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

9 Things That Will Take the MEANINGFUL Out of Meaningful Use - #6 Leave marketing out of the conversation

Patient portals are increasingly becoming a commonplace as hospitals and physician practices throughout the country scramble to put one in place in time to achieve the proposed Meaningful Use Stage 2 objectives. But putting a portal in place is not enough—organizations must also demonstrate that at least 10 percent of their patients are actually using it. While studies show that portal adoption is highest when an invitation to participate is extended by the personal physician, hospital marketers must also play an important role.

If missing the required 10% adoption threshold doesn’t scare you, here’s an interesting statistic to consider. According to a survey conducted by Deloitte last year,66 percent of Americans would consider switching providers in order to gain access to their medical records through a secure Internet connection. In other words, a competitor’s aggressive patient portal promotion or campaign could put your longstanding patient relationships at risk. By involving marketing in the conversation early and often, your organization can leverage your portal investment to achieve further differentiation and grow market share. But don’t delay, as timing alone can give you a distinct competitive advantage.

In marketing, first-mover advantage or FMA is the advantage gained by the initial ("first-moving") significant occupant of a market segment—often referred to as Technological Leadership. This advantage stems from the fact that the first entrant can gain control of resources that followers may not be able to match. Generally, first-movers are rewarded with profits gleaned from their monopoly-like status and the ability to establish customer loyalty to a more attractive product. In health care, this translates to winning the loyalty of well-educated, well-insured e-patients in your community who are desperately seeking access to online health tools.

Other times, the first-mover is not able to capitalize on its advantage, leaving the opportunity for others to compete effectively and efficiently versus their earlier entrants. These individuals then gain a "second-mover advantage". For example, even if you aren’t first to market, your marketing department may be able to win market share by exploiting how your patient portal is simpler and easier to use, or how it is just another example of the overall great patient experience you provide for patients and families.

Your marketing department is sure to come up with many creative ideas to promote your patient portal and its benefits, but here is a Top 10 list to help them get started:

1. Add a strong call-to-action to your public-facing website
2. Use predictive analytics and precision messaging solutions to identify likely e-patients in your community and target them with portal promotions
3. Capture mobile phone users with mobile apps and smartphone users with QR codes
4. Create and distribute a promotional flyer to all patients as they check in to the ED or through admitting
5. Promote the portal on all billing statements, newsletters and e-publications
6. Advertise your patient portal on all electronic signage
7. Add a patient portal promotion to your hospital’s private television network or on-demand patient education video system
8. Change your ”on-hold” music to introduce the patient portal
9. Train all employees about the patient portal and ask them to wear an “Ask me about” button or badge
10. Consider investing in iPads or Tablet PCs to enroll patients before discharge

Have you been keeping up with the blog series - 9 Things That Will Take the MEANINGFUL Out of Meaningful Use? If not, you can catch up here: www.medseek.com/9things.

Why People are Signing the Petition on change.org >> ONC: Engage Patients & Families in their Health - Enhance Meaningful Use Stage 2

“Patients with chronic conditions spend less than 0.01% of their lives interacting with their health care providers. Patient engagement through access to their health data and supporting education and information is essential so that a portion of the remaining 99.99% of their time can be dedicated to managing their own healthcare.”

“I believe that knowledge is power, and to be better informed with respect to our own healthcare will help us to be active & responsible participants in managing our health.”

“Patient portal technology is critical to helping me take control of my health management and will help reduce healthcare costs in the long run.”

“Positive patient outcomes begins with patient empowerment which can only occur when patients and families are engaged in their health and health care.”

“Because it is important for us to be engaged and have easier access to our medical information. This helps us take control of our own health and makes it easier for us to do so by creating and empowered society you make a healthier population.”

“I believe everyone should be able to know as much as possible, about their own health situation, in order to make the best individual care and management choices.”

“Health is a function of participation. As Leonard Kish articulates so well in his blog, http://ideasarecheap.posterous.com/acos-and-moneyball-medicine-part-iv-high-prob, we to stimulate innovations in designing next generation of consumer-centric ehealth solutions and ecosystems (including EMRs, PHRs, HIEs)and which creating network effects through an "architecture of participation." Keeping Patient Engagement in MU will be a key driver to move us from provider to consumer centric approaches.”

“I am an educated, informed and competent person who expects access to information that will help me better manage my most valuable asset, my health.”

“Health care is way behind in technology. There's no excuse for paper transactions and delays in client information anymore.”

“As a patient with a chronic disease, managing my health through my own tracking (spreadsheets) is archaic and error-prone. Having the ability to access my medical records through a secure patient portal will help me better manage and be educated about my condition.”

Add your name to the ever-growing list of patients who demand to be included in the healthcare equation. Sign the petition today!

View and manage my health online? Not so fast. The HIT Access Battle. What’s at stake for you.

As the deadline to file comments regarding Meaningful Use Stage 2 is Monday, May 7^th, many organizations and individuals are weighing in passionately about the proposed rule. And the battle for patient engagement and accessing our health information online continues...

The American Hospital Association (AHA) publically released their 68 page comment letter expressing opposition specifically to many of the Patient & Family Engagement measures proposed in Stage 2. Rick Pollack, executive vice president of the AHA states, "Taken as a whole, the proposed requirements for meeting stage two raise the bar too high.” Among their comments, the AHA articulates apprehension for providing patients the ability to view, download and transmit their protected health information via a patient portal, stating “The AHA believes that this objective is not feasible as proposed, raises significant security issues, and goes well beyond current technical capacity.” Additionally they have suggested that the currently proposed 36 hour turn-around time for patients to have access to their health information is too aggressive and should be extended to 30 days. Cue the flood gates for e-patients and patient engagement activists to respond to the AHA’s strong stance.

Christine Bechtel, vice president of the National Partnership for Women & Families and a member of the HIT Policy Committee reacts to the AHA’s letter saying, “It shows that, when it comes to patients’ access to their own health information, the group (AHA) has little interest in advancing Meaningful Use criteria that would result in tangible benefits for patients.” In regards to AHA advocating for a 30 day timeframe for patient access to their health information, Bechtel states “No patient in this day and age should have to wait a full month for access to their own health information, which is vital to their ability to get and stay well. And no hospital should want to do this--especially with payment penalties for unnecessary readmissions about to be put in place.” ePatient Dave also weighs in on AHA’s comments in a message to HHS Secretary Sebelius, “American healthcare is the world’s most costly and is often far from effective. Give Us Our Damned Data –Let Patients Help!”

These two opposing sides of the battle for Patient Engagement roar on, begging the question--as a patient and family member, do you deserve the right to access your health information and equip yourself with knowledge to manage your most valuable commodity, your health? To let your voice be heard, sign the petition to keep Patient Engagement in Meaningful Use. To further support the effort, please comment on the official regulations site before May 7^th.

Stay tuned for MEDSEEK’s comments to CMS about the proposed rule for Meaningful Use Stage 2. For additional information on keeping the Meaningful in Meaningful Use, see our 9 part blog series.

Healthcare - At What Cost? The Need for Price Transparency Continues to Grow

With Meaningful Use, ACOs and the move towards quality-based reimbursements, hospitals are making great strides towards putting the patient at the center of care, except when it comes to cost.

The success of healthcare reform depends upon hospitals and providers engaging patients and equipping them with the tools they need to manage their own health. These tools include secure Internet access to personal health records and family accounts, the ability to go online and self-schedule appointments, see labs and test results, request prescription refills, and communicate with physicians and care team members, ask them questions and share information from home health monitoring devices.

Healthcare providers are forgetting that patients bear the brunt of spiraling healthcare costs and are being forced to shop around for healthcare services, to become healthcare consumers. While great strides are being made to support the patient, the emergence of the healthcare consumer is being ignored.

Consumers expect to be able to compare prices. It’s possibly the single-most important factor when making a major purchasing decision, and there can be no doubt that healthcare services can be major purchases. So why don’t healthcare consumers get to see the price tag before they buy? After all, hospitals provide quality scores, patient charters, and other consumer-like information. Why not the cost?

