtrak and Aetna. Though it’s only current healthcare experience is on the payer side, the company entered into a partnership with a major pharmaceutical company a few weeks ago and is expected to bring a new virtual assistant “personality” to market in a few months, said Morrison.
Next IT has partnered with Aetna for three years, creating for the company through its Human Emulation Software, “Agent Ann,” a virtual assistant that lives on Aetna’s registration page of its website. There, Ann provides immediate assistance to new members visiting the site for the first time. Ann debuted in early 2010 when many new members were first beginning to use their plans, and “she” is available to members 24/7, making it easier to do business over the web.
Members are able to type in their questions, using their own natural language and get the information they need to continue registration. Results show that she’s having an impact.
According to Next IT’s website, more than half of people registering on the website for the first time engage with Ann, “Because Ann does such a good job walking members through registration, Aetna reported that during the fifth month after implementation, they saw a 29 percent reduction in calls to their member-service technical help desk.”
Because of Ann, Aetna is seeing a reduction in operating expenses while still providing the service that members expect.
Most impressive, though, is that half of all people registering on the Aetna site engage Ann. Even Aetna’s covered members using the member’s only site are able to use Ann to view claims, look up physicians for services and even estimate the amount a service will cost with a specific physician.
According to Morrison, the system used by Aetna will be considered somewhat light in relation to what Next IT has planned for the clinical setting. Specifically, it will be more proactive depending on a patient’s needs, he said.
“Interactive virtual assistants are the magic bullet for patient engagement,” Morrison said. “What we can do is create and interface with smart phone and smart devices.”
With the right interface, which can be created to incorporate voice activation, like what’s found in Siri, tools like virtual assistants that are employed by large and enterprise health systems may be able to create a link with a patient, to interact with and monitor activity on a regular basis and to engage them through a protected portal such as a patient portal.
Ultimately, tools like Aetna’s Ann, and the one used by the U.S. Army, which have personalities and back stories built into their profiles (designed to create trust with users, Morrison said) will be able to push information, reminders and updates to patients who sign up with the service to help them stay engaged with their caregivers.
“Once we understand the patient and we begin to engage, we can push information to them to push engagement,” said Morrison. “We’ll be able to ping them with a text message, and push medication reminders. We’ll even be able to ask them questions like ‘How are you feeling today.’”
Depending on the patient’s response, if after a certain number of non-positive responses, the assistant will be able to automatically schedule an appointment with a physician or manage some other pre-established message to the patient’s care provider to ensure the patient is being contacted to ensure proper care continuum.
But, the assistants’ interaction can be set up to be much more than pushing information; they can actually engage individual with medication reminders, for example, and provide guidance for recommended doses, where to take an injection (in situations where that is appropriate), and improve patient understanding of a procedure or medication.
Patients can set up reminders through their smart devices, schedule appointments and can rate their health experience and how they feel, which can help physicians begin to create a comprehensive patient case history.
Based on this, virtual assistants may contribute to a more engage patient population, especially if people are able to so easily interact with them as is showcased in the video. Where patient portals and other engagement strategies, like social media, may be lacking, this technology may, in fact, be the magic bullet Next IT believes it to be.
Perhaps one of the easiest ways to engage patients in the patient engagement process, especially as it relates to meaningful use Stage 2, is to let them know that you are trying to engage them.
Since CMS announced the patient engagement requirement as part of meaningful use, physicians and practice leaders who hope to attest and receive federal incentives have voiced their concern over the requirement since it’s the one element beyond their control.
“The push back from providers is because it’s the one thing they can’t control; they can’t make patients ask for a patient summary and force them to download it,” said Amit Trivedi, healthcare program manager at ICSA Labs, which is a vendor-neutral testing and certification firm that works with EHR vendors. “Originally, I thought it would be upheld. I still don’t think they’ll drop it, but it’s possible they (CMS) may modify it or choose not to audit it.”
Essentially, the patient engagement portion of Stage 2 most likely won’t be dropped, but, according to Trivedi, enforcement of the mandate may not happen right away.
Still, Trivedi says the healthcare community shouldn’t walk away from the patient engagement debate simply because patients don’t seem interested in or accessing their health record. On the contrary, now is the time to begin moving in the direction of creating more awareness with the consuming public.
By taking the approach that if patients don’t ask for something because they don’t want it is faulty, Trivedi said. The same arguments were made by technology vendors prior to meaningful use who he said claimed certain enhancements just were not important to physicians and their patients. However, once incentives were announced and mandates issued, vendors quickly jumped on board to upgrade their systems to meet the new need.
Patient portals are an example of one such tool. Prior to meaningful use, they were considered Cadillac-like add ons that were wanted only by a few practitioners. With meaningful use, they are necessary and required component of the systems.
“You may never be able to make patients download their records, but you have to advertise and make the data available” said Trivedi.
Healthcare is entering the age of a new demographic and though there may be little desire to engage with the current generation, upcoming users are not going to be so patient in seeking their health information. For many, having access to their records will be a right, Trivedi said. Making data available to the public and encouraging patients to access and use it is nothing more than a cost of business.
Other than advertising to patients about the capabilities, Trivedi suggests taking the message to those who truly need access to it, for example, parents of young children and caretakers of the elderly. Though there’s simply no way that a majority of consumer patients will be engaged patients, at least in the short term, it’s much more likely that targeting specific population sets, like those mentioned, will help move the population forward and get people to take greater ownership of their care (or at least the care of those they are caring for).
After all, even with all the data collection and its analysis, its potential for improving greater health outcomes across the population and the move toward structured and transportable data, it ultimately we won’t find the results we’re looking for if the patients are not engaged.
