Although the healthcare market is experiencing an explosion in jobs, many organizations in this sector have been neglecting one of the most important parts of the relationship. The patient.
Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use requirements may put this to bed. One of the top requirements of this second step is to engage patients.
According to Dave Chase, CEO of Avado.com, a patient portal and relationship management company, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), which is responsible for many of the changes brought about by healthcare reform, has added management of patient relationships to Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements.
He says nothing would result in a better healthcare system (and decrease costs) than if more individuals were involved or engaged. He points out that 75 percent of all healthcare costs are for chronic diseases and who makes the decisions that drive those outcomes? The patient. All healthcare relationships start with the patient, and this is a huge opportunity for healthcare IT, he says in his Web column.
To prove his point, Chase reminds his readers how Stage 1 of Meaningful Use requirements spurred medical organizations to start switching from paper to electronic health records. But this next step will take some work on the part of healthcare organizations.
“Legacy health IT has had very, very little focus on the patient,” Chase reports, mainly because most IT systems were focused on getting the bill out as quickly as possible. But Stage 2 puts engaging with the patient right out in front.
This may create challenges for healthcare providers, Chase says, noting that it’s a much different proposition to have software that pulls in revenue rather than engage with patients.
Since legacy providers may be loath to dig into this area, that’s where healthcare tech start-ups come in, start-ups that have not had the luxury so far of benefiting from the blowing-wide-open healthcare field, Chase writes.
Keith W. Boone argues back that meeting meaningful use “hinges on the patients and is out of the provider’s control. Is that fair? If they are not engaged, they are not engaged. And what if patients are not wired to see and access their records, such as rural areas.”
Chase writes that since many healthcare organizations are worried about this, and tied into legacy systems that don’t address patient engagement, they’re pushing back against this new requirement and he fears that it may get “watered down.”
This is where start-ups come in, he says. There are many innovative healthcare tech start-ups who could help with patient engagement, Chase emphasizes, and start healing our healthcare system.
Edited by
Jennifer Russell
