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

reThinking eHealth Webinar Announced: Give the Providers What They Want

Birmingham, Ala.– July 21, 2008 –MEDSEEK, the leading provider of enterprise portal connectivity solutions, announced today that Dr. Asim Masood of William Osler Health Centre and Dr. Jay Wallin of Mount Carmel Health System will present a Webinar in the monthly educational series reThinking eHealth. The session, titled “Give the Providers What They What: Two physicians share ways their facilities have improved provider satisfaction,” will take place on Wednesday August 27th at 2pm EDT, 11am PDT.

One million health consumers and counting

Not all RHIOs are fading.  Just look north for clinical connectivity and interoperability success.  William Osler Health Centre, with partners AGFA Healthcare and MEDSEEK, is delivering real clinical value to their physicians and community.

Here's a quote from Judy Middleton, CIO at William Osler, published in a recent article in The Brampton Guardian regarding Osler's successful adoption of MEDSEEK's Clinical Portal and it's expansion to the entire LHIN.   

clipped from www.northpeel.com "This makes us trailblazers," said Judy Middleton, Chief Information Officer for WOHC. "If a physician has a patient at Osler, and the patient says 'I've been at Oakville or I've been at Credit Valley', then all the information from their visits will be accessible by the physician. So in terms of expediting treatment and care, you have much more information (at your disposal)."

Canadian clinical connectivity initiatives gain momentum

Several Canadian clinical connectivity initiatives are showing strength as adoption grows. AGFA Healthcare, along with MEDSEEK, continues its success in the Canadian market. 

Healthcare Information Management & Communication and Canadian Healthcare Technology published stories on the successes several hospitals are having in connecting physicians with clinical information to improve community-wide patient care.

eHealth delivers, lets take a closer look

Our very own Peter Kuhn was published in the December 2007 issue of ADVANCE for Healthcare Information Executives. Several customer success stories are highlighted including East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, La, Edward Hospital & Health Services in Naperville, Ill., Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla, and Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) in Detroit, Mich.

Here's an excerpt:

Today's information-driven society is changing health care (for good or bad we'll save for another discussion) forever. Consumer expectations are more demanding of our institutions, where access to timely, relevant information is a clear market differentiator. Hospitals that embrace these changing dynamics will thrive in the coming years.

As hospitals begin addressing these new challenges, many are turning to e-health as their foundation for creating a positive, differentiated experience. It's certainly not the only answer, but key to engaging and interacting with an information-driven constituency.

Shifting processes to the Internet

By leveraging the power of the global network to fundamentally transform how they interact with their constituencies — consumers, patients, physicians and employees — and shifting business processes to the Internet, organizations can differentiate themselves in their local hospital market.

Smart, progressive organizations that invest in their constituents' overall experience with the organization will find that their investment will more than pay off in improved patient and physician satisfaction, more effective community advocacy, increased downstream revenue, better employee collaboration and clinical excellence. The investment also will strengthen their ties to consumers, patients and patients. In the past, for example, hospitals built office space within or near their hospital to forge relationships with physicians. Smart organizations will continue to use that tactic, but they also will use Web portals to supplement their physician recruitment and retention initiatives.

Hospitals currently are deploying Web portals that enable doctors to access and direct patient data remotely, sparing them a road trip to the hospital or forcing them to make clinical decisions without the benefit of all the information they need because the patient's paper record is unavailable. Given the choice of selecting a hospital that helps them practice more efficiently versus one that doesn't, physicians will go with the former.

Innovative hospitals also are delivering information online to help patients take better care of themselves and schedule appointments, making it more convenient for existing and prospective patients to interact with and access their services.

Clinical Portal expands its REACH

More physicians gain access to the REACH (Rapid Electronic Access to Clinical Health information) Portal. Physicians at Credit Valley Hospital can now participant in the collaborative care initiative between six hospitals in Peel and Halton regions. Read the full story.

This is an exciting development for MEDSEEK as more physicians and hospitals share information with each other through the REACH clinical portal. While the physician portal has been live for some time, physician adoption continues.

"Integrating our system with William Osler Health Centre and Halton Healthcare Services will reduce the duplication of tests and by doing so, reduce healthcare costs." says Dan Germain, Credit Valley vice president and e-Health lead for the Mississauga Halton Local Health Integration Network. "What's most important is the benefit to patients, especially in emergency situations when access to comprehensive patient information is critical."

The REACH web portal provides access to over 90,000 inpatient stays and 1,050,000 outpatient visits for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007. Patient stays and visits from all three hospitals are consolidated into one web portal view for use by authorized clinicians.

5 Rights of a Successful eHealth Execution Plan

Implementing an eHealth vision is a rewarding journey. Like most journeys, the first step of any eHealth initiative starts with a vision. The vision provides the goal of the journey and how it will impact the entire organization for years to come. Unfortunately, the vision does not provide the road map to make the journey possible.

What if Disney Ran Your Hospital?

Rich Grehalva, Sr. Vice President Strategic Services, MEDSEEK

First of all, Disney would view the patient as a customer or, in their words, a guest. Physicians and hospitals don't tend to think of their patients as customers. But your patients compare the level of service provided by you and your staff to what they receive as customers of any other type of business, whether it is a department store, restaurant or even Walt Disney World.

Building RHIO's with the Federated Data Model

We have all heard the hype as every expert in the industry offers their opinion on building Regional Health Information Networks, but with over 100 projects in progress nationwide, which methodology is really working? Although some say the landscape still won't be ready for another 10 years, my involvement with connecting hospitals and hospital networks over the past decade has given me a much more positive perspective.

Who Drives Innovation in Healthcare?

Gale Wison-Steele, Founder & CSO, MEDSEEK; Founder & CEO, CareSeek, Inc.

This article was first published in Advance - For Health Information Executives magazine, February 2004, as a guest editorial piece.

To implement the programs and innovations that deliver on promises, healthcare leaders must create a culture of disipline that sets priorities and carries them through to completion.