Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
Mike Miliard is Managing Editor at Healthcare IT News. Mike covers topics such as health information exchange, privacy and security, analytics and ICD-10. Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeMiliardHITN.
NeHC sees progress on patient engagement
WASHINGTON, DC | July 25, 2012
National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) on Tuesday published the results of its Consumer Engagement with Health Information Technology Survey. More than half of the organizations polled said consumer engagement was a high priority for them.
The survey was distributed to the 450 members of NeHC's Health Information Exchange (HIE) Learning Network. It showed that 53 percent of respondents ranked consumer engagement as high or very high in their organization's priorities; only 3 percent ranked consumer engagement as very low in priority.
[See also: Power to the people! Engaging patients to be engaged.]
"Effectively leveraging health IT to engage with patients and consumers will lead to better healthcare outcomes," said NeHC CEO Kate Berry. "Our survey shows that a majority of organizations believe in the strategic importance of consumer engagement yet their strategies are understandably nascent. NeHC's Consumer Consortium on eHealth and HIE Learning Network can serve as forums for sharing consumer engagement lessons learned to help accelerate progress."
Even as they recognize the importance of consumer engagement, however, 33 percent of respondents said their strategies for consumer engagement with health IT are not clearly defined at all; 59 percent indicated their strategies for consumer engagement are beginning to evolve toward clarity. Just 8 percent consider their strategies to be very clearly defined.
Respondents identified their primary goals for consumer engagement with health IT as follows:
- Improve health outcomes (68 percent)
- Deliver information to patients (66 percent)
- Enable consumers to take more responsibility for their health (59 percent)
- Reduce healthcare costs (59 percent)
- Improve consumers' experience in interacting with our organization (57 percent)
[See also: NeHC aims to engage consumer with health IT.]
The survey also found there are many definitions for consumer engagement with health IT. A majority of respondents indicated that their definition included:
