Importance Of Patient Engagement In Health IT

Engagement of patients in health IT is getting more and more important these days. It was always necessary, but now this phenomenon has gained momentum in terms of importance as the modern physicians, medical practitioners as well as healthcare organizations are putting more emphasis on it. This is mainly because their financial success largely depends on the extent of patient involvement in health care IT.

The concept can well be attributed to the importance it carries in today’s context. In fact, there have been a lot of top notch healthcare organizations that have been engaging their patients in health IT. Moreover, the emergence or introduction of new cutting edge technologies backed by the growing influence of more patient-centric approach in the delivery of treatment as well as care is making this phenomenon all the more important.

Let us see how an effective engagement of patients supports health care reforms and improves the expenditure related to treatment along with care.

Statistics say that effective involvement or engagement of patients in health care IT leads to significant cost saving as this enables the right kind of information to be delivered to the people subjected to treatment, thus leading to the much desired transparency in the entire system.

When there is no room for patient engagement, this leads to a gap in communication and patients may end up doing tests along with other stuffs that may not be needed, thereby increasing the cost unnecessarily. However, statistics clearly suggest that whenever people subjected to treatment are communicated with in a proper way regarding their conditions, they can understand and determine various options they have, to counter their medical condition. It is seen that in the majority of these cases, people take the less expensive yet effective paths.

It has also become apparent that the propagation of various internet-based mobile services and the ubiquity of the network connections that are available has made patient engagement in medical IT extremely easier than before and a substantial amount of people are now getting back to the healthcare service providers with valuable feedbacks which is making the task of these service providers easier so far as treating those patients is concerned.

So importance has been conferred to this engagement, that several health care service providers have even introduced mobile applications exclusively designed for patient feedback to ensure more and more patients get actively involved and engaged with the health IT service.

With a view to bridge up whatever communication gap there is between the service providers and the patients, newer technologies are being introduced. However, experts are of the opinion that before a patient actively starts getting engaged the individual at first needs to realize the extent of the effect it will have on the outcome or the diagnosis. Once this happens, then the involvement will be more effective at the end of the day, especially when it comes to treating any particular ailment and improving the relation between the service provider and the patient. After all, the very objectives of involvement of a patient in health IT is to improve the overall health of the patients, along with the relation between the two sides.

As the responsibility of the patients toward treatment costs increases, they have more ground to demand better convenience and more sophisticated solutions of engagement. Patients who do not get optimal satisfaction will have the chance to shift to another health care service provider.

Besides, providers who use various engagement solutions for patients like online portals are more efficient and are in a better position to properly respond to the needs of the patients resulting in better convenience.

Patient engagement in medical IT systems includes various portals that have substantially lowered the indirect as well as direct costs of practices, like mailing the costs for lab results, billing queries resolved via online instead of phone, online scheduling of appointments with doctors or online appointment reminders.

Both private as well as public insurance payers are now shifting to the performance-based reimbursement models when it comes to dealing with health insurance claims. Patient engagement in health care IT is hence extremely important for these value-based models of payment.

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The essence of Value-Based Care

That healthcare is changing at a fast pace is a reality all the stakeholders are coming to terms with. Irrespective of their preferences, they are left without a choice but to adapt. The transition taking place is evolving it from being proficiency-based art to a data-driven science. Physicians are shifting from being freelancers to being employed by hospitals. The delivery methods are changing from being one-size-fits-all community hospitals to vast hospital networks which are organized around centers of excellence. There is however, a certain level of criticism from the provider community towards this demand for change – almost to the extent of being reluctant to accept it. This could well be the result of their realization that the shift will finally result in better care outcomes for patient and less inflow of money for them. This is where the fraternity needs to take a step back and look at what lies at the core of their profession – that of helping people overcome their health related ailments. One cannot deny the fact that the profession has a certain degree of nobility attached to it. As much as it is important for physicians to gain financially, the overriding factor which draws people to take up this profession is expected to be a deep desire to serve humanity by curing people of their health related problems. Infact the ones who have realized it and connect to it are eagerly looking forward to days where they would have satisfied patients with lower expenses and they would be proud of their work. The tension which now exists between patients and physicians does not please the majority of the people in the profession and they would expect the new model to give way to trust and happiness for the providers. This is not to say that physicians are expected to lead lives of monks with no desire to gain financially from their services but to let money play the most important role in the system would be going against the core tenets of the profession.

