Sometimes it seems like putting strategic plans into place is more about the process than the results, so it is gratifying to witness an organization realize a big payoff for their careful efforts combined with true quality management. Case in point?

The Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) began the “No Harm” campaign in the Southeast Michigan in 2008. The system’s leadership set a quantitative goal to reduce events of harm to patients by 50%. The campaign carefully outlined a strategy to make quality and patient safety a priority: a “zero-defect, no-excuses” focus that intended to keep all stakeholders in the process actively committed to the goals. The results were significant; between 2008-2011, 

·         Patient harm events were cut by 31 percent

·         Medication-related events were cut by 11 percent

·         curbing preventable infections were cut by 45 percent

·         reducing surgical complications cut length of stay by 1.9 days

And those positive figures have resulted in savings that are substantial. It was reported that Henry Ford’s five hospitals realized a cost savings of $10 million over the four years.

HFHS has extended the program to 2013. Their effort to make small, focused changes within a strategic plan has definitely had an impact, both in providing quality health care and on the bottom line. And it has been recognized; on April 15, HFHS received the official Baldrige Award for performance excellence. Well done!

Watch the NBC4 interview with Moe Jafari, HumanTouch, LLC (@HumanTouchUSA) Founder, President and CEO.

Julie Carey from WRC, the Washington D.C. NBC station (@nbcwashington), interviews Jafari and discusses the unemployment rate in Virginia which is at a 3-year-low.

Watch the interview and  learn about the “Encouraging news for job seekers in the Washington DC area. The unemployment rate in Maryland and Virginia is at its lowest in three years.”~ News4’s Julie Carey

To see the interview click here or on the image above.

HumanTouch, LLC is a growth-oriented Small, Disadvantaged and Small Business Administration certified 8(a) company proving Solutions and Professional Services to the Federal government and industry. We are proud to have achieved CMMI Level 3 compliancy and ISO 9001:2008 certification. Founded in 1997, we have been providing business solutions and professional service to public and private sector clients in IT, Finance, Engineering, Telecom, Wireless, Defense, and Pharmaceuticals. We are a debt free organization, supporting clients across the United States. Based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, we support customers across the nation in more than 20 cities including Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

The health and health IT community continues to grow rapidly creating a vast network encompassing the federal, state, local and private sectors. These connections can be fostered and developed through the use of social media. Click here to download the newest Twitter contact list for health and health IT communications.

We continue to serve  our clients as a marketing, communications and strategy consulting firm. That is why we developed the latest twitter contact list to help our clients and others in the health IT community to develop connections in the health IT industry. The list includes current and important hashtags, as well as key twitter handles for bloggers, editors, reporters and federal contacts in the health IT community.

Twitter Contact List for Health and Health IT Communications

For health care professionals, “patient-centric” is the new focus. Health care should engage the patient at all levels, with the goal of achieving better outcomes, reducing ER visits and hospitalizations, improving adoption of healthier practices, and increasing the number of satisfied patients.

Communication – between patients and providers, between the health care team, among family members and caretakers – is key. Yet many worry that this is exactly where things break down, noting that physicians are often anything but patient-centered in their interaction with patients. One critic cited that an estimated two-thirds of physicians employ what is known as a physician-directed or paternalistic style when talking with patients: the physician asks the questions, interrupts the patient as needed, and only provides information the physician thinks the patient needs and is capable of understanding. Another analyst suggested that the fastest way to “disempower, disengage, and de-activate” any patient is the traditional trip to the doctor’s office or the hospital.

In 2012, the quality of the physician-patient experience will make up a sizable percent of Medicare hospital reimbursement. Pay-for performance initiatives mean that individual physician reimbursement may be affected as well. Many organizations are rising to the challenge and creating environments that are truly patient-centric.

For example, in an effort to reach out and engage patients, the Mayo Clinic set up shop in an unlikely spot–the mall. The “Create Your Mayo Clinic Health Experience” in the Mall of America offers shoppers a personalized experience. This is health care beyond the brick-and-mortar confines of a doctor’s office; this space has a sleek, inviting atmosphere and allows visitors to access an interactive library of Mayo Clinic health information. Americans may not want to spend time in a medical waiting room, but they certainly are comfortable spending time in a shopping mall. Meeting them there is an innovative way of thinking about how patients and medical professionals can connect. Encouraging interaction in this environment can promote people to define their own wellness goals, to engage with information that might help them with an open mind and fresh eyes.    

If patients don’t have time to get to the mall, they certainly are spending time in their cars. A collaborative effort including Ford and Microsoft is developing a new technology to help drivers monitor health and wellness while in their automobiles. “Doctor in Your Car” seeks to give patients the ability to manage health and wellness on the go. Health data can be collected and monitored, using voice and touch-screen interface combined with biometrical data from wearable devices.  

We know that people are turning to the Internet and social media with their health care questions. More people now visit online health sites than go to their doctor’s office for information. While providers have often been often reluctant to embrace social media because of privacy concerns, there is growing evidence that Facebook can greatly boost patient engagement. Facebook accounts no longer are a taboo for physician practices. Two how-to guides for social media use in healthcare were published within the past few months (available from Avvo and CSC). And even conservative organizations are jumping on board: In an effort to engage with returning veterans at the local level, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has set up Facebook pages for each of its medical centers nationwide. By leveraging Facebook, the Department continues to expand access to VA, and embrace transparency and two-way conversation. What began with a single Veterans Health Administration Facebook page in 2008 has now produced more than 150 Facebook pages, 64 Twitter feeds, a YouTube channel, a Flickr page, and the “VAntage Point” blog.

New technologies are showing great promise as effective, accessible and inexpensive solutions to a number of chronic health conditions. For example, overweight people who make use of web-based virtual coaches show more commitment to improving their health than those who don’t, according to one study. Online and texting programs are enjoying great success in the treatment of diabetes and high-risk pregnancies. Medical and health care is the third-fastest-growing category of smartphone apps, with the number of downloads for health-related apps in 2012 expected to total 44 million. A February report predicts that the burgeoning market for healthcare peripherals and increasing smartphone processing power will result in the number of patients monitored by mobile networks to rise to 3 million by 2016.

Empowering the patient through information and accessibility will improve the delivery of health care, and health IT continues to accelerate the possibilities. It is an exciting time to watch change happen.

What does “patient-centered” really mean? The term seems redundant;  isn’t health care, by definition, something that centers on a patient? Yet healthcare delivery is currently built around billing and reimbursement, and medical forms, filled with jargon and acronyms, are meant for the providers, not patients, to understand. Transparency and communication are at the heart of much of the current effort to reform and improve the healthcare system. Realigning the focus will take a cultural shift and a concerted effort, both from the healthcare providers and administrators, and the patients themselves.

As a teenager, I worked in a pharmacy at a local drug store. In those long ago dark days, doctors still handwrote scripts on pieces of paper that the patients would hand over to have filled. The pharmacists were famous for their ability to read the almost always indecipherable scrawl penned by the doctors. I asked why doctors wrote so badly, and was told it was because they didn’t really want the patients to know what was being written—an answer I found puzzling. Wasn’t the patient expected to take the medicine, according to a prescribed regime? It seemed odd that the doctor and pharmacist expected to have insider communication that the patient was not privy to.

Jump forward to the present, and the patient is now expected to be in the driver’s seat, exerting authority over all steps of the health care process. It is big shift and important to see how this change is unfolding.  National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, in his latest HealthIT Buzz blog post, predicted that consumer and patient use of health information technology would continue to escalate in 2012 and that it would enable them to become better informed about their health and more engaged with their own care than ever before.  He predicted that by allowing consumers to see their own information will make them more empowered partners in their own care.

Physicians are now expected to learn “patient-centeredness” as one of their core medical skills so they can incorporate it into their daily practice. But many clinicians may be unfamiliar with what is involved in practicing medicine with the patient at the center of his or her care, despite it being a foundation for improved quality and new delivery models.

For example, consider a provider treating a patient who is classified as obese. It is commonly acknowledged that obesity is the root of many additional health problems; any interaction between the provider and patient should seize upon the opportunity to engage the patient in managing and improving this condition. This seems so obvious, in fact, that in December, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved a generous and comprehensive reimbursement program for primary care physicians to provide obesity counseling to Medicare recipients. Yet many have commented that physicians aren’t necessarily trained to engage in this fashion, and that bad counseling could be even more counterproductive than no counseling.

There are differing ideas as to what defines “patient-centered,” but a common understanding is that the patient has shared decision making in the health care process. Physicians and the healthcare system should be helping patients to acquire the literacy to understand risk and to advocate on behalf of themselves, so they can make good decisions to manage their care. Many feel patient-centeredness training should be a part of education in medical schools, training for residency, and included within competencies for certification and re-certification.

 In addition to ensuring providers have the training to engage with patients, there is evidence that other cultural shifts will be necessary. Transparency in information has not been the traditional model. While patients themselves are quite interested in accessing the notes doctors write about them after an office visit, doctors worry about the impact of such transparency on their patients and on their own workflow, according to a study published in December. Such notes have traditionally “belonged” to the doctor, and many expressed concerns that allowing patients to see them might create unnecessary confusion or worry. Additionally, many predicted that notes would be less candid and complete if patients could view them. In contrast, the near 38,000 patients participating in the study were almost unanimous in their desire to have access to such information. Furthermore, a similar Veterans Administration study showed majority would willingly grant access to such information to a spouse or partner as well.

The goals of health care reform mandate a patient-centered approach; as the process moves forward, it is interesting to see how various stakeholders are reacting. Next blog: a look at some of the innovative and effective ways organizations are re-thinking engaging with patients.

SA Ignite delivers a cloud-based software platform, ehrCatalyst, that accelerates improvements in clinicians’ use of electronic health records (EHRs), thereby increasing healthcare efficiency. The Chicago based company conceives and develops innovative features, such as 1-click Meaningful Use attestation (MU Assistant) and automated EHR user shadowing, to advance EHR usage and enable EHRs to fully realize their promise.

To learn more about MU Assistant click here: MU Assistant Intro

SA Ignites clients include:

• Physician Practices
• Regional Extension Centers (RECs)
• EHR Vendors
• Practice Aggregators

SA Ignite products include:

MU Assistant extracts Meaningful Use measures from any EHR, provides decision support to accelerate MU compliance, and enables 1-click MU attestation to Medicare/Medicaid (e-filing). To read more click here

Action Planner is online task management designed specifically for EHR projects. To read more click here

Deep Capture removes the need to manually shadow clinicians in order to isolate root causes underlying usage problems. To read more click here

Visit www.saignite.com to learn more about SA Ignite

Monday, February 20, 2012

These all-day specialty pre-conference events are designed as “insiders” workshops that will help small, medium, and large businesses entering the Federal Health IT market as well as those with experience selling into the Federal Health IT market.

In the 101 Market Entry workshop you will learn:

• How to develop your “elevator speech”
• A concise overview of the market and funding sources for contracts
• Strategies for smart teaming/partnering
• Strategies for establishing target relationships while attending HIMSS12

If you are an alumnus of the HIMSS11 Federal Health IT Business Development Workshop or if you have at least one year of experience winning business in the Federal Government Health IT Market, then the Advanced Business Development workshop is for you. In the Advanced workshop you will gain insights into the more complex challenges facing business developers today including cost strategies, how to beat an incumbent contractor, selling innovative solutions by shaping the market, and developing high value relationships with influencers and buyers within the Federal Government. Both workshops are full day events and cover the topics mentioned above and much more!

Download the Federal Health IT Business Development Workshops HIMSS12 flyer.

To register click here or on the following URL: http://himssconference.org/Federal/

Health IT is expected to facilitate and accelerate health care reform. A major aspect of this is how technology will enable health care organizations to capture and exchange data at every level, creating a system that has true interoperability and can eventually support the goal of personalized medicine.  But technology must also work in tandem with clinical and diagnostic coding procedures already in place to make sure information is consistent and meaningful – and ensuring quality coding also improves compliance and can prevent fraud, waste, and abuse.

New initiatives and trends continue to underline this movement. For example, in December, in a move toward transparency and quality improvement, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a final rule that will allow consumers, insurers, and employers to buy access to an extensive Medicare claims database. This information is expected to inform a “report card” that will evaluate providers on quality. This information is expected to greatly increase accessibility to Medicare data, and will be generated by the information contained in claims data. And while large amounts of money have been budgeted to help establish the infrastructure for information exchange, the results are not always encouraging. Current efforts to organize health information exchanges receive low marks from CIOs, according to a recent survey by healthsystemCIO.com. Ninety-two percent of responding CIOs said that local, regional, state and national HIE efforts were duplicative, and 60 percent described HIE initiatives in their state as a “confused mess.”

But the survey also indicated that nearly 70 percent of the respondents said their organizations either were exchanging, or planned to exchange, data with other healthcare systems that competed with them. There is definite movement towards achieving the standards of Meaningful Use and establishing real data interchange.

