Patient Engagement

James Vlahos, contributor to Wired and other magazines, describes how the Dadbot conversational chatbot provides a sort of "digital afterlife."

Dr. Albert Chan, chief of digital patient experience at Sutter Health, says health systems have to get better at interpreting data in novel ways to make good on their promise to patients.

Lake Washington Physical Therapy also is saving $15,000 a year using bot-powered technology to optimize access to care and build patient-first services.

A JAMIA Open study and a Psychiatric Services study both found that the VA is succeeding in providing enhanced benefits to veterans.

The benefit of the shared care plan is that a patient’s care plans will be consistent if they move within the region, and new clinicians involved in that patient’s care can view and edit the plans.

As part of its Healthy Opportunities Initiative, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has enlisted Phreesia to help health systems statewide learn more about their patients' social determinants of health. WHY IT MATTERS Phreesia, patient intake platform is able to screen patients for unmet social and environmental needs that could be adversely affecting their health. It poses questions patients about various social factors and can deliver real-time alerts for providers and care coordinators, helping them better target care interventions. In addition, its analytics and reporting help health systems with population health management. Phreesia's technology will deliver North Carolina's Standardized Social Determinants of Health Screening Questions to providers across the state – helping them spot patients who may be helped by addressing certain social factors, enabling providers to be more attuned to their holistic health. Additionally, NCCARE360, North Carolina's first coordinated network connecting healthcare and human service providers, is being deployed statewide, making it easier to connect people with resources according to their needs. THE LARGER TREND Phreesia, which went public earlier this summer, points to research from Kaiser Permanente that suggests most patients want their providers to ask about their social needs and help connect them to resources. As Healthcare IT News focuses this month on social determinants of health, we've been exploring the wide variety of factors – from housing to food insecurity to domestic safety – that can have huge effects on a person's health. In North Carolina, according to the state DHHS, more than 1.2 million people cannot find affordable housing, and one in 28 children under age six is homeless. More than one in five children are living in food-insecure households, and nearly half (47 percent) of North Carolina women say they have experienced intimate partner violence. Helping connect these people with community-based programs could help, and many new initiatives are being launched to do just that. But first, providers need to know that their patients are in need. ON THE RECORD "To advance the health and well-being of North Carolinians, we need to build a coordinated, whole person-centered system that addresses both medical and non-medical drivers of health," said DHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy K. Cohen in a statement. "Our partnership with Phreesia will make it easier for doctors and other health care providers to ask patients about their non-medical health needs, which are a critical component of their overall health." "We're excited to collaborate and support NC DHHS on this important initiative," said Phreesia CEO Chaim Indig. "Helping providers identify patients' social needs allows us to further our mission of improving the healthcare experience, and we look forward to continuing this work in communities across the country." .jumbotron{ background-image: url("https://www.healthcareitnews.com/sites/hitn/files/u2556/SocialDeterminantJumbotron.jpg"); background-size: cover; color: white; } .jumbotron h2{ color: white; } Focus on Social Determinants of Health In September, Healthcare Finance News, Healthcare IT News and MobiHealthNews will take a look at the SDOH and how varied health systems, IT companies, Congress and others are addressing it. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.

The startups will gain access to de-identified claims data to help fine-tune projects aimed at enabling more timely interventions, eliminating barriers to care, improving health system navigation and more.

Two interoperability projects will get a funding boost from the Leading Edge Acceleration Projects in Health Information Technology, or LEAP in Health IT program, launched by the The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information IT. WHY IT MATTERS The LEAP in Health IT awardees will get address fast emerging and future challenges to advance the development and use of interoperable health IT. The specific focus is twofold. ONC was seeking innovations in the standardization and implementation of scalable FHIR consent resources, and the design, development and demonstration of enhanced patient engagement technologies. The 2019 awardees are San Diego Regional Health Information Exchange and University of Texas at Austin. San Diego Regional HIE, with an eye toward standards, use case and community testing, will develop and make available FHIR Consent Implementation Guide and package new open-source prototypes and content to assist partners in using the FHIR Consent Resource. University of Texas at Austin will develop and test a patient-engagement platform to support an array of mobile apps aimed at underrepresented populations. The focus will be on privacy and security needs, user-centered design approaches and appropriate data sharing across patients, clinicians and researchers. THE LARGER TREND ONC says the LEAP in Health IT initiative is aimed at "well-documented and fast emerging challenges that inhibit the development, use, and/or advancement of well-designed, interoperable health IT. It is expected to further a new generation of health IT development and inform the innovative implementation and refinement of standards, methods, and techniques for overcoming major barriers and challenges as they are identified." These initiatives are the most recent in ONC's ongoing efforts to spur interoperability innovation across healthcare. While another project, CONNECT, recently transitioned from ONC control to the private sector, other efforts continue as the agency pushes forward on data exchange imperatives of the 21st Century Cures Act. ON THE RECORD "These projects will make it easier for our increasingly complex health care system to leverage the latest technological advancements and breakthroughs more quickly and to enable real-time solutions to health care challenges," said National Coordinator for Health IT Dr. Don Rucker, in a statement.   Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.

Bayfront Health St. Petersburg pays $85,000 to HHS Office for Civil Rights and promises remediation after failing to give an expectant mother timely access to her medical records.