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Sharing Notes with Patients Boosts Engagement
A two-year study from OpenNotes in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found sharing of provider notes with patients is “a no-brainer.” Miscommunication leads to poorly managed chronic conditions, unfulfilled prescriptions, high costs, poor outcomes, and low patient engagement. Researchers sent email reminders to participants that their notes were available. The study invited 14,000 patients to view their electronic notes from provider interaction. In all, 60 percent of the participants at Geisinger Health System checked their notes within thirty days. Researchers found that patients retained more of their medical plans, were more likely to take their medications, and felt more ownership of their personal care. Clinicians were offered an option to opt-out and few did due to the revelation that had negligible impact on the clinical workflows. |
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Report Favors Stronger Cybersecurity Regs for Medical Devices
A new report out of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a bipartisan collaborative endeavoring to bridge the gap between public and private-sector leaders in America’s CI backbone, claims that new guidance out of the FDA on medical devices makers falls far short. "Due to the industry’s continuous lack of cybersecurity hygiene, malicious EHR exfiltration and exploiting vulnerabilities in healthcare’s IoT attack surface continue to be a profitable priority target for hackers,” according to the report. Currently, manufacturers of healthcare devices and providers have the ability to ignore FDA recommendations regarding cybersecurity. Stakeholders have 90 days from the January guideline release to submit comments to the FDA. |
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LabCorp VP Addresses Business and Clinical Motivators Workgroup
Last Wednesday, eHI’s Business and Clinical Motivators workgroup met via conference call for a presentation by the Vice President of Corporate Strategy from LabCorp, Tom Kaminski. Mr. Kaminski focused on LabCorp’s recent actions and new corporate strategy. As a laboratory services enterprise, LabCorp serves as the backend for many genomic and genetic testing services nationwide, and costs for those services are increasing, driving up demand. He also discussed that price is not the only factor in purchase decisions for private consumers, business customers, or public-sector entities. The next meeting is scheduled for March 16 at 2 pm. Materials from the meeting can be found here. |
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eHI Government Affairs Retreat: Policy and Practice in 2016 Review
eHI members and policy experts gathered on February 2, 2016 for the Annual Government Affairs retreat. During the event, participants discussed goals for activities in 2016, including:
- To expand understanding of and gain input on eHI policy and member priorities for 2016.
- To share important, breaking intelligence on key HIT policy and regulatory issues.
- To receive critical membership input on eHI’s action agenda for policy engagement with Congress and the Administration.
- To explore policy priorities and opportunities in the eHI 2020 Roadmap.
Follow the link to view the entire review.
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Contact with Healthcare Systems Varies Dramatically
Researchers with the Dartmouth Atlas Project examined data from 306 hospital referral regions across America. The study found that contact with the healthcare system varies greatly by region. With an increasingly aging population, some Medicare patients spent almost a month of cumulative time per year in contact with healthcare providers. Eastern Long Island and Manhattan tied for the longest time spent in contact with healthcare. The lowest on average were found in Lebanon, New Hampshire and Marquette, Michigan. These two locations averaged roughly 10 days per year. In order to cope, hospitals must improve in five areas by reducing:
- prostate cancer screening for men 75 and older
- feeding tube placement in dementia patients
- lengths of intensive care stays in the last six months of life
- breast cancer screening for patients 75 and older
- late end-of-life hospice referrals
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ONC Discusses Role of Care Coordination in HIPAA
In the third post in a series, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT discussed how covered entities can exchange information regarding care coordination and care management. The post provides three examples that demonstrate how HIPAA influences privacy when providers exchange information. For instance, one example explored where a provider is referring their patient to a long-term care facility. What are the restrictions on the referring provider? The post explores this and more.
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At the Dawn of Precision Medicine
A recent publication by JAMA presented the physician viewpoint that now is the time for precision medicine. Precision medicine will allow providers to use predictive analysis to identify high risk patients, develop a care plan to monitor and manage their disease and ultimately improve their health, thereby reducing preventable readmissions. Data analytics is the foundation that precision medicine is built upon, however many hospitals either lack an analytics infrastructure or may not yet have developed an analytics strategy. With the transition to value-based payment models, population health is gaining more importance and big data analytics has a wealth of untapped insights for providers and payers to improve health outcomes. The move towards precision medicine and care coordination is being sparked by physicians who are now interested in incorporating analytics in their care routine. With the advent of ACOs, this may be a critical component to deliver high value at the right cost.
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ONC Survey shows that Patient comfort with EHRs and Data Sharing is Increasing
Prior to the upsurge of data breaches in 2015-2016, patients expressed comfort in EHR use and sharing their data. A nationwide survey conducted by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT between 2012 and 2014 indicated that seventy-five percent of patients supported their provider’s use of EHRs despite potential privacy concerns. The concerned for privacy issues among respondents decreased between 2012 and 2014, and seven out of ten individuals expressed support of electronically exchanging their health information. Just five percent of respondents indicated that they have withheld certain information from providers due to privacy concerns. In light of the recent cyber-attacks on medical health records, ONC acknowledges the need to preserve patient trust in order to establish an interoperable Health IT infrastructure.
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ONC predicts Big wins with Telehealth
Telehealth can improve access to care while increasing operational savings. Particularly in rural areas where there are fewer providers and commuting may be a challenge for both physicians and patients, implementing telehealth solutions that allow patients to receive care remotely can result in big wins to the bottom line and to patient satisfaction scores. This high-value purchasing strategy will play a key role in the rapidly changing healthcare provider landscape, according to a recent post at the Health Affairs blog. Telehealth solutions can also reduce the over-utilization of more expensive resources and locations that are not always needed in primary care visits. Recently, ONC predicted that using and paying for telehealth services in Medicare Advantage can save $160 million in a decade. Consumer giants like Walgreens and CVS have caught on to this shift in health delivery and many retail clinics are surging in business. It is left for the healthcare system to quickly adopt this model and enjoy the rewards of improved care outcomes and profits to the bottom line.
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