December 10, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
The University of Utah Health Care, a four-hospital, 10-clinic health system, announced it has added an online tool that allows patients to score their satisfaction with their physicians. The physicians will be ranked on 40,000 patient surveys based on nine questions. Utah Health Care claims it is the first system in the nation to do something like this.
December 10, 2012
news
In a new study from researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and other institutions, people who use the internet to acquire health or medical information are less likely to have a fatalistic view on cancer than those who do not. The study, which was published in the Journal of Communication, found that the internet reduced fatalism, which is when people think that getting cancer is a matter of luck or fate, among the less educated and less health-knowledgeable people.
December 5, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has announced a $200,000 challenge for developers to create game applications that help generate “useful” healthcare quality data, the organization announced this week. This is the foundation’s second major competition in its Aligning Forces initiative for Quality (AF4Q), an initiative to improve the quality of healthcare in various targeted communities across the country, while providing models of reform.
November 27, 2012 Gabriel Perna
blog
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In healthcare, there are many places where that saying applies. For instance, the journey of an engaged population begins with a single informed patient. But how do you get from the beginning to the end – or at least some semblance of engagement? NeHC has created a guide to do just that.
November 27, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
In addition to its recently announced patient engagement framework, the National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) is releasing an affiliated online assessment tool that will help providers and payers evaluate where they stand in this area. NeHC, which worked with HealthCAWS on the platform, says its Consumer eHealth Readiness Tool (CeRT) can be used as a real-time progress evaluator for payers and providers looking to gauge their patient engagement activities. It also can give recommendations to providers on how they can improve.
November 26, 2012 Joe Bormel
blog
Self-service technology is readily available to healthcare providers of all sizes. Much of it is modular so you can implement it incrementally. You can build patient loyalty through reducing wait times by using the convenience of self-service registration, check in, and empowering patients to schedule their own appointments. There are many other benefits, too. For instance, you can significantly reduce denials, automate co-payments, lower your administrative costs, with more to come. Are you ready?
November 21, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
Reed Smith, an independent strategic consultant for hospitals and founder of the start-up Social Health Institute, recently looked at how 13 different hospitals were using Facebook from May to August of this year. What he found was a gap between what actually gets patients engaged on the platform and what hospitals are doing currently. He spoke with HCI Associate Editor Gabriel Perna to talk about the results of the study.
November 19, 2012 Gabriel Perna
article
The National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) has released the patient engagement framework, a five-step model that will attempt to help providers, payers, and other healthcare entities on the path to engaging patients. A few of the stakeholders who helped develop this newly created framework recently discussed the tool on a NeHC-sponsored webinar.
October 31, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
According to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, wikis would be an effective participatory tool for patients in the development of a clinical practice guideline. Wikis, which are user-friendly websites that allow readers to put in their own modifications of content with a simple text editor, were tested by researchers looking to create clinical guidelines for infertility treatment.
October 26, 2012 Gabriel Perna
blog
David Chao, Ph.D., chief technology officer of The Advisory Board Company, could talk about the Washington, D.C.-based research, technology, and consulting firm’s recent Patient Engagement Blue Button Challenge for hours on end. The thing that impresses me about this initiative, and others like it, is a fostering of this attitude that “if you build it, they will come.”
October 26, 2012 Gabriel Perna
news
The National Institutes of Health, in partnership with a third-party vendor, PatientCrossroads, has established a Down syndrome patient registry which will aim to assemble contacts and information sharing among families, patients, researchers and parent groups. According to a press release announcing the new registry, it will allow people with Down syndrome or their family members to enter their contact information and health history in what the institute says is an online, secure, confidential database.
October 25, 2012
news
The National Proactive Surveillance Network, the Ceders-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and Johns Hopkins are jointly launching what they are calling the world's first online medical database designed to help men track the progression of their prostate cancer while avoiding complications from overtreatment. According to the group, the database portal will allow men with slow-growing forms of the disease to track it in a secure, interactive environment.
