Consumer Engagement in Health IT: Distinguishing Rhetoric from Reality

Building collaborative leadership: A qualitative evaluation of the Australian Collaborative Pairs trial

The need to reorient the health system to ensure greater involvement of consumers in healthcare has, in recent years, been highlighted as a priority in both literature and policy. This change requires renegotiating power relations among health organisations, health professionals and health consumers. This study presents findings from a trial of a program designed to foster collaborative relationships between clinicians and consumers of health services in the Australian setting. The King's Fund Collaborative Pairs program is a leadership development program that brings together a consumer, patient or community leader to work together in pairs with a service provider clinician or manager to develop new ways of working together. The trial involved 88 participants paired together undertaking one of seven programs conducted from October 2018 to August 2019. Participants were guided through a series of activities in five face-to-face sessions run by facilitators trained by the King's Fund. A qualitative evaluation was undertaken via semi-structured interviews (n = 40) with organisations involved, facilitators and participants. A brief review of program documentation was also included. Thematic analysis was undertaken to evaluate program acceptability, implementation and to identify program impacts. The evaluation, although limited in scope, found the program changed the way some participants understood the nature of consumer and provider relationships and how collaborative working relationships could be developed. The impact of the program on organisations sponsoring participants was less evident as numbers of participants from each organisation were limited and the time required for cultural change to develop is typically longer than the evaluation period allowed for. We highlight key recommendations addressing program recruitment, facilitation and format to inform future iterations of the program.

A framework for analysing learning health systems: Are we removing the most impactful barriers?

INTRODUCTION

Learning health systems (LHS) are one of the major computing advances in health care. However, no prior research has systematically analysed barriers and facilitators for LHS. This paper presents an investigation into the barriers, benefits, and facilitating factors for LHS in order to create a basis for their successful implementation and adoption.

METHODS

First, the ITPOSMO-BBF framework was developed based on the established ITPOSMO (information, technology, processes, objectives, staffing, management, and other factors) framework, extending it for analysing barriers, benefits, and facilitators. Second, the new framework was applied to LHS.

RESULTS

We found that LHS shares similar barriers and facilitators with electronic health records (EHR); in particular, most facilitator effort in implementing EHR and LHS goes towards barriers categorised as human factors, even though they were seen to carry fewer benefits. Barriers whose resolution would bring significant benefits in safety, quality, and health outcomes remain.LHS envisage constant generation of new clinical knowledge and practice based on the central role of collections of EHR. Once LHS are constructed and operational, they trigger new data streams into the EHR. So LHS and EHR have a symbiotic relationship. The implementation and adoption of EHRs have proved and continues to prove challenging, and there are many lessons for LHS arising from these challenges.

CONCLUSIONS

Successful adoption of LHS should take account of the framework proposed in this paper, especially with respect to its focus on removing barriers that have the most impact.

The Heimdall Framework for Supporting Characterisation of Learning Health Systems

BACKGROUND

Learning Health Systems (LHS) can focus population medicine and Evidence Based Practice; smart technology delivering the next generation of improved healthcare described as Precision Medicine, and yet researchers in the LHS domain presently lack the ability to recognise their relevant works as falling within this domain.

OBJECTIVE

To review LHS literature and develop a framework describing the domain that can be used as a tool to analyse the literature and support researchers to identify health informatics investigations as falling with the domain of LHS.

METHOD

A scoping review is used to identify literature on which analysis was performed. This resolved the ontology and framework. The ontology was applied to quantify the distribution of classifications of LHS solutions. The framework was used to analyse and characterise the various works within the body of LHS literature.

RESULTS

The ontology and framework developed was shown to be easily applicable to the literature, consistently describing and representing the goals, intentions and solutions of each LHS investigation in the literature. More proposed or potential solutions are described in the literature than implemented LHS. This suggests immaturity in the domain and points to the existence of barriers preventing LHS realisation.

CONCLUSION

The lack of an ontology and framework may have been one of the causes for the failure to describe research works as falling within the LHS domain. Using our ontology and framework, LHS research works could be easily classified, demonstrating the comprehensiveness of our approach in contrast to earlier efforts.

Information technology to support patient engagement: where do we stand and where can we go?

Objective

Given the strong push to empower patients and make them partners in their health care, we evaluated the current capability of hospitals to offer health information technology that facilitates patient engagement (PE).

Materials and Methods

Using an ontology mapping approach, items from the American Hospital Association Information Technology Supplement were mapped to defined levels and categories within the PE Framework. Points were assigned for each health information technology function based upon the level of engagement it encompassed to create a PE-information technology (PE-IT) score. Scores were divided into tertiles, and hospital characteristics were compared across tertiles. An ordered logit model was used to estimate the effect of characteristics on the adjusted odds of being in the highest tertile of PE-IT scores.

Results

Thirty-six functions were mapped to specific levels and categories of the PE Framework, and adoption of each item ranged from 23.5 to 96.7%. Hospital characteristics associated with being in the highest tertile of PE-IT scores included medium and large bed size (relative to small), nonprofit (relative to government nonfederal), teaching hospital, system member, Midwest and South regions, and urban location.

