Parsing the Patient Portal: Why Engagement Strategies Must Go Beyond It

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According to a recent survey from HIMSS Analytics¹, major healthcare organizations are assessing current portal use and looking for ways to further enhance patient engagement. The survey found the top motivating factors for patient engagement to be the following: to enhance and improve community health (77%), to build brand loyalty for patients (77%) and to meet meaningful use requirements (60%).

Reasons for portal adoption—the current “go to” engagement tool on the healthcare scene—were also somewhat varied:

• Meeting meaningful use requirements for functionality and data sharing from a single source (71%)
• Using portals that offer patient services, technology and content (54%)
• Using portals as a configurable, interoperable information exchange platform with multi-source data sharing (51%)
• Using portals provided by electronic health record vendor of choice (66%)

With a predominant and short-term focus on meaningful use, many healthcare IT companies are in the process of designing products that span the entire care continuum—from the time a patient first engages with a provider until treatment is completed. These “next-generation” portals will allow patients to become partners in their own care, by offering features such as e-visits or e-consultations (80% of respondents are seeking), interoperability across multiple providers (70% seeking), health evaluation and coaching (70% seeking) and televisits (50% seeking)

Overall, healthcare leaders are looking to better align portals with the definition of patient engagement and ensure that accessible healthcare tools provide patients with appropriate decision-making powers when it comes to health and wellness.

For more details on HIMSS’ recent patient portal survey, check out Healthcare Informatics’ coverage here!

SOURCE: Healthcare Informatics

About DoseSpot 
DoseSpot is a Surescripts certified e-Prescribing platform specifically designed to integrate with electronic health record, electronic dental record, practice management and telehealth software. DoseSpot is certified to e-Prescribe controlled substances and has provided simple, affordable and integratable e-Prescribing solutions to healthcare IT companies since 2009. For more information, please visit www.DoseSpot.com.

¹HIMSS Analytics is the marketing intelligence division of HIMSS.

5 Tips To Guide Your EHR Through Meaningful Use Stage 2

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Looking for tips to navigate MU stage 2 requirements?  View one tip on drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks below and visit http://www.dosespot.com/meaningful-use-tips to download all 5 certification tips!

Meaningful Use Stage 2: Tip #2 –

§ 170.314(a)(2) Drug-drug, drug-allergy interaction checks

Objective: In addition to providing drug-drug and drug-allergy interaction checks, this criteria requires EHRs to adjust the level of interactions based on user roles (ie: administrator).

Tip: Provide an easy-to-use user interface so a user can quickly adjust the interactions. DoseSpot allows the user to turn on and off the drug-drug and drug-allergy interactions as well adjust the severity level display between minor, moderate and major interactions.

Click here for more blog posts at ePrescribing.org on Meaningful Use.

CMS Updates Meaningful Use Stages 2 and 3 Timeline

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that Meaningful Use Stage 2 will be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 will be delayed until 2017.  In a joint blog post on CMS.gov, Robert Tagalicod (CMS) and Jacob Reider (Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, ONC) explain “the goal of this change is two-fold: first, to allow CMS and ONC to focus efforts on the successful implementation of the enhanced patient engagement, interoperability and health information exchange requirements in Stage 2; and second, to utilize data from Stage 2 participation to inform policy decisions for Stage 3.”

The post highlights a number of benefits to the new timeframe including:

• More analysis of feedback from stakeholders on Stage 2 progress and outcomes;

• More available data on Stage 2 adoption and measure calculations – especially on new patient engagement measures and health information exchange objectives;

• More consideration of potential Stage 3 requirements;

• Additional time for preparation for enhanced Stage 3 requirements;

• Ample time for developers to create and distribute certified EHR technology before Stage 3 begins, and incorporate lessons learned about usability and customization.

To read the announcement in full, visit www.cms.gov/eHealth/ListServ_Stage3Implementation.html.