Patient engagement a top priority for HIEs

Consumer engagement is a top priority for U.S. health information exchanges (HIEs), according to the results of a survey of members of the National eHealth Collaborative's (NeHC) HIE Learning Network.

NeHC’s survey showed that 53 percent of respondents ranked consumer engagement as high or very high in their organization’s priorities; only 3 percent ranked consumer engagement as very low in priority. One-third of respondents said their strategies for consumer engagement with health IT are not clearly defined at all and 59 percent say their strategies for consumer engagement are beginning to evolve toward clarity. Eight percent consider their strategies to be very clearly defined.

“Effectively leveraging health IT to engage with patients and consumers will lead to better healthcare outcomes,” said NeHC CEO Kate Berry in a release. “Our survey shows that a majority of organizations believe in the strategic importance of consumer engagement yet their strategies are understandably nascent.”

Respondents identified their primary goals for consumer engagement with health IT as follows:

• Improve health outcomes: 68 percent
• Deliver information to patients: 66 percent
• Enable consumers to take more responsibility for their health: 59 percent
• Reduce healthcare costs: 59 percent
• Improve consumers’ experience in interacting with our organization: 57 percent

According to NeHC’s survey, there are many definitions for consumer engagement with health IT. Based on a list of options, a majority of respondents indicated that their definition included:

• Patient uses electronic educational material or online resources to learn about better health or their own health conditions: 74 percent
• Patient refills prescriptions or accesses lab results or other personal health data online: 72 percent
• Patient engages with provider through electronic means (e.g. telemedicine): 71 percent
• Patient understands how their health records are stored securely, how they will be used and shared: 69 percent
• Patient enables friend or family member to review medical records electronically when appropriate: 64 percent
• Patient manages own health through the use of electronic home monitoring devices, health-related smart phone apps or online tools: 63 percent
• Patient uses IT tools and resources to manage his or her medical record: 62 percent
• Patient downloads his or her medical record and other health data to a personal health record (PHR) or to a personal electronic storage device: 62 percent
• Provider emails or texts reminders to patients: 60 percent
• Patient makes medical appointments online: 60 percent
• Patient emails provider with questions: 58 percent

Respondents to the NeHC survey also indicated they are using the following approaches for patient engagement:

• Deliver information electronically to patients: 53 percent
• Offer patient portal: 47 percent
• Provide marketing or educational materials electronically: 43 percent
• Offer PHR: 31 percent
• Offer remote monitoring to enable patient information to be transmitted to provider via electronic network: 21 percent
• Include patients on Board of Directors and in other leadership roles: 16 percent

For more, see the complete survey results.