Discussion

Hospital adoption of PE-oriented technology remains varied, suggesting that hospitals are considering how technology can create partnerships with patients. However, PE functionalities that facilitate higher levels of engagement are lacking, suggesting room for improvement.

Conclusion

While hospitals have reached modest levels of adoption of PE technologies, consistent monitoring of this capacity can identify opportunities to use technology to facilitate engagement.

Complexity of medical decision-making in care provided by surgeons through patient portals

BACKGROUND

Patient portals are online applications that allow patients to interact with healthcare organizations and view information. Portal messages exchanged between patients and providers contain diverse types of communications, including delivery of medical care. The types of communications and complexity of medical decision-making in portal messages sent to surgeons have not been studied.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We obtained all message threads initiated by patients and exchanged with surgical providers through the Vanderbilt University Medical Center patient portal from June 1 to December 31, 2014. Five hundred randomly selected messages were manually analyzed by two research team members to determine the types of communication (i.e., informational, medical, logistical, or social), whether medical care was delivered, and complexity of medical decision-making as defined for outpatient billing in each message thread.

RESULTS

A total of 9408 message threads were sent to 401 surgical providers during the study period. In the 500 threads selected for detailed analysis, 1293 distinct issues were communicated, with an average of 2.6 issues per thread. Medical needs were communicated in 453 message threads (90.6%). Further, 339 message threads (67.8%) contained medical decision-making. Overall complexity of medical decision-making was straightforward in 210 messages (62%), low in 102 messages (30%), and moderate in 27 messages (8%). No highly complex decisions were made over portal messaging.

CONCLUSIONS

Through patient portal messages, surgeons deliver substantial medical care with varied levels of medical complexity. Models for compensation of online care must be developed as consumer and surgeon adoption of these technologies increases.

Use of a Patient Portal During Hospital Admissions to Surgical Services

Patient portal research has focused on medical outpatient settings, with little known about portal use during hospitalizations or by surgical patients. We measured portal adoption among patients admitted to surgical services over two years. Surgical services managed 37,025 admissions of 31,310 unique patients. One-fourth of admissions (9,362, 25.3%) involved patients registered for the portal. Registration rates were highest for admissions to laparoscopic/gastrointestinal (55%) and oncology/endocrine (50%) services. Portal use occurred during 1,486 surgical admissions, 4% of all and 16% of those registered at admission. Inpatient portal use was associated with patients who were white, male, and had longer lengths of stay (p < 0.01). Viewing health record data and secure messaging were the most commonly used functions, accessed in 4,836 (72.9%) and 1,626 (24.5%) user sessions. Without specific encouragement, hospitalized surgical patients are using our patient portal. The surgical inpatient setting may provide opportunities for patient engagement using patient portals.

Assessing HITECH Implementation and Lessons: 5 Years Later

POLICY POINTS

The expansive goals of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act required the simultaneous development of a complex and interdependent infrastructure and a wide range of relationships, generating points of vulnerability. While federal legislation can be a powerful stimulus for change, its effectiveness also depends on its ability to accommodate state and local policies and private health care markets. Ambitious goals require support over a long time horizon, which can be challenging to maintain. The future of health information technology (health IT) support nationally is likely to depend on the ability of the technology to satisfy its users that its functionalities address the interests policymakers and other stakeholders have in using technology to promote better care, improved outcomes, and reduced costs.

CONTEXT

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act set ambitious goals for developing electronic health information as one tool to reform health care delivery and improve health outcomes. With HITECH's grant funding now mostly exhausted but statutory authority for standards remaining, this article looks back at HITECH's experience in the first 5 years to assess its implementation, remaining challenges, and lessons learned.

METHODS

This review derives from a global assessment of the HITECH Act. Earlier, we examined the logic of HITECH and identified interdependencies critical to its ultimate success. In this article, we build on that framework to review what has and has not been accomplished in building the infrastructure authorized by HITECH since it was enacted. The review incorporates quantitative and qualitative evidence of progress from the global assessment and from the evaluations funded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) of individual programs authorized by the HITECH Act.

FINDINGS

Our review of the evidence provides a mixed picture. Despite HITECH's challenging demands, its complex programs were implemented, and important changes sought by the act are now in place. Electronic health records (EHRs) now exist in some form in most professional practices and hospitals eligible for HITECH incentive payments, more information is being shared electronically, and the focus of attention has shifted from adoption of EHRs toward more fundamental issues associated with using health information technology (health IT) to improve health care delivery and outcomes. In some areas, HITECH's achievements to date have fallen short of the hopes of its proponents as it has proven challenging to move meaningful use beyond the initial low bar set by Meaningful Use Stage 1. EHR products vary in their ability to support more advanced functionalities, such as patient engagement and population-based care management. Many barriers to interoperability persist, limiting electronic communication across a diverse set of largely private providers and care settings.

CONCLUSIONS

Achieving the expansive goals of HITECH required the simultaneous development of a complex and interdependent infrastructure and a wide range of relationships, some better positioned to move forward than others. To date, it has proven easier to get providers to adopt EHRs, perhaps in response to financial incentives to do so, than to develop a robust infrastructure that allows the information in EHRs to be used effectively and shared not only within clinical practices but also across providers. Effective exchange of data is necessary to drive the kinds of delivery and payment reforms sought nationwide.