How do you approach the challenge of consumer eHealth?

Part 1 

“Increasing evidence shows us that “engaged informed patients achieve the best outcomes.”

In order to end up with improved health outcomes that directly benefit consumers, patients and their families and if HIT is to be fully levered as a transformational tool in health care, then consumer centered design principals should be included at every step of the design, adoption and optimization of eHealth tools, policies and processes.


Outcome Driven Program - HHS triple Aim and IOM's six pillars provide the framework and measures of success for the consumer eHealth program

1. Better Care - via IOM's six dimensions -safety, effectiveness, patient centeredness, timeliness, efficiency, equity 
2. Better Health
3. Lower Costs.

History - In the past consumers have been only rarely been involved in the design of new health care delivery systems and are typically brought in after physicians, employers, or health plans have already constructed a new model and consumer engagement was  typically "education.”

This new systems approach is based on the assumption that consumers are full and equal partners in co-designing the healthcare tools and systems. It also highlights the lessons learned that in order to obtain real value of Health IT – you have to simultaneously balance and manage Tools + Process + People)

	Tools  +	Process   +	People   =	Goals / Outcomes
Policy	HITECH	ACA, National Quality Strategy	Consumer Centered Design	3 Aims / IOM 6 Pillars
Focus	Data	Workflow	Stakeholders	Organizational Change
Organizational Model	Moves provider from Silo - rigid, information hoarding to Collaborate within health care system	Collaborate - Freely sharing information and knowledge internally	Open - Connecting internal and external communities	Ecosystem - integrated healthcare community
Engagement	After	During	Before	At decision points
Strategy	Education	Engagement	System Design	System Transformation
Stakeholders	Providers	Providers, Payers	Providers, Payers, Patients = System	Safe, high quality, effective, patient centered
Motivation	Provider Carrot/ Stick $	Provider or Payer Shared $ Benefits	Patient direct personal benefit	Lower Costs + Better Outcomes + Patient Preferences
Points of Intervention	ONC Technology Programs	$ Payment Models	Policy, Design, Implementation, Care	Continuous Feed-back – Cycles of Change
Example	EHR adoption	ACO	Kaiser
Communication	Traditional Media – Sell – Customer	Best Practices Envoys	Designers - Ambassadors	Learning health care system