American Health Information Community Consumer Empowerment Workgroup
September 18, 2006
This workgroup met in D.C. today and I was able to listen to some of the testimony and discussion online. The focus of the agenda was Personal Health Records. Particularly significant and referred to repeatedly was Paul Tang’s testimony based on Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s PAMF Online (the powerpoint in PDF format available at the link above). He noted patient information needs including custom-tailored information and physician endorsement of health information. Regarding PHRs, he indicate that the consumer wants information related to visits, secure communication with their doctors, tools for managing chronic diseases but also had fears related to privacy and security especially that information is not shared with their employer. Dr. Tang also detailed a sustaining value proposition including integrated delivery system, interoperable EHR/PHR, trust and physician adoption.
The session materials also include a Draft Visioning Matrix which is the next task of the Workgroup.
This Workgroup is worth keeping an eye on. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Demand for Online Health Services
September 12, 2006
According the the Wall Street Journal, a survey of consumers indicates that 64% want access to an electronic health
record; 74% want to communicate with their physician via e-mail; 77% want e-mail reminders when they should schedule a physician visit or some other type of medical care. And 54% said an EHR would influence their choice between physicians. However, equal percentages do not have access to these services currently.
So the question is, how do we enable the general public who want these services to obtain them? A few ways: providers offer these services, more education of consumers of options to obtain these services through providers, payors or other online offerings. With this kind of response, it appears that the concerns about security by consumers have lowered enough to encourage acceptance of these services.
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