Patient Engagement

The new tool builds on the SAP Foundation for Health platform by enabling third-parties to build apps for very specific use cases, like diabetes management, prescription fulfillment or non-adherence issues. 

The hardware and software combination brings a touchscreen UI and the company integrated it with medical grade sensors. 

Can healthcare providers succeed in population health management without buy-in for patients? Not likely, no. There are, however, ways of engaging those patient populations where a little information can go a long way. Take ARcare, for instance, a private nonprofit corporation serving primary care and dental needs in rural Arkansas. Just don’t let the geography fool you. ARcare is a Blue Button participant and a HIMSS Davies Award winner. Among the IT-savvy population health initiatives, ARcare increased clinicians’ ability to treat patients with diabetes. And it did so with common and relatively inexpensive technology: SMS texting. [Poll: What topics will define HIMSS16?] “We use population health management to improve diabetes and hypertension education with interactive SMS with our patients,” ARcare CIO Greg Wolverton said, adding that ARcare uses the HIMSS Patient Engagement Framework. Wolverton will discuss ARcare’s challenges and successes in a HIMSS16 session titled “Consumer-Driven Care and the Push Toward Population Health,” on Thursday. Culled from lessons learned along the way, Wolverton recommends that healthcare organizations moving toward population health management not only recognize the role of messaging tools working in conjunction with electronic health records to coordinate care across various facilities, but also identify agile and scalable efficiencies those technologies can enable. What’s more, laying the technological foundation for consumer-driven care can give healthcare organizations data to better understand how these approaches impact patients and population alike and, from there, optimize care plans for individuals. Finally, there’s the financial upside. “Population health when properly managed can improve patients’ health,” Wolverton said, “and increase operational revenue for providers.” Wolverton’s session “Consumer-Driven Care and the Push Toward Population Health,” is slated to take place Thursday March 3, 2016 from 11:30-12:30 PST in the Sands Expo Convention Center Palazzo E. Twitter: @SullyHIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

For hospitals and provider networks to successfully navigate the transition to value-based care, they must develop new care models that emphasize education and outreach to patients, experts say. This is particularly important in the case of patients with chronic conditions, many of whom ineffectively manage their health and medications, resulting in expensive emergency room treatment, readmissions, and unfavorable outcomes. Winona Health has been practicing outreach on a number of fronts and, in fact, was among the Office of the National Coordinator’s Beacon programs, winning a grant as a participant of the Southeast Minnesota beacon Community Project. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] The Minnesota-based health network with more than 60 physicians and associate providers, 1,100 employees and 400 volunteers, a hospital, nursing home and two assisted-living communities, also launched an initiative called the Community Care Network. "Many of the reasons people come into the ER and have these re-hospitalizations aren’t necessarily medical," said Rachelle Schultz, president and CEO of Winona Health. "It’s often a home situation: Do they have enough food to eat? Do they have social support?" In a talk at HIMSS16 titled, "Building a Community Care Network for High-Needs Patients," Schultz will describe how Winona enlisted volunteers from a local university to act as its eyes and ears in the community, thus providing the hospital with ground-level information, an essential ingredient of effective population health management. "When we see the same patient coming back for readmission, for ED visits on some level of frequency, something’s happening that we don’t know about," Schultz said. "This initiative allows us to see what’s broken outside of our walls." Hospitalized patients are asked if they would like to take part in the program, which sends volunteers into their homes and communities. Participants range in age from 19 to 91, with an average age of 62. Most typically have multiple chronic conditions such as diabetes and COPD, while 25 percent to 30 percent have a primary diagnosis of a mental health condition. See all of our HIMSS16 previews The volunteers don’t provide clinical care; rather, they act as a partner and resource for patients, meeting them for coffee, walking them around the block, making sure they’re eating the right foods, listening to them, and suggesting small changes that will improve the patient’s health. Volunteers also use positive messaging to encourage healthy patient behavior. Winona’s population health initiative also relies on smart registries to learn where else patients may be seeking care in the area or region. In the first year of the program, Winona Health achieved an 85 percent to 95 percent decrease in readmissions and preventable visits, saving more than $250,000. But Schultz said the initiative isn’t about money. "We talk about patient-centered care in healthcare, but we don’t really do it," she said. "This is the most patient-centered care we could possibly provide. Based on what we’ve seen, I know we’re making a big impact in people’s lives. We’re transforming how we deliver care." Schultz said C-suite healthcare professionals attending HIMSS16 would benefit from attending her session because "if they don’t buy off on this kind of initiative, it won’t go anywhere." The session, "Building a Community Care Network for High-Needs Patients," is slated to take place Tuesday, March 1, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Center Palazzo I at the Sands Expo Convention Center. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Healthcare organizations are making big investments in population health and patient engagement platforms as they prepare to move past meaningful use and toward value-based reimbursement, according to "The Big Mega HIT Purchasing Report" released Monday by market research firm peer60. Electronic health records remain core to healthcare IT, according to the report, which gathered 567 responses from CEOs, CIOs, nursing and financial leaders and others with purchasing authority at hospitals and medical practices. However,many customers are still dissatisfied with their products. Projected EHR replacement rates for 2016 show 23 percent of health providers (inpatient and outpatient combined) planning to look for new vendors, according to peer60. [Also: Hospitals keeping close eye on revenue cycle vendors] Still, "population health and patient engagement are the hottest areas by a wide margin," wrote peer60 executive vice president Chris Jensen in the report. "It’s really no surprise these two segments continue to lead the way among hospital IT upgrades considering their impact on successful migration to value-based care and value-based purchasing." As for pop health, peer60s sees some stabilization in contracting plans. In 2015, roughly 25 percent of providers were certain they'd keep their population health vendor; in 2016, that amount has doubled. "The pressure is on for vendors that have not already made their mark in this market because they’re about to be squeezed by increasing renewal rates and a declining pool of hospitals that have not already adopted," said Jensen. [Also: New trends ahead for imaging informatics] But when it comes to patient engagement, authors see the opposite. "More enterprise vendors are capturing more of the minds of providers, while interest in the best of breed crowd is beginning to dwindle," Jensen said. Other big purchasing trends are also unsurprising. Data security, enterprise analytics and revenue cycle management are all in play. Security technology, especially, has seen a big jump in provider interest. "In 2015 it was at the bottom of the list of top IT priorities and placed third this year," said Jensen. "Since this is not a growth market with 90 percent of hospitals already employing a true data security solution, the jump in interest in this area likely means the replacement market for more robust solutions in this very critical segment is heating up. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN

Receiving a life-threatening health diagnosis can be frightening, confusing, and overwhelming. Unfortunately, how hospitals deliver subsequent medical information to patients and families can contribute to those feelings, rather than ease them. At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, for example, families used to receive a large notebook of information during their initial hospital admission -- just hours or days after they had been informed of their child’s cancer diagnosis. “Receipt of this notebook did not ensure education,” said Dana McLure, Nursing Administration and Patient Care Services Project Manager, at St. Jude. “As a matter of fact, at times nurses would find the ‘education notebook’ had not been reviewed by the patient or family days after admission.” [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Through the facility’s Shared Decision Making model of leadership, clinical nurses reported that indeed, patients and their families often “had little or no retention of the information that had been presented.” By incorporating what McLure called the “bedside caregiver perspective,” information overload and timing of patient education were identified as obstructions to both the patient experience and caregivers’ satisfaction. In a HIMSS16 session, “Watch and Learn: Transforming Patient Education,” on March 3, McLure and her colleague and Neely James, Systems Analyst for Patient Care Services Informatics at St. Jude, will focus on key ways to improve the transmission of such vital information. Migration from verbal or paper education to digital delivery makes sense in today’s world, in which patients and families are accustomed to learning and communicating via technology such as email, text message, websites, and more. A major discovery, they report, was that use of video education, whether live action or animation, provides a broader and more effective platform for information transfer. “Because we are a pediatric hospital many of our parents are millennials and more likely to be comfortable with information being delivered in a video format,” McLure said. “Our patients are definitely of the YouTube generation.” See all of our HIMSS16 previews Video presentations can provide demonstrations of procedures, proper use of devices, or even visual examples of symptoms, “which can lead to enhanced comprehension,” they continue. What’s more, they add, placing education into an on-demand video format “allows the patient or family to watch the education when it is convenient for them, as opposed to when the clinician provider has time to provide it.” And such videos can also be viewed more than one time based on the individual patient and family learning needs. “Determining when a patient or family is ready to learn is as important as determining what they need to know,” McLure said. The session "Watch and Learn: Transforming Patient Education," will take place from 1-2 p.m. on Thursday, March 3, in Lando 4201. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Hackensack University Medical Center is tapping new technologies to achieve more effective medication adherence, according to Hackensack UMC’s director of pharmacy Nilesh Desai. Hackensack UMC has been an early adopter of technologies and processes to advance medication safety and nurse workflows, Desai explained, along with interoperability between automated dispensing cabinets and EHRs. [Also: 11 essential quotes from notable HIMSS keynotes] Nurses are responsible for interacting with the automated medication dispensing cabinets, and the time they spend at the cabinets can be reduced significantly via more interoperable systems, for instance. Desai will discuss the hospital's progress in this realm during a HIMSS16 session titled “Impact of an ADC System on Medication Administration.” See all of our HIMSS16 previews Medical administration systems must be able to address patient-specific medications and offer robust inventory and data management processes, Desai said. Hackensack UMC tapped Omnicell, a provider of medication and supply management solutions and analytics software for healthcare facilities, to deliver automated medication management solutions throughout the 775-bed hospital. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

