Simplifying Healthcare in 2016

Healthcare and health IT have been deluged with regulatory initiatives, system complexity, patient access and shifting priorities. It is important that we refine our focus in 2016, and get back to basics.

• How can we improve the health of patient populations without the complexity of patient access?
• How do we engage clinicians and stakeholders without additional regulatory initiatives? 
• How do we connect system silos and advance interoperability within our vendor communities?

While at HIMSS16, I look forward to exploring the many ways vendors, physicians and industry thought leaders plan to simplify healthcare through advanced technology, vendor offerings, patient access and improved outcomes.

These priorities are important to me as a member of the health IT community, a patient advocate and an educator, and I plan to address them during HIMSS16.

How do we simplify innovation to “fit” the communities we serve?

Innovation requires change. Yet, each part of the value chain requires a potentially different approach. As we adapt the systems in use today, how can we include more diverse, multi-cultural, multi-generational voices, in the change process?

Change is more than implementation of a new system or portal. Providing the right message at the right time to people where they are, instead of where you want them to be, can bring tremendous value to patients and families.

How do we simplify technology to advance interoperability?

HL7’s SMART on FHIR, an open-source API specification designed to integrate apps with electronic health records,  portals, health information exchanges, and other clinical applications is gaining a lot of attention, and vendors are accepting interoperability as an essential component of patient care.

Continued success in integrating health IT depends on universal standards that advance interoperability, promote sharing of standardized content, and align to existing reimbursement models, therefore, reducing the dissatisfaction of providers because of missing features and functionality.

By using data-driven solutions to pre-populate forms and assessments, by accessing data in disparate systems, by connecting information silos beyond the four-walls of our facilities and EHR systems, we can improve inefficiencies, reduce provider disengagement, readmission rates and patient safety errors and align to the needs of patients in the communities we serve.

Simplify patient access and education

Patients want to engage with their health data. They want access to their information, worded in everyday language with easy-to-identify recommendations for follow-up and education, displayed in a manner that makes sense (visually, texturally or aesthetically) , in native language, accessible via a preferred method of delivery (email, text, portal or print).

Patients understand medical instructions better when spoken to slowly and delivered with simple words and in everyday language. For optimal comprehension and medical compliance, patient education materials should be written at a sixth-grade or lower reading level, include pictures and words, with color coding and easy-to-understand illustrations and physician comments.

The stakeholders who need to be addressing / advancing these perspectives:

• CIOs and industry thought leaders
• Developers and integrators in health IT systems and services
• Physicians, clinicians and healthcare organizations
• Patients, caregivers and consumers
• Regulatory organizations (ONC, HHS, FDA HL7 and others)
• Vendors (EHR, EMR, HIE, portal technologies, mHealth, telehealth and secure mMessaging)

Obstacles to Achievement:

• Vendor development silos
• Lack of universal interoperability standards
• Language, literacy and educational Levels
• Universal standards for interoperability
• Universal health portals with ALL health-related information in one place

Addressing these perspectives at HIMSS16:

Achieving Sustainable Clinical Innovation: Easier said than done

A Connected Hospital and Connected Community Partnership

A Case Study on Creating a Learning Health System

The Intelligent Health Pavilion 2016

Sylvia Mathews Burwell- Secretary of Health and Human Development

CHIME-HIMSS CIO Forum –HIMSS16

EMR: Here Today - Gone Tomorrow?

There is a real opportunity here for EMR innovators to step up. It isn’t the size of the vendor that matters; it’s their customer centric approach. EMR systems must be adaptable to physician work flow. They must align to the process and business needs of the small 1-5 ambulatory practice as well as the large IDN.....

I’ve been involved in EMR since early adoption. I quickly found out that in order to create sustainable value for the EMR, I needed to listen to the end user, and adapt the EMR to work for each role, from front desk to back office.  More times than not, the vendor told me “Let the trainers do that, and move on to the next one”.  However, two days on site or three in a classroom wasn’t enough to create sustainable usability. Trainers provided script training, nothing more. This left physicians and clinicians to finish documentation at night or on weekends.  EMR cost more, created more work, and left the practice scrambling to see the same patient load every day. It quickly became a money pit of financial disaster.

I accompanied providers into exam rooms, or lurked right outside them, sometimes waiting in the physician office to play “Catch up” with the progress note.  I created short cuts and favorite lists, customized templates and typed up my own cliff notes version of the user guides. I catered to personal preference, aligning the EMR to role based workflow, process and practice need.  My objective was not to create an EMR user, but to create a referenceable account.  And I did that over and over again from vendor to vendor, application to application. It wasn’t rocket science. It was taking available technology and aligning it specifically to the needs of the end user. It wasn’t always simple and it wasn’t always replicable. But it was always worthwhile.

Whether the fault rests on the corporate vendors or end users is unclear. However, it is clear that people have to understand the process, and be able to create a product that aligns to usability in a real time scenario. Creating relationships means an investment on the part of the vendor. Creating usable software means listening to the people who actually use it. Many see Meaningful Use as a “Bribe” to get Physicians to use EMR systems, because they just can’t or won’t do it otherwise.

There is a real opportunity here for EMR innovators to step up. The construction of a sustainable ecosystem delivers value to the end user. Value is defined in the creation of an adaptable, flexible platform that is interoperable, physician friendly, and scalable to the environment. It’s the same scenario we faced during early adoption. It takes people with a customer centric approach, who listen to the real life challenges of practicing medicine, Then take the time needed to work with clinicians and physicians. It’s through this shared responsibility that EMR companies remain sustainable. Its through this shared responsibility that everybody wins.