Highlights from the 2013 AMDIS Fall Symposium

For a full listing of stories from the symposium, visit clinical-innovation.com/conferences/amdis

The first AMDIS Fall Symposium, held in Boston Sept. 30-Oct. 1, addressed the changing relationship between clinicians and patients, technologies that are impacting patient engagement, innovative processes that are lowering costs and improving outcomes and much more.

Success stories

The healthcare system is out of balance and already disrupted, according to William F. Bria, MD, MBA, president of AMDIS. “If you were expecting massive changes, unfortunately, at least at this juncture, we’re still hopeful but we’re not seeing the balance we want,” Bria said.

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In another example, an effort to use Rhode Island’s health information exchange to alert primary care providers about their patient’s hospital visits was a success in that state. Jonathan Leviss, MD, chief medical officer of the Rhode Island Quality Institute, said a focus on people, processes and technology improved the process to the point that patient satisfaction has increased and those primary care providers receiving these alerts have a 10 percent lower 30-day readmission rate. That drop translates to avoiding 68 readmissions a month and $860,000 in savings. If the program expands to the entire state, the same 10 percent drop in readmissions would save $7 million.

Engaging patients

Patient engagement has been a significant theme in health IT for at least the past year although some clinicians feel patient access to their records could cause a multitude of problems. Bradley Crotty, MD, MPH, investigator, clinical informatics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said at a time when healthcare organizations need to close the “big gap” in achieving efficient accountable care in managing populations, giving patients the reins over their health through use of OpenNotes and social media shows promise.
Crotty broke down patient engagement challenges into three categories: information asymmetry, integration and reinforcement.

Data from a year-long OpenNotes demonstration project, in which clinician notes were accessible to patients at Beth Israel, Geisinger Health System in Danville, Penn., and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Wash., revealed strong patient engagement that helped tackle these three challenges.

While 77 to 87 percent of patients felt more control over their care, some privacy concerns lingered, Crotty said. Between 26 and 36 percent of patients expressed privacy worries, but he noted that the level of concern measurably dropped the longer the project was in operation.

Social media also can play a role in engaging patients and their behavior, Crotty said. Trends show that individuals increasingly use social media to navigate health issues, with 80 percent of users seeking health information online, 23 percent of individuals following friends’ health experiences online and 9 percent of consumers joining online health-related support groups.

More and more hospitals and clinics are launching Facebook pages to disseminate health information, but Crotty stressed that monitoring must be in place to ensure users do not use the platform for clinical encounters.

All in all, Crotty said he is “bullish” about sharing information, whether through networking, microblogging or sharing clinical innovation with patients. OpenNotes and social media are the “sweet spots” that encourage better patient engagement, he said.

The future of MU

During the meeting, the conversation often turned to Meaningful Use and the more aggressive timeline and requirements for Stage 2. Many associations and organizations have called for an extension and some have even called for a reevaluation of the entire program. John Glaser, PhD, CEO of Health Services, Siemens Healthcare, said the program “has had a remarkable impact” on EHR adoption rates but “I think it’s worth extending for a year. What was done through legislation was an extraordinary effort to recast health IT. As bright as the people who wrote the legislation are, it’s not possible to get it all right. You will make mistakes. At this junction, let’s reassess what’s working and what’s not.”

For a full listing of stories from the symposium, visit clinical-innovation.com/conferences/amdis