IDC Health Insights Community > HealthTech Industry Perspectives

Will a New Patent for a Practice Management Implementation Process Stifle Innovation?

Thu, 20 May 2010 13:02:33 +0000

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Yesterday morning I noticed the announcement that a new patent that had been awarded to athenahealth, for the "Automated Configuration of Medical Practice Management Systems." While I'll admit that I have not read the patent document in detail, a scan of the document reveals that the patented process includes steps for gathering information about a practice and configuring a billing system remotely that are apparently in use by athenahealth in the implementation of athenaCollector. Remote configuration is available for many applications in many industries, from many vendors, including other practice management and EMR vendors in healthcare. The patent reminds me of a similar patent issued to an early implementor of internet-based electronic data capture in life science, and seems just as likely to divert vendors and stifle innovation.

The announcement about the patent states that the "technology involves receiving information about the medical practice (e.g., address, insurance plan information, provider information) prior to the configuration of the medical practice management system, associating that information with payer rules stored in a database, and requesting additional information for configuration of the medical practice management system to ensure that claims transmitted through the system meet payer requirements." Isn't it common sense that collecting information and associating that information with rules would allow the system to be configured electronically to submit claims?

The parallel that I draw to EDC in life science is that of a patent that was issued in 2002 to two Maryland-based doctors for "Methods and apparatus for the centralized collection and validation of geographically distributed clinical study data with verification of input data to the distributed system," essentially the process of using the Internet to collect data during clinical trials. With more than 70% of clinical trials conducted electronically today, the content of the DataSci patent seemed like common sense and many other vendors were performing similar activities at the time it was granted, however, lawsuits and their defenses diverted the attention of vendors like PhaseForward, OmniComm and DataTrak for many years, and likely efforts to avoid the patent stifled innovation for many others. The lawsuits were eventually settled by most of the vendors.

The athenahealth patent is worrisome, and the process involved does not seem that unique, based on my understanding of the activities of many vendors in the space. As ARRA implementations of EHR continue, practice management upgrades are quite common, and many vendors are using remote configuration tools to facilitate and accelerate implementations. This patent threatens to create costly legal squabbles if enforced, to divert attention, and to stifle innovation in the area of implementation practices by EHR and PM vendors. Ongoing innovation will be critical to the long term digital transformation of the healthcare industry, spurred by ARRA and likely to only have a small window to succeed. Any delays or diversions increase the likelihood of failure.

Social Networking with Patients: A New Ethical Consideration for Clinicians?

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:26:15 +0000

Entry by Lynne Dunbrack

Entry

A recent article in the Boston Globe – Think Before you Click – suggests that the Internet is creating new ethical considerations for clinicians. Should clinicians Google their patients? And if they do, should they tell them before or after they searched for them online? Questions also abound about social networking and whether clinicians should “friend” their patients, and vice versa. The short answer is no, but read on for a safe way for patients and clinicians to interact online by following these 5 quick social networking tips for providers.

Patients are well advised to Google their physicians, just like they would research any other professional or service person they would engage to perform a service on their behalf. There are numerous sites that provide information about physicians, including where they went to medical school and did their residency, if they have any scholarly publications or awards, and in some cases if there are any sanctions or malpractice suits against them. There are even physician rating sites that allow patients to comment on their experience. (For more information on physician rating sites, see Health 2.0 Payer Strategies: Consumers Rating the Physician Experience)

But should physicians Google their patients? Before doing so, they should ask themselves why they are seeking this information and how will knowing this information benefit the patient’s care. Will this information become part of the patient’s record? How will its accuracy be verified? Some psychiatrists interviewed for the article suggested that in certain cases searching for a patient or looking at their social networking pages could be justified if they thought the patient was suicidal for example.

Social networking with its own modern mores presents a new set of considerations for the online physician. For example, should physicians accept “friend requests” from patients on social networking sites? The short answer is no. The same common sense rules of maintaining the professional physician-patient relationship in the real world should apply to the virtual world of social networking. If the patient and physician do not see each other socially outside the practice then they should not be commingling their online lives.

That said, social networking sites can be used effectively by physicians to market their practice or provide educational material to current and prospective patients. (See Best Practices: Eight Minutes to Change Their Lives for more information about how an OB-GYN physician group incorporated social networking into its practice and increased patient loyalty and practice revenue.) Clinicians should create separate profiles or user accounts for their practice if they want to also utilize social media for their personal use. This step allows the physician to maintain the appropriate boundary between patients and themselves. Facebook, for example, allows organizations to set up pages (versus profiles used by individuals) to promote themselves. Individuals (e.g., patients) can become a fan of the page/organization and receive news updates but cannot see the personal profile of the page administrator. Nor can the page administrator see the personal profile of the individual. Thus, providers could set up a Facebook page to send news updates and education material to its fans. Major hospitals systems such as the Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic have Facebook fan pages. See Macarthur OBGYN’s Facebook page for an example of one for a physician practice.

5 Quick Social Networking Tips for Providers

Set up a separate profile, user account or page (as dictated by the social networking site) for your professional online presence.
Pay attention to privacy settings on both personal and professional pages. Only friends who you accept should have access to your personal page to prevent patients from being privy to your personal life.
Do not accept patients as friends on your personal profile unless you see them socially in the real world and consider them “real-world friends.”
Use your practice social networking site to guide patients to reliable and accurate health information.
Display reminders to patients not to post personal health information or send urgent medical inquiries through the social networking site.

What do you think about physicians Googling patients or engaging with patients using social networking sites, such as Facebook?

Keywords

Heatlh 2.0, Social Networking, Facebook

What will the French Hospital sector look like in 2015?

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:45:53 +0000

Entry by Silvia Piai

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The hospital sector in France is undergoing major reforms. IDC Health Insights EMEA has just completed a special research study focused on the combined implications of changes in the French healthcare system, the role of ICT, and the delivery of care. During the study IDC Health Insights analysts interviewed representatives from 150 hospitals across France as well as members of the IT vendor community. Our findings suggest that executives in the larger hospitals envisage a more significant role for technology as France's healthcare reform is implemented, but the challenge will be ensuring that the technology is used to improve patient care and treatment.

In the 2000 World Health Organization health-care ranking, France was at the top of the list. Ten years later, the quality of care remains the same, but like every other nation, France is wrestling with runaway health-care inflation. The French government has embarked on a long-term reform initiative aimed at minimizing the burden of cost. The reform law "Hôpital, patients, santé et territories" (hospital, patients, health and territory) will shape the new national health system. The law is based on the following four basic principles:

Modernization of healthcare organizations. This aims to allow providers to focus on core activities through a redefinition of the public service mission, redefinition of governance and greater autonomy at local level. This will be accomplished through the establishment of federated or integrated territorial hospital communities and so-called "groupement de coopération sanitaire" (group of health cooperation).
Better access to "quality" health services. This ascribes a pivotal role to GPs with the goal of restructuring ambulatory care.
Public health and prevention. This set of measures, along with national prevention programs, is focused on developing tools for patient empowerment and patient education about diseases and their prevention.
Health system organization based on geographical competences. The establishment of regional health agencies supported by a regional health policy that has been agreed with physicians' unions and by regionally allocated health funds.

Actions and initiatives under the first pillar will mostly affect the role and the organization of hospitals. Major ICT investments in the coming year will be highly influenced by this part of the reform. ICT is considered to be an enabler of these new integrated territorial hospital communities. To support this, the government has re-launched some projects for health information sharing through its new agency "ASIP" (Agence des systèmes d’information de santé partagés-shared health information systems agency). One such example is the DMP (electronic medical record) project to determine who will host services in the first phase of the pilot and to define an interoperability framework for eHealth applications.

In addition, the government is about to release new funds in support of IT projects under the auspices of the famous and troubled Hospital 2012 plan. But as we all know, the devil is the details, and details, here, come along with the realization of these initiatives in the specific context of each hospital.

IDC Health Insights started talking with major healthcare institutions and category associations in order to understand what is problematic today with ICT in the hospital environment. Hospitals in France are eager investors in ICT, with 67% of total healthcare spending, but this does not explain what the current needs are and how they are expected to evolve considering all of the concurrent organizational changes. To better understand this, we recently conducted a survey, interviewing executives from 150 French hospitals. We asked about current and future specific technology adoption, but also asked about the barriers and opportunities of ICT implementation and solicited opinions on the effects of the reform law and of the new wave of funds coming in the next months. New functionalities for clinicians, better integrated administrative and care information and impcompliance with regulations emerged as main drivers of ICT investments. IT departments of bigger hospitals envisage a new role with the implementation of the reform. In particular, 57% of those who expect the reform to change their role, see an opportunity to become shared service providers and ICT competency centres for other hospitals.

An adequate budget is always considered a key point for long-term investment programs; however, as it emerged from our analysis also managing in an effective way big amount of money can be a problem. Funds coming from the Hospital 2012 plan will, in certain cases, double or triple the current IT budget: due to the current lack of expertise and adequate human resource many hospital IT departments expect to face some problems in managing this flux of money. It emerged once again, that an adequate budget is not the total solution but it is definitely part of it. There are plenty of other considerations from our study results. We are going to discuss more study findings in a round table "Comment exercerez-vous la médecine en 2015?" (How will you practice medicine in 2015?) at Medec 2010 the annual congress of French general medicine (www.lemedec.com). ASIP Santé, the new government agency for ICT in healthcare will host this round table. Focus of the discussion will be a better usage of ICT to support treatment for patients with chronic conditions and how to enable the continuity of care between primary care institutions and the hospital. See you there!

Keywords

IDC Health Insights, Special Study, France, Hospital sector, Medec 2010, Survey, Hopital 2012, Loi HPTS, reform impact

Looking Across Regions: Top 10 Predictions 2010 in EMEA and the U.S.

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:25:40 +0000

Entry by Judy Hanover

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As analysts here at IDC Health Insights, each year we have the task of looking at the big picture and examining the technologies, trends and drivers that we believe will most heavily impact healthcare organizations in the coming year. We present these to our clients and friends in the predictions reports and webcasts each January, with separate editions for the U.S. and EMEA regions. While I focus on the U.S. market, as I was reading through the 2010 EMEA predictions I was struck by both the similarities and the differences between the predictions as identified by our analyst teams in both regions. I wanted to discuss some of the differences between the two sets of predictions as they are informative and provide an interesting insight into the different healthcare delivery environments across the U.S. and EMEA. The main difference between the two environments is the existence of major national healthcare systems in EMEA, while the U.S. remains a largely private payer and fee-for-service system.

EMR and HIE technologies figured heavily in both the U.S. and EMEA predictions, although the nature of the predictions reflected the prevailing situation in the respective regions. In the U.S., the national, time-delimited incentive program introduced in 2009 to fund EMRs and HIEs under ARRA focused the predictions on those technologies for which federal funding was available in the near term. In the U.S., the predictions around EMRs and HIEs involved technologies and goals that were requirements for meaningful use and federal incentives under ARRA, and would allow providers to attain the maximum funding. The EMEA predictions reflected progress in 2010 for EMR and HIE technology along a more natural adoption cycle, using terms like "economic sustainability" and "rightsizing" that reflect progress in 2010 without the specific meaningful use requirements and implementation milestones providers will follow in the U.S. Different adoption paths across the EMEA region will be influenced by the various government eHealth plans and by financial sources that will be allocated also considering current economic climate.

EMEA analysts also predicted that communications and document management technologies will be top investment areas, as these improve communications between providers and capture documentation, serving as stepping stones along the path to EMR adoption. These did not make the top 10 in the U.S., although we also expect growth in these areas, the meaningful use incentives are likely to drive more organizations directly to full EMR implementations. It will be interesting to watch the two paths unfold over the coming years and observe the results in the two regions, particularly if the U.S. embarks on a path to further healthcare reform. In a related prediction, both regions observe that partnerships between vendors and other players in the distribution channel will be critical to driving EMR and HIE technology in local small and solo practices along the last mile.

In both regions, telemedicine, personal health platforms, business intelligence and desktop virtualization technologies were included in the 2010 top 10, as both regions observe a perfect storm of drivers for these technologies. In the U.S. we predicted the emergence of medical home best practices, as the nature of the fee-for-service system is driving the need for the medical home model to improve quality and care coordination. In EMEA. patient relationship management technology enters the top 10; while in the U.S. we are beginning to see inroads into provider CRM and predict growth in provider CRM in 2010, the technology did not enter the top 10. In the U.S., the remaining predictions centered on revenue cycle management, again, technology specific to a fee-for-service environment, and on security. While much is different between the 2010 top 10 for U.S. and EMEA, there are clearly many technologies we expect to proceed significantly in both regions over the coming year. For more information, feel free to post questions in our forum, check out the U.S. 2010 Top 10 Predictions document, the EMEA Top 10 Document (forthcoming), or the replays and slides from the U.S. Top 10 Predictions Webcast or EMEA Top 10 Predictions Webcast. I can be reached by email at jhanover@idc.com.