OpenNotes is emerging as one of the most promising applications in the national movement toward more effectively engaging patients with a range of technologies including EHRs, mobile software, telehealth tools. And it is proving especially useful in the data liberation revolution.  “Medical care is very expensive and the information in medical records should belong to the patients,” said Homer Chin, MD, the physician champion for the Northwest OpenNotes Consortium. “This opens the record up for them and gives them access to their own information. So it’s really about greater transparency of the healthcare system.” The Northwest OpenNotes Consortium is a group working to implement Open Notes across all health systems in Oregon and the Portland Metro region. See all of our HIMSS16 previews Initial studies of OpenNotes usage have shown that patients felt more engaged in their care and that they were more likely to take medicine as prescribed, Chin said. Seventy-five percent reported taking better care of themselves, better understanding of their medical conditions, and were better prepared for visits. They felt more in control of their care and said that availability of OpenNotes would affect their future choice of providers. “They felt closer to their providers and more engaged with their medical care with the ability to see these notes,” Chin said.  Another potential benefit of OpenNotes is its promise to make medical care more efficient and less expensive. “Our gut sense is it probably will but that remains to be seen because we don’t have the hard data,” Chin said. “If people are on the same page, they won’t be reordering tests, won’t be redoing things. The patient will be more engaged and will understand what’s going on to a greater extent. But data hasn’t been gathered yet.” [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] Early concerns about OpenNotes from physicians about it taking up more time for doctors and patients were allayed with use of the technology. “In our experience, when organizations go live with OpenNotes the predominant thing we hear from physicians is it was a non-event,” Chin said. “When the functionality was implemented, hardly anything was heard from the patients and doctors. In general, after implementing OpenNotes, physicians turned out to be very supportive and found it to be very helpful.”  Chin’s session, "OpenNotes and the Northwest OpenNotes Consortium," is slated for Tuesday March 1, 2016 from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Sands Expo Convention Center room Lando 4201. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Dell's chief medical officer says baby boomers have great expectations about how health IT can work to their advantage.

Healthcare economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn is delighted that the patient component of the healthcare information technology is finally coming of age. Health IT professionals have been witness to the growing role of the consumer in educational sessions and at exhibitions and she expects even more of that at HIMSS16 when it kicks off later this month. Sarasohn-Kahn, who will be attending as a Social Media Ambassador, writes the Health Populi blog and tweets at @HealthyThinker. She shared her thoughts on how much the patient perspective has gained traction in the two decades she’s been attending HIMSS, the need for healthcare organizations to take a hard look at the return on EHR investments and the importance of getting workflow right. [Also: Bill Bunting talks 2016 predictions, patient engagement] Q: One health IT prediction for 2016? A: Now that some $35 billion in HITECH funding has been spent, healthcare providers wonder: what's the ROI? Congress, too, asks the question in other ways, although bipartisan support continues for health information technology inside the Beltway. In 2016, we will see more candid conversations about the lack of ROI from big capital spending for EHRs. This will result in healthcare provider demands for lighter (and less capital intensive) streamlined approaches to data liquidity, data collection (say, via sensors), and standards adoption like FHIR. As my fellow HIMSS16 Social Media Ambassador Charles Webster, MD is fond of saying: "It's all about the workflow." And in a value-based payment environment, that workflow is part of the lifeblood for healthcare providers.  Q: Shifting gears a bit, what is one thing about you that not even devout followers are likely to know? A: I'm a huge believer in the role that food and nutrition play in health, beyond healthcare. We know that our genes tell only a fraction of our personal health stories. Our lifestyle behaviors contribute mightily to our overall health and wellness. So my family and I belong to our local community-supported agriculture farm, led by our wonderful and talented homeopathic farmer, Erik. And we are Italo-philes devoted to the Slow Food movement founded in Bologna, Italy. Q: So what inspired you to apply for Social Media Ambassador credentials? A: As a member of HIMSS for more than 20 years, I can remember that the patient was rarely part of educational sessions or the exhibit hall in my early days of being involved with the organization. I joined HIMSS' Connected Patient Committee several years ago, and we collaborated to help drive the message of the patient's role in healthcare to the organization and its members. Q: What are you most looking forward to learning more about at this year’s conference? A: Topics such as self-care with patient portals and personal health records systems, health engagement. Also, financial wellness, such as what providers are doing in terms of revenue-cycle management, financial services for patients and healthcare banking. See all of our HIMSS16 previews Q: And what do you see as the untold potential for social media in healthcare? A: There's no doubt that social media has become an integral part of the healthcare landscape in the U.S. Today, social media is driving the collective wisdom of patients and the wisdom of providers - the tremendous impact of peer-to-peer healthcare for consumers and caregivers, provider-to-provider and provider-to-patient. This is resulting in greater democratization in healthcare and better information symmetry between patients and their clinicians, all of which enables health engagement that underpins the Triple Aim to improve outcomes, enhance the healthcare experience and lower per capita costs. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.