In The Know - MEDSEEK News and Expert Opinion on the eHealth Industry

Physician Adoption: Piggybacking on Current Behavior

I recently spoke at MEDSEEK's annual eHealth Client Congress and revealed that prior to working for MEDSEEK that I spent about five years as a drug dealer.  Yes, I was employed in the pharmaceutical industry and worked with physicians on a daily basis in New York City.  It was there that I first started to realize the issues that providers had with access to information - the need to collaborate and the importance of providing physicians efficiency.

Learn more about MEDSEEK's Virtual Clinical Experience for Physicians

In a recent meeting, Dan Ansel, CEO of Private Health News mentioned to me that during the early 2000's he had been working around physician education. He said that the pharmaceutical companies were offering primary care providers a desktop computer free of cost - with the understanding the physician would spend one hour of the week speaking with a company representative.  Fast forward the tape 18 months and the desktop was removed from each office.  Why?  The workflow and actions that the pharma companies were betting on didn't piggyback on an existing behavior for the physician.  EMR's were just being discussed and it "didn't make sense" for physicians to go to a computer during the day.

As I type I'm traveling to California to see six clients in three days. During this time I will be studying the physicians to see what they do prior to, during, and after each meeting.  One thing is for certain, they will all be checking their smartphones (Blackberry, iPhone, Droid) and/or iPads.  We need to recognize this in eHealth circles; we need to answer the call that physicians are making to hospitals and healthcare organizations.  They want real-time data, alerts and notifications to their hand-held devices, and a reduction in paper in the inbox to more productive and meaningful news and updates.

If we can start to piggyback on existing behavior - we have a much better opportunity in being successful and having long term loyalty for the providers that we serve.

Bradley Hawkins, Vice President Clinical Experience, MEDSEEK

MEDSEEK’s 2009 eHealth Client Congress Breaks All Attendance Records

February 23-25th, MEDSEEK held our 9th annual eHealth Client Congress (eHCC) at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Tampa Bay, Fla. We were pleased to see:

• A 25% increase of organizations 

• A 9% increase of attendees
• 66% of eHCC09 registrations were first time attendees

All of our previous attendance records were broken this year as our clients are looking for information to meet the demands of the user experience expected inside and outside of the hospital. The recently passed HITECH Act has brought a greater awareness of leveraging the Web to promote and conduct hospital services and highlights the need for Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) to connect healthcare systems across America. eHCC is a forum for education, preparation and information for healthcare professionals who are interested in collaborating and sharing knowledge to improve the overall experience of patients, employees and physicians in their organizations and surrounding communities. 

This year’s theme was “eHealth and the Next Generation.” As part of this year’s agenda we heard from healthcare industry experts:

• Cynthia Schaal, Practice Manger for The Advisory Board, presented “The Next-Generation Website Strategy - Improving the Patient Experience through Online Investments”
• Jim Molpus, Editor-in-Chief of HealthLeaders Magazine, shared the results of the 2009 industry survey and noted the significant findings of the report
• Luis Mendez with Intel’s Digital Health Group presented Intel’s insights and a new offering for a digital medical home

We also heard from our clients, including Provena Health, Henry Ford Health System, Via Christi Health and Advocate Health who shared with the group many of the 2.0 innovations they have implemented using Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter and explained the impact these tactics have made to their respective hospitals. The group also explored how the 2.0 tactics should be incorporated into the definition of eHealth. Janice Wurz, who serves as a co-chair for the HIMSS eHealth Special Interest Group reported that she intended to share the information provided by eHCC attendees with the group when it meets in April at the HIMSS annual conference.

The highlight of the event was the presentation of this year’s eHealth Excellence Award for outstanding achievement, which was presented to Dale Anderson with Hamilton Health Sciences of Ontario, Canada. As we in this country begin to take on the challenge of connecting Americans and the health community, we look to Canada, a country that has been leading the way to making connected healthcare a reality. In addition to the Excellence Award, a new award for innovation in eHealth was presented to individuals who presented their creative concepts during the MEDSEEK Knowledge Exchanges sessions. Congratulations to Bill Ferris who won the 2009 Innovator Award for his presentation on conducting Twitter surgeries at Henry Ford Health System.

Overall, attendees ranked this year’s eHCC a 4.29 out of 5, with 5 being the highest mark possible. Next year’s conference plans are already underway for a May event in San Diego, CA. Stay tuned for more details.

Client Congress Presentations Available to Attendees

Hot off the presses! We are loading all of the presentations now onto a CD exclusively for those of you who attended last week's Client Congress. Follow Up Packets will be mailed Monday, May 19th.

MEDSEEK signs 59 new software agreements and consulting projects during 2007

Today we announced the results from 2007, and it was another great year of revenue growth. During the year we welcomed 19 new health system customers (representing over 40 hospitals) and signed 59 software agreements and professional services engagements. While we finished our seventh consecutive year of revenue growth, we tackled some challenges and continue to work hard to serve our customers as we grow. We are very excited about 2008, as it will be a year of continued growth and new product innovation.

“Over the past 12 months, MEDSEEK has made a significant investment towards the development of a state of the art technology platform that will be the foundation for the delivery of MEDSEEK solutions to the market over the next 5 – 7 years”, said Peter Kuhn, president of MEDSEEK. “We are proud of the work we started to enhance our enterprise portal offering and continue to work hard to deliver these enhancements in 2008”.

For the complete press release visit our news channel.

