Population Health
Delbanco also predicts that patients will stop using electronic health records or portals to read what doctors have written about them and, instead, view that on a smartwatch, phone or other gadget.
The practicing physician and entrepreneur said that the carwash model does not work well for healthcare. But he’s optimistic about the future of patient-generated data, biometrics and connected devices improving doctor-patient collaboration.
Angie Puffer, operations manager in the Mayo Clinic’s Office of Access Management, spoke at the Healthcare IT News Pop Health Forum 2016 and shared some of the lessons Mayo has learned in attracting those to the patient portal.
Providers must establish a respectful relationship with patients if they want to have a positive impact on behavior. Technology can help but it’s not a substitute for reaching people where they live and work.
Making the healthcare system more patient-centered is the disruption the industry needs, said David Feinberg, MD.
Under the new Accountable Care Organization, Cigna will reward doctors for healthier populations and reduced expenses.
The pressure to shift to value-based care means providers must understand their patients more deeply than in the past. Achieving that as part of a population health management program demands rethinking existing processes.
The number of chief nursing informatics officers has increased in health systems over the past five years, with more designated CNIO-positions than ever before. The bump comes at a time when the need to bridge the gap between clinical and informatics increasing, according to a recent report commissioned by the workforce search firm Witt/Kieffer.
The research team surveyed 100 respondents from medical centers, independent hospitals and hospitals part of a larger health system to examine the evolving role of the CNIO and whether organizations are recruiting for the position to support the informatics landscape. These results were compared to a similar survey conducted in 2011.
Overall, there are 10 percent more CNIOs in place in organizations than compared to 2011, according to Chris Wierz, principal, Witt/Kieffer Information Technology Practice. While some organizations have created the position of CNIO, others have modified roles to incorporate the CNIO title.
"CNIOs now have a 'seat at the table," Wierz told Healthcare IT News. "From a CNIO perspective, it's so much about collaboration and consensus building; getting those groups of people together when it comes to IT. It's always been about trying to bring disparate groups together to understand the workflow around the electronic medical records and today's IT."
"Communication is a very large role, as well," she added, "acting as a translator between IT and my clinical staff. The ability to articulate your knowledge of IT and clinical is critical in this role."
Depending on the organization, the CNIO is responsible for EMR implementation, clinical IT, optimization of nursing strategy as it relates to IT, and creating a picture of day-to-day operation on clinical IT matters, Wierz said.
Despite the need to bridge these departments, Wierz said there are still many barriers to overcome before the role becomes more commonplace. "One of the reasons this role isn’t gaining enough traction is that there's an IT resistance to it."
Some organizations are lacking the funding for establishing the CNIO position, while other hospitals indicated their organization wasn't big enough to require one, according to the survey.
"Some people will say the reason why they're not implementing a CNIO is because then are you going to need even more "chief" roles," she added. "It's going to be interesting to see whether the CNIO turns into a chief clinical role to help with daily operations."
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
CIOs and innovation officers point to companies such as Ikea, Lego, Oxo -- and how they have conducted observational studies to effectively understand UX and deliver products accordingly.
Lake Health, with 14 facilities, staffed by more than 600 physicians and 2,700 healthcare professionals, will be rolling out a Cerner EHR.
The goal: support the Lake Health system and its employed providers, as well as create greater integration with its community physician network and to provide the best patient experience possible.
Also, patients will benefit from a single health record accessible from a patient portal.
“A strong relationship with our medical staff is the cornerstone of who we are, evidenced by their role in our mission and vision statements and in working with us to provide high-quality patient and family-centered health care in Lake County,” Jerry Peters, VP and CIO for Lake Health, said in a statement.
The EHR will enable the health system to share and receive patient health records with affiliated providers, other area hospitals and participating healthcare entities nationally. Patient data is produced, managed and stored across multiple care organizations in Lake County, Peters noted, and Lake Health was focused on selecting an IT platform that could collect and analyze data from multiple disparate systems.
“Lake Health determined that Cerner’s EHR and Healthelntent population health management platforms were the best choice to support its future initiatives and business model,” Peters said. “Understanding that this investment would most likely shape the future of Lake Health and the care we provide to patients, we completed a thorough evaluation of leading health IT suppliers and collaborated with our physicians and ultimately determined that Cerner was the right choice to support our needs now and into the future.”
Peters did not reveal the anticipated cost of the technology.
Cerner’s Healthelntent platform aggregates and normalizes data from various sources in near real time, regardless of EHR supplier and is designed to provide physicians and mid-level providers with meaningful data to identify and stratify populations to locate gaps in care.