Help me understand, if you will, where the soul of meaningful use lies. I’ve seen the rules that have been made final and I’ve heard the stories of folks in the field that have had their lives and practices changed because of it.
But all of this just doesn’t seem to lead to a very innovative end.
Sure, the technology is needed in healthcare as the antiquated use of paper continues to overwhelm, but what’s the real proposition here? As far as I’m concerned, some of the real questions remain unanswered, and I am slightly suspicious as to why the feds are so heavily involved.
Granted, I shouldn’t be surprised given all the money that’s been spent in numerous non-government areas (like cars, banking and solar), but let’s peel back here a little and ask why the industry really needs the incentives. Let’s agree that on its own, the healthcare industry would have adopted the technology and was doing so; the incentives just moved adoption along much more quickly. So, why are the feds involved? Agree with me or not, they want our data.
This is the coup d’état. Collected data leads to predictive analysis and evidence-based treatment protocols. This leads to the dissolution of independent care protocols and removes independent will and turns healthcare into committee care.
Getting care is going to be similar to applying to government grants and scholarships. I’m oversimplifying the matter here, but please, let’s admit that there is a price that’s going to be paid for the federal incentives.
That said, my soap boxing out of the way, I’m back to my original question: Where is the soul of meaningful use?
Let’s take a look at the upcoming Stage 3. In large part it’s a lot of increased measures and new “patient engagement” provisions such as: giving patient the opportunity to request amendments to their records online, requiring electronic health records to receive, generate or access appropriate immunization recommendations, and requiring EHRs to be able to query other entities for outside records.
(Yawn.) (Wipe my eyes.)
These are valiant efforts and worthy of exploring, certainly. But, where is the real innovation that we’re supposed to be seeking? Where’s the game-changing approach to healthcare information that blows our minds? This is a technology based process after all and I think we need to begin demanding more of the technology we employ.
The technology is not holding us back, either. It’s us and our continually lowered expectations. If we’re going to take some risks then those risks need to be real risks and not some marketing speak for a data grab slight of hand.
From my perspective, about 90 percent of the technology vendors in the space do just enough and nothing more. Their investments are in sales teams, not in research and development.
But how can you blame them when the one leading body of the mandated changes is asking so little of the community.
What this is beginning to feel like a bunch of self-appointed “decision” makers trying to affect change of a program that’s been in place for decades, in the end, no matter the tinkering, may be nothing but waste having been accomplished.
HIE expansion about supply and demand? Well, if you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that I spend a good bit of time perusing HealthIT.gov. Though it’s not flashy and overwhelming, the site is informative and actually provides a great deal of information, which says a lot since it’s a government property.
What HeatlhIT.gov does well is provide a nice primer of information about a variety of subjects from meaningful use, electronic health records and health information exchanges.
In addition, the site puts everything in plain and simple language for all the world to understand.
For example, take a look at the reasons why health information exchanges are important to the healthcare landscape:
The ability to exchange health information electronically is the foundation of efforts to improve healthcare quality and safety. HIE can provide:
The connecting point for an organized, standardized process of data exchange across statewide, regional and local initiatives
The means to reduce duplication of services (resulting in lower healthcare costs)
The means to reduce operational costs by automating many administrative tasks
Governance and management of the data exchange process
And for good measure, here are a few examples of how health information exchanges are benefiting the healthcare landscape. Some of these concepts are a bit obvious and overstated here, but still this provides a nice starting point in support for the soon to be possible movement.
Benefits of health information exchanges:
Provide a vehicle for improving quality and safety of patient care
Provides a basic level of interoperability among EHRs maintained by individual physicians and organizations
Stimulates consumer education and patients’ involvement in their own healthcare
Helps public health officials meet their commitment to the community
Creates a potential loop for feedback between health-related research and actual practice
Facilitates efficient deployment of emerging technology and healthcare services
Provides the backbone of technical infrastructure for leverage by national and state-level initiatives
I’m not alone in the belief that I feel HIEs’ most important role is one of creating interoperable opportunities to connect physicians and their patients to a web of other care givers and health community members.
It seems that the closer we get to HIEs and their overall acceptance in healthcare, doesn’t it seem like we take two steps back?
What are some of the hurdles keeping HIEs from reaching their full potential? Glad you asked.
Cost has to be the clear front runner. As I’ve previously stated, the questions remain – who’s going to pay for them? The government clearly wants a healthy HIE community because it is believed that they will lead to greater adoption of EHRs while vendors want part of the action so they can charge physicians to transfer data through the networks. Vendors can’t figure out a financial model for them and until they can get someone to pay for them, there may be little movement here.
Another hurdle of HIEs is that for those that exist, the data often exists in silos. Problem with siloed data is that the data doesn’t go anywhere. Sounds a lot like an EHR, but an EHR may be more user friendly and robust. Just saying.
Finally, lack of standards impede their advancement. More development for standards is required for the variety of HIEs to be able to communicate. Profiles, like the need for structured data in EHRs, will help advance the cause and promote their development.
Ultimately, HIE expansion will most likely come down to basic business 101: supply and demand. When the population demands it, we’ll see the supply increase and in so doing, we’ll see cost containment, industry wide standards and completely interoperable systems that will completely open up the health IT market place.
According to a recent report issued by KLAS Research, “Patient Portals 2012: The Path of Least Resistance,” published by HIT Trends health systems and practices are turning to patient portals more than ever before. Meaningful use is an obvious reason, but convenience and “the ease of integration that comes from having an established relationship with an EHR vendor are the primary factors providers use to choose a patient portal.”