Read the recent LA Times article:
Healthcare pricing still a struggle for consumers
Comparison shopping for medical procedures can involve a web of billing codes and arcane terminology, despite efforts in California to simplify things.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adv-medical-prices-20120415,0,7106684.story

9 Things That Will Take the MEANINGFUL Out of Meaningful Use - #1 Separating Your Inpatient and Outpatient Strategies

If you asked your patients to define “meaningful” technology, they’d tell you they want access to online tools that will help them manage their health as easily as they manage their bank accounts. Just as banks provide a single web presence for customers to manage their checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, and mortgages, your patients expect the same from your healthcare organization. At the end of the day, what patients really want is to live as near normal a life as possible independent of their medical problems.

With provider consolidation on the rise as hospitals and physicians face the pressures to reduce the cost and improve the quality of healthcare, the challenge becomes obvious. Asking patients to access one portal for inpatient information, plus multiple portals sitting on top of a smattering of best-of-breed EHR systems in the outpatient environment, will only lead to a patient experience that is further disconnected, disjointed, and dysfunctional.
You can imagine the disappointment felt by a patient with a chronic disease or multiple conditions who expects a single online source to manage their health, but instead finds they are forced to navigate multiple portals, with various usernames, passwords, and user interfaces, none of which consistently include the same data, features or functions.

As organizations develop a patient portal strategy, they need to select a solution that will enable their organization to serve as the source for full patient engagement across the continuum of care. By addressing the entire healthcare activity stream and information exchange for patients through a 360° experience, organizations can not only collect Meaningful use incentives, but leverage their investment to directly impact core strategic goals of winning lasting patient loyalty, improving the quality of care, driving revenue, and maximizing the return on strategic assets and service lines.

To continue reading about ways to create a 360-degree patient experience by combining your inpatient and outpatient strategies, read the White Paper: The 360-degree Patient Experience.

What if People Actually Understood Healthcare?

There was a fresh face in the hallways of MEDSEEK this summer - Luke Wilson, a rising high school senior who interned with our sales and marketing departments. He worked with sales operations to understand the current market place and helped research new marketing campaigns before returning to California to start his senior year. Luke wrote a few blogs from his newly acquired, unique perspective: that of a 17-year old who grew up in a world that always had email, the internet and cell phones and got an inside look at the current state of the healthcare system. This is the second post of his three-part blog series:

As stated previously, I did not know anything about healthcare before working with MEDSEEK. If you’re curious, healthcare to a teenager consists of three things: the emergency room, sports physicals, and shots. So, when a kid says “I went to the hospital,” it can mean anything from the ER to a private practitioner to an actual hospital.

Working at MEDSEEK gave me insight into how a hospital works with private practitioners, and how a hospital system works together, I began to realize very few people actually know how healthcare works. So I began to wonder:

What if… everyone was given a quick overview on how healthcare worked? How their local hospitals make their money, and how hospitals store their data. How many different types of legacy systems hospitals have, and how they have to try and dig data from all of them separately. How many hours physicians and employees spend on the phone, talking to patients and scheduling appointments.

What if… people could then be taught the different laws and regulations hospitals have to follow? How many different – yet similar – pieces of paper patients have to fill out for regulation’s sake. What having insurance means for a hospital and for the government. Why hospitals are just now starting to update their technology. Why it takes so long for hospitals to change. What an ACO is, and how it affects them.

What if… people could learn about the possible solutions available today? That there are ways to fill out all hospital forms online. That it is possible to see your lab results online, and then share x-rays or ultrasounds on Facebook. That you can talk to your physicians securely, and you can set up appointments without ever picking up the phone.

I feel like if the majority of people actually knew all of this, a number of things could happen:

• There would be an even higher demand for some sort of healthcare reform.
• There would be understanding for the long time frames in changing the system.
• There would be more pressure to reduce the amount of uninsured.
• There would be new ideas for reform and improvement.
• More people would be active in their healthcare and understand the importance of preventive care rather than curing existing conditions.

And quite possibly, if it’s true that we hate what we do not know, people would no longer hate going to the doctor’s office.

