Patient Engagement

Florida Hospital Waterman and Florida Hospital Carrollwood are being recognized for their use of technology to improve patient outcomes and analytics to reduce infections.

Contest seeks innovative uses of APIs thay can enable consumers to more easily share their personal health data.

The work has changed from being seen as plumbers to become partners in re-engineering infrastructure.

Innovations created at the New Jersey hospital include a mobile app that allows patients to self-register and even provides driving directions.

What would happen if we repealed the Affordable Care Act? David Blumenthal, MD, president of the Commonwealth Fund, told attendees at Maine Health Management Coalition and Maine Medical Association Symposium on Oct. 27.

In an effort to advance the use of patient-reported outcomes for research and care delivery, a coalition of nine universities has been awarded a $6.3 million grant by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Sutter is using Validic’s digital health platform to monitor patients with Type 2 diabetes in one pilot. In the other, Amita Health is implementing TapCloud’s technology for behavioral health, stroke, orthopedic surgery and other medical conditions. 

Healthgrades published its ratings of hospitals across the country, and also launched its Risk IQ Tool to help consumers assess their personal risk to six common surgical procedures. It varies from region to region – even from city to city. And it depends what type of care or procedure you need. Some hospitals and physicians are better at some procedures than others. In other words: patient beware. Denver, Colo.-based Healthgrades bills itself as the leading online resource for comprehensive information about physicians and hospitals. It calls its Risk IQ Tool the first to help patients assess their personal risk as it relates to six common surgical procedures and also to help patients find the right hospital and physician for the procedure.  The Healthgrades report also takes into account patients’ risk for complications and mortality with common surgeries along with relative driving distance to hospitals in general, and to hospitals shown to have the best outcomes in a particular surgery or procedure. “The report shows that consumers need to educate themselves before any surgery and get the facts on their personal risk in order to improve the likelihood of a positive outcome,” Healthgrades Chief Strategy Officer Evan Marks said in a statement. [EHRs getting better? Readers rank vendors higher than last year in new survey] Making that happen, however, is complicated. The Healthgrades analysis found clinical and quality outcomes in hospitals vary drastically across the country. Its Report to the Nation evaluated the performance of nearly 4,500 short-term acute care hospitals nationwide, assessing hospital performance relative to each of 32 common conditions and procedures, as well as an evaluation of comparative outcomes in appendectomy and bariatric surgery using all-payer data provided by 18 states. The results showed wide gaps in outcomes: Healthgrades found patients treated from 2013-2015 at hospitals receiving a five-star rating have, on average, a 71 percent lower risk of dying and a 65 percent lower risk of experiencing one or more complications during a hospital stay than if they were treated at a hospital receiving a one-star rating in that procedure or condition. From 2013-2015, if all hospitals as a group performed similarly to hospitals receiving five-stars as a group, on average 223,412 lives could potentially have been saved and 162,215 complications could potentially have been avoided. Patients have varying relative risk for complications and mortality with common surgeries. Patients having surgery in hospitals rated five-stars will have a lower risk of experiencing a complication or dying than if they were treated in a hospital rated as one-star in six common surgical procedures. Patients having knee replacement in hospitals rated 5-stars have a 67 percent lower risk of experiencing a complication, or dying than if they were treated in hospitals rated 1-star. For hip replacement it was a 73 percent lower risk; pacemaker procedures, a 57 percent lower risk; CABG – Coronary artery bypass grafting – an 86 percent lower risk; hysterectomy, a 60 percent lower risk; and bariatric surgery, a 72 percent  lower risk. Healthgrades also took into account the patients relative driving distance to hospitals in general, and to hospitals demonstrating superior outcomes in a surgery or procedure and concluded outcomes can be dramatically different from city to city.   The HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Big Data & Analytics Forum takes place in Boston, Oct. 24-25. What to expect: ⇒ Charlotte hospitals analyze social determinants of health to cut ER visits ⇒ Big Data: Healthcare must move beyond the hype ⇒ Tips for reading Big Data results correctly ⇒ Small hospital makes minor investment in analytics and reaps big rewards  ⇒ MIT professor's quick primer on two types of machine learning for healthcare ⇒ Must-haves for machine learning to thrive in healthcare Based solely on clinical quality outcomes, Healthgrades 50 best hospitals for 2016 are in in the top 1 percent of hospitals in the nation for providing overall clinical excellence across a broad spectrum of conditions and procedures consistently for at least six consecutive years.  Here is the breakdown by U.S. State. Arizona Mayo Clinic, Phoenix California Cedars Sinai Medical Center, West Hollywood Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Newport Beach Huntington, Memorial Hospital, Pasadena John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek Mills Peninsula Medical Center, including Mills Health Center, Burlingame Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, Laguna Hills Scripps Green Hospital, La Jolla Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Roseville Colorado Centura Health – Penrose Saint Francis Health Services, Colorado Springs St. Francis Medical Center, Colorado Springs North Colorado Medical Center. Greely Florida Delray Medical Center, Delray Beach Munroe Regional Medical Center, Ocala Georgia Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Gainsville Piedmont Fayette Hospital, Fayetteville Illinois Advocate Christ Hospital and Medical Center, Oak Lawn Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital, Downers Grove Alexian Brothers Medical Center Elk Grove Village Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana Palos Community Hospital, Palos Heights Presence Resurrection Medical Center, Chicago St. Alexius Medical Center, Hoffman Estates Indiana Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital, including Indiana University Health, University Hospital, Indianapolis Iowa Mercy Medical Center – Cedar Rapids, Cedar Rapids Saint Luke’s Hospital, Cedar Rapids Kansas The University of Kansas Hospital, Kansas City Louisiana Ochsner Medical Center, New Orleans, including Oschner Health Center – Elmwood in New Orleans and Oschner Medical Center – West Bank Campus, Terrytown Maryland Medstar Franklin Square Medical Center, Baltimore Medstar Good Samaritan Hospital, Baltimore Medstar Harbor Hospital, Baltimore Massachusetts Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, Mass. Michigan Beaumont Health System, Beaumont-Troy Campus, Troy Holland Hospital, Holland  Providence-Providence Park Hospital, Southfield Campus, Southfield Spectrum Health Medical Center – Butterworth Hospital, including Spectrum Health – Blodgett Hospital, Grand Rapids, Mich. Minnesota North Memorial Medical Center, Robbinsdale Regions Hospital, St. Paul, Minn. New Jersey Morristown Medical Center, Morristown, N.J. New York New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, New York New York Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, New York North Carolina Mission Health, Asheville Pennsylvania Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster Lehigh Valley Hospital Allentown South Carolina AnMed Health – Anmed Health Medical Center, Anderson Texas Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas Virginia Augusta Health, Fisherville Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center, Mechanicsville Wisconsin Aurora Saint Lukes Medical Center, Milwaukee, including Aurora Sinai Medical Center, Milwaukee and Saint Lukes Medical Center, Cudahy Gunderson Lutheran Medical Center, La Crosse The following states had no hospital either in the top 100 (representing 2 percent of hospitals or in the top 50 (representing 1 percent of hospitals): Alabama Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.  Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Healthcare IT News asks HIT professionals to take part in an important new survey that will study the place of EHRs, cybersecurity, population health, Big Data and more in the year ahead.  

The Seattle-based company, which aims to re-engineer how consumers manage their care’ also brought on a vice president of product management to advance its platform.