Outcomes that Matter - to Consumers

This is the draft of the testimony I submitted to the hearings recently at the NCVHS around "meaningful use" in Health IT and again in reply to a blog post but I am reporting it here again as I believe we need more support from the grass-roots around this issue.

People (not merely patients) want safe, high quality affordable care and "outcomes that matter" to both providers and patients and those that care for them.

Meaningful Use - is often provider centric but the only way to achieve a high quality, effective, safe, patient centered system is to start the conversation and center the design process around patients from the beginning to have real value it must include the voice of the consumer in its design, policy development and on-going use.

Building on the vision of patient centered care and using the general outline of the IOM goals for health care.we expect

1. Information and convenience - real time access to information, including our medical records, labs, clinical notes as well as the ability to make online appointments
2. Engagement - Email access to our care team as well as questions answered online and via the phone with full participation in treatment plans and follow-up.
3. Safety - we expect our providers to use registry's, clinical alert systems and quality outcomes to monitor our care
4. Security and Data Liquidity - we expect that the ability to share our medical information will be as secure and as easy as the banking system is.
5. Feed-back loops - we expect that our providers, health care systems and ancillary providers will have feed-back loops and patient satisfaction systems built in.
6. Quality - we expect to have access to quality reports on treatments, facilities and providers with no risk from patients participating.
7. Participation - we expect that patients, consumers and family members will be pro-actively included in the design, development and use of any health information technology system.
8. Location - we expect that the tools developed will be delivered where we live via mobile phones, sms, the web and not solely in a providers office.

See some additional views over at Bob Coffield's blog.
Health Care Law Blog: PHRs, The Model T, Meaningful Use and the Patient-Centric HIT Revolution

The only way to achieve a high quality, effective, safe, patient centered system is to start and center the conversations and the design process around patients from the beginning