Keywords

EMR, HIE, EMEA, US, telemedicine, security, personal health platforms, desktop, client, virtualization, meaningful use, fee-for-service, business intelligence, medical home, PHR

Microsoft Acquires Sentillion and Broadens the Amalga UIS Platform

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:44:51 +0000

Entry by Lynne Dunbrack

Entry

Microsoft Corp. announced its acquisition of privately held Sentillion on December 10, 2009. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Andover, Mass., Sentillion develops and markets single sign-on (SSO), context management and user provisioning technologies to the provider market primarily in the United States. The acquisition is expected to close in early calendar year 2010. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition is mutually beneficial to Microsoft and Sentillion. As a result, Microsoft will obtain strong SSO, context management and user provisioning to complement its Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS), while Sentillion expects to benefit from Microsoft's technical and global resources. Microsoft's global sales and support offices will help Sentillion to scale it customer base beyond its current footprint of the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Sentillion's customer base of 170 customers representing 1,000 hospitals also presents an attractive cross selling opportunity for Microsoft and Amalga UIS.

The acquisition builds off an ongoing business relationship between the two companies. Sentillion is currently a Microsoft gold certified partner and Microsoft’s preferred Identity and Access Management partner for healthcare. In June 2009, Sentillion announced a licensing agreement with Microsoft to allow its SSO and context management technology to be a featured module of Amalga UIS.

This acquisition is consistent with Microsoft's platform strategy of adding applications that add value to the ecosystem. Sentillion's product line will help Amalga customers address the heterogeneity inherent in a complex and fragmented health system and ease physician collaboration as they navigate the clinical and administrative systems deployed across the enterprise.

But where does the acquisition leave Microsoft technology partners that compete with Sentillion? Microsoft states that it will support Amalga customers using competing SSO and user provisioning products. However, the acquisition will undoubtedly vex Microsoft's healthcare technology partners in the SSO and context management space.

What's your take on the acquisition?

Keywords

Microsoft, Sentillion Amalga Unified Intelligence System, single sign on, SSO, user provisioning, context management, identity access and management, IAM

10 Years of Patient Safety: Where Are We Now?

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:49:06 +0000

Entry by Judy Hanover

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Last month marked the 10^th anniversary of the publication of the November 1999 publication of the Institute of Medicine's report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. This landmark report highlighted the critical situation and the contributing factors in what it called the "nation's epidemic of medical errors." Two oft-quoted statistics from the 1999 report were the estimated annual cost of these medical errors, between $17B and $29B annually, and the number who die in hospitals as a result of them, "at least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000," each year. In the intervening ten years since the IOM report we have clearly seen some improvements to patient safety, but there is still much need for improvement.

The 1999 IOM report discussed a wide spectrum of error types but tied the causes of most of them back to the U.S. healthcare system's problematic processes and procedures, which either result in medical errors or fail to prevent them. The IOM-proposed solution centered on creating a focus on error prevention in our nation's hospitals, supported by error prevention technology such as computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and medication administration systems. Responses to the report came from government, hospitals, payers and the private sector, and contained widespread acknowledgement of the critical situation outlined by the IOM yet little in the form of concrete plans or financial assistance for hospitals at the forefront.

As we mark 10 years since this important publication, there is much discussion of the impact of the report and the progress made. This past week, Robert Wachter published a paper in the journal Health Affairs, titled Patient Safety at Ten: Unmistakable Progress, Troubling Gaps, which reflected on the progress on patient safety since 1999. In his paper, Wachter, a professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, identifies 10 patient safety domains and assigns a letter grade to the industry's progress in each of the 10 domains. In a midterm report in 2004 Wachter evaluated 5 of the domains, and the additional 5 are newly described in this paper.