Hospitals from around the nation converge on Omaha to share cost and quality transparency best practices

Last week Alegent Health and MEDSEEK hosted the inaugural "Power to the Patient"forum in Omaha, Neb. The purpose of the hands-on, practical workshop was to share Alegent's experiences in deploying MyCost [cost transparency web-based application] with health systems around the nation. With more than 45 attendees from over 10 organizations from diverse markets converging to learn how to enhance the experience their patients and community has with their organizations, we can say the event was a huge success.

MyCost was born out of Alegent's decision to offer a consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) option for its 8,500 employees, and the need for transparency in enabling consumers [their employees] to make informed decisions based on quality and cost of service.

As a result of strong leadership, and the desire to do the right thing for it's employees and community, MyCost and Quality Reports were published via Alegent's web site in early 2007 and late 2006, respectively.

The service, despite early trepidation, has been widely adopted by the community and the forum was conceived by Alegent and MEDSEEK to share their successes and lessons learned with other organizations.

To learn more about Alegent Health's experience read their case study.

 

New study supporting the value the patient experience plays in driving hospital revenue

McKinsey & Co recently published survey data from over 2,000 interviews with patients and over 100 physicians. The purpose was to begin quantifying the influence the patient "experience" has on a patient's [and their physician's] decision making process in selecting a hospital.

Wow! MEDSEEK has been advocating this for the past 12 years. It's great that such a great consulting firm validates the value we create for our hospital customers.

It's one of the first studies to explore the relationship between the non-clinical "experience" one has with the hospital and it's relative impact on the selection of services and where to receive them.

Key findings include (paraphrased from the report):

• About 41% on the nonclinical experience has an influence on their choice of hospitals.
• More than 50% of patients interviewed said they definitely would switch to a hospital known for giving its patients a positive experience—all other things (including the quality of clinical care) being equal.
• About 75% of patients reported they will consider switching if they think that a specific hospital will keep them better informed about their treatment.
• 94% of the primary-care physicians (and 92 percent of the specialists) said that patients now have at least as much or more influence over which hospital they will visit as they did three years ago.
• Remarkably, our survey found that almost 30% of the general practitioners would honor their patients’ requests to be treated at hospitals with a reputation for providing a superior nonclinical consumer experience even if they thought those facilities were clinically inferior to one or more of the alternatives.

An abstract of the results are clipped here:

clipped from www.mckinseyquarterly.com New research indicates that US patients and physicians are more and more likely to base their choice of hospital on nonclinical aspects of a visit—like convenience and amenities. Yet few hospitals have the marketing skills, the organizational structure, or the operating approach needed to deliver a distinctive experience in the way that retailing and hospitality companies do. As competition for commercially insured patients heats up, US hospitals will have to invest in the capabilities needed to learn what these patients want and to deliver an experience that could attract them. Hospitals that succeed should gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

The full report is available for purchase from McKinsey & Co.

Welcome Athens Regional and Glendale Adventist

With the new year, we are excited and energized to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Lots of great new initiatives, and more importantly, lots of new customers.

With the rush of the holidays to contend with, our teams were busy delivering software and bringing new hospitals into the family. As the year came to a close, Athens Regional Medical Center in Athens, Ga.(home of my beloved  bulldogs) and Glendale Adventist Medical Center in Glendale, Calf. signed software agreements to deploy their eHealth customer portals, and were the last two of the 19 new customers that joined the MEDSEEK family in 2007.

Not to be outdone, our existing customers have and continue to keep us very busy with new patient and clinical portal projects. In recent months we signed 21 new software and professional services agreements with 11 existing customers. It's great to be recognized with a "thank you" (as we've previously posted), but the fact they continue to invest by giving us their business says it all.

Visit our news channel to read the full press release:
Six Health Systems Select MEDSEEK as Their Enterprise Portal Partner

Hospitals from Ohio to Florida (and places in between) select MEDSEEK

We are pleased to welcome four new hospital customers who recently joined the MEDSEEK family. Duncan Regional in Duncan, Okla.; Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Fla.; The Regional Medical Center (aka "The MED") in Memphis, Tenn.; and Southern Ohio Medical Center in Portsmouth, Ohio.

Both Duncan Regional and Jupiter Medical Center will deploy our Enterprise Portal Management platform and marketing services to build their consumer portals. The platform includes our SiteMaker content management system, ADAM health content, HealthDay newsletter, and healthcare-specific plug-in modules, along with expert marketing services.

Duncan Regional Hospital is a progressive, 126-bed community hospital that is constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing needs of their community. By creating a interactive web site that provides comprehensive information to the community and convenient access to services, Duncan expects to significantly enhance the overall experience their patients and consumers have with the hospital.

In the spring 2007, the management team at 276-bed Jupiter Medical Center wanted to "blow up" their web site and deploy a more robust portal that integrated content from multiple sources while appropriately positioning hospital services.

The MED, a 350-bed teaching hospital, is faced with tremendous competitive pressures to retain the best physicians in Memphis. While a quality nursing staff and top-notch medical technology helps, convenience is at the heart of their physician loyalty strategy. The IT team recognized early-on that providing clinical information to their physicians when and where it's needed is mission-critical. By implementing our Enterprise Portal Management solution to deploy their clinical portal, The MED is able to offer their medical staff and referring primary care physicians convenient access through a simple web browser, which they believe will improve collaborative community care and clinical decision-making.

Southern Ohio Medical Center, a 220-bed regional system and AGFA Healthcare customer, selected MEDSEEK to deploy their clinical portal, due in part, to the complexity of their system architecture and need for some new clinical integration points. In particular, Southern Ohio will be working with us to develop a data store for their laboratory results to avoid costly interface charges. This new customer joins the MEDSEEK family as a result of our value-added reseller relationship with AGFA Healthcare.