Read all of Luke's Blogs:

• The Next Generation of Patients: Healthcare Expectations of a 17 Year-Old
• The Dangers of Self Diagnosing

Preparing for the Future: Patient-Centric Healthcare

In a summary of the recent second annual Cleveland Clinic patient experience summit, Empathy and Innovation, the Advisory Board observed several critical points.  Of special note were two key areas:

• Administrators must empower and equip staff to create a patient-centric environment.  The Advisory Board noted that training is critical to ensure that the entire operational enterprise is mobilized to engage the customer and reinforce the importance of customer service.  At MEDSEEK, we suggest that patient activation and engagement starts before the patient (customer) even walks through the front door of a facility, rather it is that first digital engagement experience that hospitals and clinical practices must plan for from the initial online appointment request, through the meaningful use electronic discharge summary distribution.  Administrators must empower their staff through all transitions in the continuum from online to the call center to the delivery of care and post-discharge.

• Marketers are primed to lead experience improvement efforts.  Forrester Research indicates that 31% of chief customer officers come from a marketing background.  With that being said, the emergence of digital patient engagement and customer service must become a hallmark of the marketing department in this era of accountability.  Many marketers are already focused on customer, such as understanding consumer expectations, breaking down internal silos, and communicating patient engagement initiatives; therefore the Chief Experience or Chief Customer officers from the hospital or IDN should lead the experience improvement efforts in tandem with clinical and information system leadership.

Learn more about how MEDSEEK is creating a virtual experience for patients to engage them from the time they search for healthcare until the time they are discharged.

--Bob Cushman, Senior eHealth Consultant, MEDSEEK

Do you remember having a computer that wasn’t mobile?

For the first time smartphones are outselling computers, according to an IDC report that documented the surge of smartphone purchases in the fourth quarter of 2010.  Interesting note, when CNN covered the IDC headline, they did not reference smartphones; instead they referred to smartphones as “mobile computers”.

Let me ask you, true or false: “I never leave home without my wallet or purse, my keys and my smartphone.”

So what does that mean to those of us in health care?

Many us are getting ready to go to HIMSS11 in Orlando in two weeks. We will see many sessions and vendors highlighting Meaningful Use, EMRs,  HIEs and ACOs – a glimpse at the foundation of what will become the future of health care. But I wonder… with all of these changes taking place, what will be the buzz at HIMSS in five years?

The stethoscope was invented in 1816… 200 years later, will we still be using one? How much will IT advance? Will social networking take a bigger share of healthcare information? Stage 1, 2 and 3 of Meaningful Use will be complete. HIEs will be deployed. NHIN will be in place. ACOs will be the norm. What will be new on the horizon?

I predict:

• a new mobile eHealth ecoSystem will emerge

• tablet computers will replace laptops just as they’ve have replaced tower computers

• MP3 downloads of discharge instructions will replace CDs just as CDs replaced paper documents

• live video discussions with a physician from my smartphone or tablet computer  will replace specific face to face office visits

                       …and the list goes on.

Yet as we face the challenges of 2011, 2016 doesn’t really seem that far away. Does it?

Internet Shopping Comes to Healthcare?

While watching the morning news over the extended weekend, I noticed a special features story about holiday shopping discussing the impact the Internet has made on consumers. The feature also provided a list of recommended Web sites to go to for comparison shopping.  It is abundantly clear that the expectation of the savvy consumer is to use the Internet during their decision making process in order to pay the least amount of money for a product or to determine a budget for spending.

The same consumer mentality comes to health care in the form of an ePatient. ePatients expect to be able to do comparison shopping or at least establish a budget for medical procedures or treatments.

If an ePatient visits your hospital’s Web site to do what they’ve been trained to do – research and comparison shop – will your Web site have an answer?

In the case of Alegent Health, the answer is YES. The recent Health Data Management article “Getting a Grip on Billing”  describes how Alegent Health is creating patient loyalty by providing an online experience called “My Cost.”  Does it work? It appears My Cost has gained wide acceptance with today’s ePatient.  To date, the system has generated results for over 82,000 requests.

 To read the entire article click here.

 

What do Patients Want?

The Commonwealth Fund has released the results of its 2008 Survey of Public Views of the U.S. Health Care System, conducted by Harris Interactive. According to a telephone survey of 1,004 random U.S. adults, 80 percent of respondents believe that the healthcare system needs either fundamental change or complete rebuilding.