The domains Wachter identifies where grades have slipped since 2004 include:

Regulatory/accreditation, where early advances were made but advances since 2004 have been incremental
Health IT, where slow adoption and growing evidence of IT-related safety hazards and implementation issues are emerging, although he notes the area will likely be helped by stimulus funding
Workforce and training issues, as staffing shortages continue to contribute to poor engagement by providers

Domains that identified strengths or showed improvement included:

Reporting systems, where the advent of the National Quality Forum and "never event" reporting have driven gains
Malpractice systems and accountability, where the grade is still poor but improved as a result of some improvements in leadership accountability
Provider organization leadership engagement, a new category where strong performance resulted from a focus on safety at the senior level within provider organizations
National and international organizational interventions, a new category where strength came from efforts by national and international organizations including the AHRQ, NQF, JCAHO, ACGME, WHO and IHI

According to Wachter, the overall grade has improved slightly from a C+ in 2004 to a B- in 2009, resulting from improvements in safety reporting and leadership, and reflecting the promise of stimulus funding to address gaps in IT and accountability. It is clear that the past 10 years have been important to patient safety, but stimulus funding over the next five years holds the promise of making an even-greater impact.

Keywords

patient safety, IOM, CPOE, NQF, stimulus, ARRA

Looking at the Health Reform Crystal Ball: Technology Investment Focus 2010

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:50:36 +0000

Entry by Janice Young

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The House Leadership Bill: Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962), October 29, 2009 establishes a clear mandate for healthcare coverage for all Americans. Beyond this, it leaves much of the current insurance and delivery system unchanged, with studies and recommendations regarding payment and some delivery changes to be addressed later. Although a new public health insurance option to be delivered through a National Health Insurance Exchange is included, no specific mandate for competitive efficiency, delivery or value is provided. Many of the directives toward reducing costs and increasing quality require studies to be executed during the first year or two (2011 and 2012) of this reform Bill. As more consumers are engaged in US healthcare insurance coverage, healthcare costs continue to rise and best practices for reimbursement and service delivery are restudied, focus will undoubtedly be the next industry theme and watchword.

Recent surveys in the past year have corroborated decades of previous research indicating that tremendous savings occur with better management of the top five chronic illnesses. As one example: Dr. Earl Ford of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed a study of 23,000 Germans, and found that a healthy lifestyle (never smoking, healthy weight maintenance, an exercise program and a healthy diet) had a huge impact in preventing or delaying chronic disease. (reuters). Compared to those without any of these healthy factors, individuals making and sticking to these life choices had reportedly an 93 percent lower risk of diabetes, and 81 percent lower risk of heart attack and a 36 percent lower risk of cancer. We also know that adherence to treatment and therapeutic protocols lowers costs significantly for those with chronic diseases. And furthermore, this week a Rand Corporation study suggests that bundled payments for chronic disease care and management could save over $1 billion/year if used for all Medicare services; much more if applied more broadly into the commercial market.

There is little in the current reform legislation to address unmitigated cost increases. Furthermore, cost constraints will require healthcare payers and provider to focus attention on the most significant opportunities. In this context, Health Insights expects technology investment in 2010 and beyond to begin to reflect two market priorities: 1. Investment in quote to card technologies and analytics to improve and automate marketing, sales, underwriting, product selection and enrollment processes. 2. A focus on care and cost management of chronic illness over other strategies. This means that deployment of PHR, EHR alerts and triggers, telemedicine, cell phone technologies, product customization and incentive programs will move from a broad brush incentive strategy (everyone gets one). Instead, the market will move toward a strategic and focused investment by population characteristics – with the first target those populations with the highest health risk, costs and opportunity for cost savings and improved health.

Keywords

health reform, healthcare payer, investment, sales and marketing, chronic disease

Google’s Sidewiki in the Garden of Good and Evil

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:28:48 +0000

Entry by Lynne Dunbrack

Entry

Google recently launched a new toolbar feature, Sidewiki, that enables Web site visitors to add comments regardless of whether the site allows visitors to comment As one might imagine this new Google feature has created quite a controversy and has serious implications for healthcare and life science organizations, especially pharmaceutical companies.

How Sidewiki Works

To view Sidewiki comments you must use the Google Toolbar and install the Sidewiki addon, which requires Internet Explorer 6+ or Firefox 2+. Ironically, Sidewiki is not yet available for Google's own browser, Chrome. Sidewiki comments appear in a left-hand pane when you click on the Sidewiki icon in the toolbar. This step must be repeated for each Web page if you want to view Sidewiki entries.

To enter Sidewiki comments you must sign in to Google Services with your Google account. Sidewiki entries can be shared via Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and Google profiles thus extending their reach.

Implications for Healthcare and Life Science Organizations

Google's YouTube video, complete with bouncy hip music poses innocuous questions such as "What if you could contribute to any webpage and help others?" and "What if you could learn from others that visited a page before you?" as it demonstrates how to create Sidewiki comments.