From the technical side, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) will continue to push hard for universal adoption of standards that will increase the interoperability of health IT applications. Along with the technical specifications, the quality of data entered will need to be accurate, consistent, and universal.  Information must be correct and interchangeable; high quality clinical and diagnostic analysis and intelligence offers a way to ensure those standards are met. Establishing the soundness of information will support the goals of information exchange, as well as helping organizations to achieve ever-increasing compliancy demands. Finally, accurate data is another tool in the fight to establish proactive methods of reducing fraud, waste, and abuse, a major underpinning of health care reform.

For more discussion on this topic, please see the Net New Growth whitepaper, “The Impact of Health Care Reform: Considering Accountable Care, Data Management, and Compliancy.”

Happy Thanksgiving from the Net New Growth team!  We wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  This time of year and always, we are grateful to our clients, business partners, friends and family for your continued support and partnership.

Health Care IT is seeking to improve the delivery of health care and encourage a system that is more responsive and tailored to the individual. It is a goal that should receive widespread support from all constituents, yet the average patient has many misunderstandings and misapprehensions that not only create a less favorable environment, but actually can undermine the success of programs currently underway. Effective communication with all levels of people involved in the process is a necessity to ensure patients are comfortable with the process and trust the system.

For example, according to a recent study, physicians are more likely than their patients to view electronic health record systems as safer than paper records. The November survey found that a little more than half of responding physicians (54%) believe that EHRs are safer, while only 39% of patients agree. Conversely, only 18% of physicians see paper records as the safer alternative, while 47% of patients believe paper is safer.

Much of the reform contained in the HITECH section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) bill centers on the successful transition to the EHR system. The federal incentives to promote EHR adoption are in full swing and practices across the country are working to attain meaningful use standards. Yet this survey indicated the average patient has a less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the idea – an attitude that can hinder successful implementation. Education and communication are necessary to allow patients to understand why EHRs don’t represent a threat to privacy; to the contrary, they are safer than paper charts and will ultimately ensure better care. The right messaging should promote patients to demand a digital solution over traditional paper.

A July study conducted by Harris Interactive for the Xerox Corporation also indicated that greater efforts need to be made to assure patients that their personal medical information will be safe and secure. About 80 percent of respondents worried about stolen personal information by a computer hacker. The threat of lost, damaged, or corrupted records was the second biggest concern. A majority indicated they lacked a clear understanding of how EHRs might affect them at all, and only 18 percent said they had a healthcare provider discuss EHRs with them. Such responses indicate a significant need for increased communication directly to patients to ensure a clear understanding of the benefits of EHR implementation is demonstrated. A better understanding of EHRs would demonstrate that not only will such records be more efficient, but they will also provide better security than traditional paper-based systems.

The need for communication with patients in all areas is increasingly apparent. New measurements of successful treatment put patient satisfaction as an important metric, yet a recent study in the British Medical Journal: Quality and Safety suggests that providers may not be tapped into patients’ wants or needs. While most clinicians (about 90%) say it’s important to ask patients about their expectations, most don’t ask patients what they are and thus don’t respond to patients’ expectations adequately; only about 16% of clinicians reported asking patients about their expectations.

Yet the “patient experience” is become a top priority for many hospital leaders. This aspect goes beyond care delivered and considers factors such as customer service and the overall environment. While it can be difficult to define and measure how to improve the patient experience, it seems obvious that meaningful communication plays a key role. This means not only ensuring patients have a clear picture of care provided, but also ensuring that patients’ contributions to the dialogue are received, understood, and appreciated. This two-way communication will benefit all parties. Consider a study that shows that a majority of patients won’t sue if they suspect a medical mistake; they’ll simply “take a hike,” according to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study indicates that in the majority of cases, the physician hadn’t done anything wrong; yet patients often suspected errors, whether for valid reasons or not. Improved communication could give patients a better understanding of what they should be expecting from treatment, as well as allowing concerns to be voiced and responded to before patients terminate treatment prematurely. Even when real mistakes have occurred, recent research also indicates that patients are more forgiving when doctors own up to mistakes and offer compensation.

It all adds up to remembering the most basic rule of all partnerships: effective communication is needed at all levels to ensure success. This will prove a vital part of recreating a patient-centric system that revolves around individualized medicine and personal accountability.