Archive for the ‘Patient Engagement’ Category

Last week in a bold and historic move (and a bitter pill indeed for many healthcare executives finding themselves explaining the obscure financial inner workings of a hospital) the HHS/CMS released the national charge master data. The release seems to be a response to Steven Brill’s epic TIME magazine article on medical billing: Bitter Pill: [...]

“In the past man has been first. In the future the System will be first.” –Frederick Winslow Taylor “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” There was a time when engagement was the one-on-one relationship between a patient and physician and you could call your doctor on the phone. Do you remember that time? [...]

Much has been written about the demise of small and medium-sized EHR vendors. The conventional wisdom is that Stage 2 of Meaningful Use is the dagger to the heart of all but the largest vendors. However, the smart small and medium-sized vendors are pursuing a strategy I’ll outline below that will position them to thrive [...]

This is the third in a series (Part 1, Part 2) on on how patient engagement is more analogous to marketing and customer relations than to any specific off-the-shelf tool. It’s a strategy. Human relationships are complicated, dynamic, and also extremely powerful when it comes to influencing both behavior and health outcomes. Books have been [...]

The common refrain in health care circles is that most “people won’t become engaged in care until it’s too late.”  But there are those who do get engaged with significant impact. What determines success? Among those who are sold on Meaningful Use and/or payment reform and know they need to get started, the question is [...]

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” —Lao-tzu, As a cornerstone of Meaningful Use Stage II and a key theme of HIMSS13, it might be easy to get the idea that patient engagement is all about Health IT, but it’s about a much broader spectrum of activities. We’re just at the beginning [...]

When I was a kid, I loved the “Ramona” children’s book series by Beverly Cleary. I enjoyed them so much that I was inspired to write my first, and very rare, fan letter. I told Ms. Cleary how much I liked her books and suggested she write a book about my cat. I was thrilled to [...]

While the theme that stuck out for many attendees at HIMSS13 was “patient engagement,” the related term that sticks in the mind of this remote viewer of HIMSS13 is “context.” I had a contextual view of HIMSS13 through interviews performed on site via a streaming Internet connection (enabled by the great work of Pat Salber, [...]

Rumors of this announcement began swirling a few weeks prior to HIMSS 13. At first, it was just McKesson and Cerner coming together to agree on how to better exchange data between their two systems. The Healthcare IT News article highlights the change – “Six HIT heavy-hitters announce interoperability organization.” The six vendors in the [...]

As human beings, we often think we are each unique individuals with his or own personal story to tell.  As I have often said when encouraging other parents not to compare their kids to other children, “Babies are like snowflakes, none of them are exactly the same.” Healthcare providers often think this about their patients, [...]