But what if disgruntled customers or employees leave derogatory Sidewiki comments? Or competitors post false statements about your products and services? What if they then provide links to their site to lure customers away from your site in which you invested heavily? If used for evil instead of good, Sidewiki comments could be the Internet equivalent of graffiti in the physical world. (Though technically the comments reside on Google's servers, you get the point.)

Healthcare and life sciences organizations that already engage in blogging to interact with their current and prospective customers, as well as strategic partners, entered that sphere very cautiously. No doubt they carefully devised a policy concerning who could comment (i.e., registered vs. nonregistered, named vs. anonymous posters) and how these comments would be moderated to mitigate abusive posts. Now with Google Sidewiki, anyone who has installed the addon and has a Google account can annotate on your Web site.

So far a quick perusal of the leading payer, provider and pharmaceutical company Web sites indicates that few have availed themselves of this annotation feature. Unfortunately for life sciences organizations, most of the comments have been directed at brand drug Web sites and are negative. The ability for unmoderated comments will create not only a public relations nightmare, but for pharmaceutical companies could create significant issues regarding adverse event reporting depending upon how the FDA rules in November about such interactions.

What Can You Do?

Unfortunately, webmasters cannot moderate the entries or opt out of Sidewiki. There are a few things that organizations can do to mitigate the impact of Sidewiki.

Google recommends that false or misleading comments be flagged by clicking the Report Abuse link for the entry and they will try to remove the offending comments, typically within 48 hours which can seem like an eternity when damage control is necessary.
A number of blockers are being advertised online that claim to prevent the Sidewiki comments from being seen by other visitors (Click here for a list of examples. IDC Health Insights does not guarantee their efficacy).
Currently, Sidewiki does not support comments on SSL (https) encrypted pages.
Healthcare and life science organizations should create their own special entry that will appears in green above all other entries. The organization's most recent entry will always be first. Long entries will prevent visitor entries from appearing on the first page of Sidewiki and in full sight of other Sidewiki enabled visitors. See below for an example from Mayoclinic.com.
In addition to monitoring their own blogs and other social networking sites in which their customers might congregate and exchange comments, healthcare and life science organizations will now have to monitor their Web pages for Sidewiki entries. Some organizations might try to participate in the conversation if doing so is constructive.

While Sidewiki appeals to the democratic nature of the Internet and provides an opportunity to have an open, and ideally constructive, dialogue with your customers, or the opportunity to listen in on the conversation between your customers and prospects (the good), spam, unscrupulous marketers, blathering idiots, and the lack of moderation and ability to opt into or out of the conversation creates an inherent challenge for risk adverse organizations (the bad) attempting to manage their brand in the era of anything goes social networking.

What do you think about Google Sidewiki? Good idea? Or evil?

Keywords

Google, Sidewiki, Social Networking, Pharmaceutical Companies, FDA, Payers, Providers

File

SideWiki.ppt (292KB)

Use Your EHR to Connect to Clinical Research Opportunities: Webinar

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:51:02 +0000

Entry by Judy Hanover

Entry

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will provide over $36 billion in funding for the meaningful use of certified electronic health records (EHRs) in the United States, and will drive adoption of EHRs in ambulatory and acute provider settings. EHRs can improve patient safety and create efficiencies in our healthcare system, but the benefits of capturing health information electronically are not restricted to healthcare. EHRs can also be used provide opportunities to providers to leverage their EHRs to participate in clinical trials.

Widespread adoption and availability of electronic health information has the potential to create additional opportunities for physicians and other care providers in clinical research as well as in population health improvement. The electronic data capture (EDC) applications used in clinical trials perform many of the same functions as EHRs, and capture similar point-of-care patient information, albeit for restricted use during clinical trials. Leveraging parallel data capture activities in healthcare and clinical trials as EHR adoption becomes widespread has the potential to drive efficiencies in both areas, and create financial opportunities for providers as well as patients.

Providers can benefit from the opportunity to participate in trials as well as the revenue streams from trial participation. In addition, patients can benefit from the opportunity to access investigational products and further clinical research on their disease. Integration between clinical research and EHR data can lower the effort involved in provider participation in trials. We wrote about one such product, the PrimeResearch suite which offers integration of Greenway's EHR to disease registries and clinical trial opportunities. A recent report on this is available on IDC Health Insights' website at http://www.idc-hi.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=HI217437 (A New Product Begins to Bridge the Gap Between EMRs and EDC).

