Consumers and Health Information Technology: A National Survey

Americans pay more attention and become more engaged in their health and medical care when they have easy access to their health information online. This is one of the findings of a national survey of the public’s use of and attitudes toward health IT — in particular personal health records (PHRs). Although only 7% of adults currently use a PHR, the number is growing.

Among the survey highlights:

• As a result of their PHR, users cite taking steps to improve their own health, knowing more about their health care, and asking their doctors questions they would not otherwise have asked.
• Although higher-income individuals are the most likely to have used a PHR, lower-income adults, those with chronic conditions, and those without a college degree are more likely to experience positive effects of having their information accessible online.
• Two-thirds of the public remain concerned about the privacy and security of their health information, but the majority of those who are using a PHR are not very worried about the privacy of the information contained in their PHR.
• Most PHR users and non-users say we should not let privacy concerns stop us from learning how health IT can improve health care.
• More than half of adults are interested in using online applications to track health-related factors, and almost half are interested in medical devices that can be connected to the Internet.
• Of those who do not have a PHR, 40% express interest in using one.

Source: Lake Research Partners

Patient access to e-record urgent, advocate tells federal panel

WASHINGTON – When Regina Holliday needed her husband’s electronic health record to help her care for him after a terminal cancer diagnosis it didn’t arrive for days, was incorrect, and outdated when he was transferred to another provider. She later used the correct record to care for him until his death.

“It’s time to stop being incremental,” Holliday, now an advocate for patient access to their EHRs, told a panel of the Health and Human Services’ Health IT Policy Committee on April 21. “There’s too much urgency to get the data to the patient.”

Paul Tang, MD, chairman of the committee’s meaningful use workgroup, said that was also the upshot of testimony from providers, vendors and other patient/consumer advocates.

Patient access to their summary and discharge data is vital because nowadays they are “kicked out” of the hospital to continue recuperation at home, he said.

Tang is also chief medical information officer of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

The panel explored various ways, such as incentives and technologies, to engage patients and their families in the use of health IT.

Engaging the patient

Other organizations are also looking for ways to boost patient involvement. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for example, has included in its proposed meaningful use rule several objectives that encourage patient and family engagement, including giving consumers copies of and timely access to their electronic record.

Many patients also are unaware that they already have the right to access their health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), said Joy Pritts, chief privacy office at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Some state laws limit access while others expand it. In her former role as a health law academic, Pritts developed a state-by-state guide on how to access health information.

“There is a certain amount of a lack of knowledge of patients to access their information and their right to it,” she said.

To change that situation, ONC plans a  campaign to inform the public about the value of the meaningful use of electronic health records, including patient access to data, Pritts said. Regional health IT extension centers will also be able to help healthcare providers understand the concept of sharing data with their patients as part of their technical assistance to help provider meet meaningful use requirements.

Physicians also need data from patients about their conditions for their electronic health record. Patient-generated data can be just as important as clinical data from tests and exams, said James Weinstein, MD, director of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practices and an orthopedic surgeon.

“The patient reported data can be more important to me than the MRI, CT scan or X-ray,” he said.

Physicians often don’t ask patients about details of living with their conditions because they see so many patients, he said.

“Just knowing what the patient’s health status is, or doing health risk assessments in some organized way, will inform the decision process,” he said. “If we know the diagnosis, give the patient the opportunity to engage in shared decision-making or their preferences and values, and measured the effect of treatment, we would know a lot more than we do today about healthcare.”

Source: HIMSS

How Smartphones Are Changing Health Care for Consumers and Providers

The creation of applications related to health and health care is also moving quickly. As of February 2010, there were nearly 6,000 such apps within the Apple AppStore. Of these, 73% were intended for use by consumer or patient end-users, while 27% were targeted to health care professionals.

Apps geared to physicians include alerts, medical reference tools, diagnostic tools, continuing medical education, and patient records programs. Consumer-oriented apps include those for medication compliance, mobile and home monitoring, home care, managing conditions, and wellness/fitness.

There are challenges to continued rapid smartphone growth, including business model and privacy issues.

VA Investment in Open Source Electronic Health Records Pays Off

A new study by the Center for Information Technology Leadership (CITL), a nonprofit research center at Partners HealthCare System, found that the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) investments in health information technology (IT) were related to improvements in quality of care and potentially produced $3.09 billion in net value over the 10-year period studied. The findings, published in the April 2010 issue of Health Affairs, are the result of a two-year study of the value of the VA investments in health IT.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publish “meaningful use” ruling

The Medicare and Medicaid Health IT provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 promote the adoption and meaningful use of certified electronic health records (EHRs). The Recovery Act authorized incentive payments for eligible professionals (EPS) and hospitals participating in Medicare and Medicaid for becoming meaningful users of certified EHRs. The law established maximum annual incentive amounts and includes Medicare penalties for failing to meaningfully use EHRs beginning in 2015 for professionals and hospitals that fail to adopt certified EHRs.

read more

Healthcare IT guy says beware…

EMR bullies are stretching the truth on Stimulus Payments…

read more…

Featured Solution: Backfile Scanning

Stretching your resources, bending your budget, running to the file room, swimming in paperwork. Dealing with paper records can be overwhelming! The move to document conversion outsourcing is driven largely by need, such as increased volume, cost of floor space, too much time spent filing and retrieving paper records. This often translates to outsourcing being an effective document conversion solution for medical records. > read more…