ONC Annual Meeting: Patient engagement dissected

The ingredients of patient engagement include a strong collaboration with providers, patient access to their digital records and interoperable health IT tools that make data actionable, according to speakers participating in a panel discussion at the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT’s annual meeting on Jan. 23.

Lygeia Ricciardi, director of ONC's Office of Consumer eHealth, said her office’s strategy for consumer engagement encompasses the three As: access, action and attitude. With access to data comes action, or the ability to enable patients to utilize tools to meet health goals. Holding this all together is attitude, the perspective that patients should be an active and core member of the team, she said.

The office hopes to achieve these aims through its Blue Button Pledge Program, a public-private partnership that encourages use of the special logo—a download arrow in a blue circle—that links patients to their health information.

As someone actively managing multiple chronic diseases, Donna Cryer, patient advocacy and engagement specialist at CryerHealth, said access to data is “changing decisions and conversations with physicians and what we do with my treatment.”

“I think of myself less as an engaged patient but more as an activated patient. Engagement takes at least two parties,” said Cryer. “Until there is a partnership, there won’t be engagement.”

Healthcare providers that share data should recognize that the data are all about the patient, and that the patient is a revenue-generating source, added Cryer. As someone with a liver transplant and inflammatory bowel disease, a provider “getting somebody like me is fabulous,” she said.

Heath IT tools empower patients, leading to more meaningful interactions at the point of care, said Ivor Horn, MD, MPH, pediatrician and researcher at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

“Providers are doing more partnership building,” she said. As young patients and their families share more information, they are working together to make it actionable.

With younger patients, the expectation grows that technology will be integrated into the care process. But, the industry is just beginning to harness these tools, she said. “We are at the infancy and toddlerhood stages. Now, we are trying to get our footing and walk a little better. Eventually, we’ll start to run and start to play.”

Engagement tools are ever abundant, and every day more are developed, said Ryan Bosch, MD, MBA, CMIO of Inova Health System. Patients increasingly expect data from health IT tools to be captured in the EHR, so “interoperability is just paramount.”

“Healthcare wants to manage technology like you would manage horses in a stable. We have to change that mindset so we are willing not to obstruct information flow and get right to the core attribute,” Bosch said.

Ricciardi said as progress is made to get data into patients’ hands, her office plans to put more emphasis on equipping individuals to handle their data.

“It’s about being a smart and thoughtful consumer and being engaged in all aspects of thinking about your health and well-being, including your privacy,” she said.