Learn more about the integration of EHRs with clinical research in an Intel-sponsored webinar on October 6, at 1 PM EDT. Sign up now at

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=161856&s=1&k=AED6706BA13D3AB7B4F902CE355A381A.

Keywords

EDC. EHR, EMR

Eight Minutes To Change Their Lives: Leveraging Health 2.0 in Practice

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:20:37 +0000

Entry by Judy Hanover

Entry

Health 2.0 technology is all about patient empowerment and giving patients the information they need to make an impact on their own healthcare. While my colleagues and I have been writing about Health 2.0 tech for some time, it was with great interest that we held a recent conversation with Dr. Jeff Livingston, who is leveraging it to educate and empower the patients he serves in his busy Irving, Texas, MacArthur obstetrics and gynecology practice. As Dr. Livingston points out, he and his partners frequently have only eight minutes to spend with their patients, important decisions need to be made, and this short time can have a life-changing effect on outcomes. Using technology has helped him to maximize the impact and role he plays in this short time with his patients.

The health 2.0 and conventional technologies in use at MacArthur OB/GYN to help educate and empower patients include:

Electronic Medical Record. EMRs have been in the spotlight due to the stimulus bill and introduction of the HITECH Act federal subsidy program in February 2009, MacArthur OB/Gyn was an early adopter of EMR, and it implemented in 2007. The EMR, electronic charting and electronic prescribing system us used to facilitate the practice's Health 2.0 strategy.
Practice Web Site and Portal. Patients can view information about the practice, biographical information on the doctors and staff, and health information and videos about common conditions and access the patient portal from the Web site. The portal enables patients to access normal and certain abnormal lab results, schedule an appointment, request prescription refills, and email staff and providers.
Waiting area PowerPoint and video systems. Slides and videos in the waiting area are used to make waiting room time more effective by providing health information and content to patients that is designed to allow them to get information they need to participate in their healthcare decisions, including slides on topics related to women's healthcare, and slides that educate patients about procedures done by the practice. The goal is to prepare the patients for their visit while marketing the practice and the innovative and profitable procedures offered.
Podcasts on practice Web site. Several podcasts are available on the practice Web site that patients can download and view. This gives patients more information that they can learn outside of their time with the doctor.
Video on practice portal. YouTube-style video content is available on the practice portal to explain abnormal test results. While the practice has experimented with this and has some content available, it also provides written information for patients who prefer to read. The videos are customized to the specific diagnosis, and the content is delivered by the doctors themselves in the videos.
Social networking. The practice has content on Twitter, Facebook and Shutterfly to help connect with patients.

Leveraging Health 2.0 technology has helped Dr. Livingston and his partners to:

Build stronger relationships with their patients
Give patients the opportunity to communicate more effectively, in the manner in which they are most comfortable, with their providers
Provide educational materials that prepare patients for visits and empower them to make decisions about their health
Make the short office visit time as productive as possible for both patients and providers
Maximize the efficiency of administrative tasks performed by office staff and providers

For more information about the Health 2.0 technology in use at Macarthur OB/GYN, check out the full report, Best Practices: Eight Minutes to Change Their Lives.

Is your practice using Health 2.0?

What do you think about using social networking to connect doctors with patients?

Keywords

Health 2.0, emr, portal, facebook, twitter, shutterfly, livingston, macobgyn

IDC Health Insights Community > HealthTech Industry Perspectives

Will a New Patent for a Practice Management Implementation Process Stifle Innovation?

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Social Networking with Patients: A New Ethical Consideration for Clinicians?

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What will the French Hospital sector look like in 2015?

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Looking Across Regions: Top 10 Predictions 2010 in EMEA and the U.S.

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Microsoft Acquires Sentillion and Broadens the Amalga UIS Platform

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10 Years of Patient Safety: Where Are We Now?

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Looking at the Health Reform Crystal Ball: Technology Investment Focus 2010

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Google’s Sidewiki in the Garden of Good and Evil

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How Sidewiki Works

Implications for Healthcare and Life Science Organizations

What Can You Do?

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Use Your EHR to Connect to Clinical Research Opportunities: Webinar

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Eight Minutes To Change Their Lives: Leveraging Health 2.0 in Practice

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