In order to emphasize on this shift in focus from a volume to a value based care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) incorporated value-based purchasing rules which tied acute care Medicare reimbursement of hospitals to quality performance starting in the year 2012. To give this approach a push, 1% of the payments under Medicare for 2012 was put aside and later given away as bonuses to those hospitals which scored above a certain score in some identified measures. Patient satisfaction was the determining factor for about 30% of the incentive payments while the rest 70% was based upon improved clinical outcomes. Noticing the positive difference the approach brought about, a further modification was brought in that resulted in enhancing the payment under the hospital value-based purchasing program (VBP) starting October of 2013. As per the new rule, there was an increase in the payment rates to general acute care hospitals by 0.9 percent, after allowing for other payment and regulatory changes. Although it was suppose to result in increasing the Medicare spending by approximately 175 million, its real benefit was the thrust it was expected to provide towards the adoption of a value based model. There are also penalties in place for hospitals for excess readmission for certain ailments like heart attack, heart failure and pneumonia unless they are planned ones. Also, moving forward there are likely to be more such rules in place to penalize hospitals for conditions acquired during the course of treatment. These steps are intended to bring about more focus towards infection control and prevention.

As much as the reasons appear compelling for moving to a value-based model, early experiments have shown mixed results. The success of value-based approach is hinged on making everything measurable and quantifiable and this is precisely where the hurdles start. Each patient is unique and so the impact of the same disease on a population is not going to be similar. With some patients, things might get a bit more complex resulting in higher expenses. Regardless of whatever incentives are created to make it move faster, a complete shift to this new model will take time. This is going to be driven primarily by the need to bring about some changes in the overall setup. For instance, it has to first and foremost start with getting the buy-in from physicians who are willing to embrace this approach. Furthermore, a successful transition from volume to value will require investment in advanced analytics and clinical information to evaluate performance data, as well as holding all stakeholders - clinicians, staff and patients, accountable for quality improvements.

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How Often Are Doctors Switching From One EHR System To Another?

Similar to other professionals, doctors and medical practitioners also have to store, manage and process a huge amount of information and data. The medical information also needs to be organized based on certain grades and specific structuring. So many doctors, nowadays, use specially designed electronic database systems to access and process a variety of medical information smoothly. The electronic health records (EHRs) are used by large number of doctors to manage the electronic health information about a specific patient or certain groups.

As per the ISO/TR 20514 definition, EHR can be defined as, “Collection of computerized information referring to the health state of a certain subject stored and transmitted in complete safety, accessible to any authorized user. It has a logic pattern for information organization implemented, universally accepted and independent from the system. Its main aim is to assure continuous, efficiently and quality integrated health services along with retrospective and prospective information.”

So EHRs can be used to store, access and share a variety of medical data including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal stats like age and weight, and billing information. The complex nature and constantly increasing volume of medical data encourage many companies to upgrade EHR by incorporating more advanced features and customized functionality. These features make it easier for a doctor to share a patient’s digital medical information across different healthcare settings.

At the annual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society held at New Orleans in March 2013, the results of a survey conducted by American EHR was presented, which highlighted that doctors frequently switch from one EHR to another to achieve certain objectives. According to AmedNews, “A survey by AmericanEHR Partners of 4,279 clinicians, including primary care physicians, specialists and diagnostic professionals, found that user satisfaction declined from 39% in 2010 to 27% in 2012. The rate of those “very dissatisfied” increased from 11% to 21% during the same period.”

What Makes a Doctor Switch from One EHR to Another

Easy-to-Use Features: The medical information of a patient is accessed by several professionals. Along with the physician, the digital media data is also accessed by the dietitian, nurse and other staff. As the technical knowledge and skills vary from one professional to another, most doctors look for EHRs that can be easily used by their staff. So many doctors choose EHRs that comes with a set of simple and easy-to-use features. These features further allow them to train the new staff without putting any extra effort.

Option to Access Information Anytime: Similar to other users, a doctor also looks for option to access the medical information of a patient anytime, anywhere. Many doctors even look for fast and convenient options to share the medical data. So many doctors replace their conventional EHRs with the advanced systems that allow them to access and share the information over internet. Many companies have launched Cloud based EHRs to enable doctors to store all medical data in a centralized location, and access these at their own pace and convenience.

Integrating Data from Various Sources: Each doctor wants to provide the best healthcare service to his patients. So, doctors often consult with external physicians and specialists to choose the most effective treatment for his client. As the choice of EHRs varies from one doctor to another, many professionals look for systems that can collect medical information from several data sources. Also, the EHR must be compatible with multiple devices, so that the doctor can easily access and evaluate a specific patient’s medical report.

Installation and Operational Expenses: As the doctors are not sure about using an EHR for a longer period of time, they often avoid the expensive systems. Along with buying and installing the healthcare system, a doctor also has to put some amount of time and efforts in training other physicians, dietitians and nurses. So many doctors prefer investing in inexpensive EHRs to make it reduce their operational expenses. Also, the inexpensive EHRs make it easier for them to switch to avail additional benefits by switching to a more advanced system.

Some companies upgrade their EHRs frequently to overcome the common problems faced by users. The recent reports will compel many companies to standardize medical data processing, so that a doctor can change his existing EHR in a smooth and hassle-free way. And that is when need for healthcare software development services is felt.

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