Posts Tagged ‘eHealth’
Major Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Report on PHRs
January 19, 2010
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has published an 7 chapter online book about Personal Health Records. The book is a great summary of the current state of PHRs as well as initiatives promoted by Project Health Design. Chapters are:
Chapter 1: Personal Health Records 101
Chapter 2: Project HealthDesign and the Next Generation of Personal Health Records
Chapter 3: Observations of Daily Living
Chapter 4: The Health Information Technology Landscape
Chapter 5: Personal Health Records and Health Information Technology—Costs, Policies and the Incentives Driving Adoption
Chapter 6: Privacy and Personal Health Records
Chapter 7: Personal Health Records—Business Models, Open Platforms and the Challenges Ahead
Worthy of note is chapter 3 on Observations of Daily Living (ODL), the importance of having patients enter their own daily activities and disease experience into a PHR. While the chapter does not specifically mention social networking sites like Organized Wisdom or PatientsLikeMe, the implication is that these type of tools provide value, often unrealized, by most provider organizations. ODLs could also include direct input into a tethered PHR or via home monitoring devices.
Also presented well is the discussion of the Health IT landscape and the emphasis on open platforms. Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health are described as revolutionary innovations. They provide PHRs with open connections to EHRs and devices as well as a portable, web-based record empowering patients to bring their records to any provider.
They conclude with addressing business models and incentives to make PHRs successful. “Open platforms create a wide avenue for innovation in health care” and the need to move past proprietary models is promoted. I might add that existing proprietary EMRs must be able to talk to the open platforms through web services or the CCR standard. There is no excuse for not adapting to these standards to enable the transfer of data into patients’ control.
Looking toward future and the new grant recipients for Project Health Design, the authors conclude: “They will face a number of challenges, including how to capture observations of daily living (ODLs); how to aggregate and analyze those data in a PHR; how to use the findings to inform the clinical encounter; and, ultimately, how to empower patients to understand, influence and improve their health. “
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Convergence of eHealth and Health 2.0?
September 15, 2009
While some create strong distinctions between the terms eHealth and Health 2.0, others use them interchangeably. eHealth clearly came before Health 2.0 but is it just an evolution from one to the other. The general consensus seems to be that ehealth is a broad term including electronic medical records, personal health records and other health care tools. Some include mobile devices, home monitoring and telemedicine within ehealth. Health 2.0 evolved more recently and focuses on Web 2.0 tools especially social media tools and their use in health care.
Are they converging or is there an opportunity for convergence? They need to converge because in the future ePatients will demand a single view of their health both from PHRs and social media. Perhaps it will look something like Google Wave.
National Institute for Health Innovation
October 14, 2008
In referring to National, this conference is from the island nation of New Zealand. This organization which is part of the University of Auckland, will provide live blogging from a conference on the northern island thanks to Chris Patton who I met at the Medicine 2.0 Congress. The conference is sponsored by HINZ, Health Informatics New Zealand. The conference will cover the same topics that you would find in a US conference, such as, implementation, health literacy, and integration. There are also a few unique topics, such as, From Professional Standards to Information Standards, Analysis of Medication Possession Ratio for Improved Blood Pressure, Supporting The Visually Impaired Using RFID Technology, and this one, which I especially like, Rescuing Data from Decaying and Moribund Clinical Information Systems.
I hope to tune in to some of the live blogging starting Wednesday. I wonder if any online video content will be available?
Share this:Smart Blogs – This one included
September 9, 2008
My blog is included in a feed on the SmartBrief site for eHealth blogs. In good company with the Healthcare Blog and others. eHealth SmartBrief is a good source of news and at least one site which has not moved from the eHealth label to Health 2.0.
Share this:The Case for Telemedicinee
August 26, 2008
In an article from National Center for Policy Analysis, one of the key arguments is the shortage of primary care physicians and how telemedicine can extend their reach. Could it also reduce emergency room use – perhaps for the chronically ill especially with remote monitoring over the internet for blood pressure, glucose readings, etc.
Telemedicine, if done right, can improve adherence to protocols and improve care. Two barriers noted is the reluctance of payers to approve this care and not allowing foreign doctors to provide care remotely, although I am not sure that I would agree with the latter.
Telemedicine certainly holds some potential, and if properly funded and regulated (not over-regulated), could extend safe, effective care to the home.
Share this:Indianapolis Health System Integrates Health Card and eHealth Offerings
August 9, 2008
From the Indianapolis Star newspaper, there is a report on the Community Health Network’s initiative to develop a combination MyCommunity card to be used to register at hospital kiosks and online tools. The online tools include the ability to track conditions and medications. The article quotes a researcher from Manhattan Research which tracks trends through their CyberCitizen Health product.
This ehealth initiative in Indianapolis is an major move forward and an example for other health systems to integrate their consumer-facing offerings.
Share this:Investing in Patient Centric Applications
August 8, 2008
According to an article on Most Wired, the importance of investment in patient-centered websites is promoted. This is being driven by consumer demand for electronic medical records and communication tools with providers. “Customers will want to be more involved in owning their PHR.” Initiatives like Google Health, Microsoft Health Vault and Revolution Health will continue to drive consumer expectations up. Consumers shop for healthcare online for providers and in the future, quality information.
While not all hospitals reply to the Most Wired annual survey, the results worth a review.
Share this:Annual eHealth Survey
July 15, 2008
Geonetric has opened its annual survey on eHealth. It is a worthwhile and quick survey which may give you some perspective on your own ehealth initiatives. The results will help you compare yourself with other healthcare organizations. Their blog post on the survey promotes it from the perspective of potentially creating a business case for more resources for web development. Geonetric is a web development, ehealth and strategy firm which understands the healthcare market. Check out another recent post on best practices on some new hospital websites they have designed.
There are free webinars as well.
You can order last year’s results are here.
Share this:eHealth Blogs
July 9, 2008
I discovered that one of the referrers to my blog is also one of my favorite journals, the Journal of Medical Information Technology. They have a feed page which pulls in posts from several eHealth and Health IT blogs including mine.
Share this:Adoption of Online Consumer Tools
July 9, 2008
There is a new report from the California HealthCare Foundation titled, “Helping Patients Plug in:Lessons on the Adoption of online Consumer Tools.” The report is based on research with several healthcare organizations in different settings and regions. This timely evaluation of PHRs and other tools showing how the consumer demand for these tools is high while availability is low, such as, for online access to one’s medical records. They also note that even “safety net populations” have access to the Internet and are interested in these tools. They point out gaps in information, for instance information exchange between physicians to facilitate diagnosis and treatment and missed opportunities in community health centers to make computers and emailing physicians available. This may be an opportunity for more federal funding. Even when PHRs and other tools are available, adoption is low. In some areas, offering free support for these tools has helped but the report notes that there are still policy and technological challenges to overcome.
Just a note about terminology. This article uses the acronym PCHIT, or patient-center healthcare information technology and not the term eHealth which continues to be popular in Europe but no longer in the U.S. Some use Health 2.0 as the current term for eHealth with a focus on Web 2.0 technology.
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