The trend, known as information therapy, involves delivering reliable health information directly to patients to help them manage their conditions and make treatment choices. Health plans also are offering online self-management programs and virtual coaching sessions for a wide range of health issues.

“Information therapy can help bridge the transition from [doctors] doing things to and for people, to helping them become active participants in their own care,” says Paul Wallace, medical director of health and productivity management programs at Kaiser and a director of the nonprofit Center for Information Therapy, which promotes providing patients with information as part of the process of medical care.

Read the entire story by following the link above.

• Patient
• Care
• Accessible
• Accountable
• Awareness
• Connected
• Contextual
• Collaborative
• Consumer
• Community
• Choice
• Digital
• Electronic
• Experience
• Interactive
• Intuitive
• Mobile
• Networked
• Ownership
• Personal
• Participatory
• Preventive
• Private
• Relevant
• Real Time / Timely
• Secure
• Simple
• Shared
• Social
• Transparent
• Trusted
• Valuable

Of course each one of these has to be placed in context and I am sure that a lot is missing and some don’t fit here.  What do you think?  Please add your comments and relevant links below.

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Updates from the comment section:

• Empowerment
• Segmented
• Differentiation
• Responsive

But it struck me.

Which of the two phrases in the title should be the one we focus on as we move forward into pushing the healthcare conversation forward?

Clinically Relevant (Clinical Relevance)

or

Patient Centered

Does it make a difference?  Would it change our behaviours?  Will it affect our focus?

If we use one more than the other, will this affect our outcomes in transforming healthcare?  (Oops, you are right, the goal is not to transform healthcare but to improve patient outcomes.   In the process of improving outcomes it just happens that the delivery of health care services will also be transformed.)

I do believe it makes a difference… but need to think through it some more.   Please let us know what you think.

From the Executive Summary:

If executed well, wireless home care solutions can significantly enhance an organization’s quality of service and profitability, not to mention providing a defensible source of competitive differentiation.  So why aren’t more organizations investing in these solutions?  Why does there continue to be a general reluctance or hesitancy in automating home care service processes?

At issue are the role of home care service providers within the health care sector and the approaches taken to automate service processes.  Yet the evidence of the benefits of homecare service automation, including improved quality, efficiency and safety, continues to mount.  VDC conducted in-depth interviews with a broad cross-section of home care service providers and wireless solution providers, many with several generations of home care service automation experience.  According to our research, home care service organizations can achieve an average net benefit of up to $15,000 per full-time equivalent (FTE) per year by deploying wireless home care solutions.

It is, however, important to note that these represent optimal benefits, which can vary based on factors such as service provider acceptance, level of solution functionality, reimbursement models (capitated vs. fee for service) and the quality of implementation.  Furthermore, the value proposition of wireless in home care is multi-faceted and revolves as much around the improved quality of life of individual service providers as it does around potential productivity enhancement.  In this paper VDC will examine the opportunity for wireless solutions in the home care sector in North America and provide recommendations on best practices to follow to maximize ROI and reduce the risks that home care service providers face when making wireless investments.

And these are their recommendations which I will not go into and instead point you back to the paper:

1. Avoid multiple, non-integrated information systems.
2. Understand the distribution of benefits received from wireless home care investments.
3. Clearly identify issues to be addressed/benefits gained through wireless solution.
4. Prepare for change.

Having said all that, it still quite surprising and shocking how hospitals have not opened their doors more widely to mobile phone use inside their facilities. However we see some progress being made:

Hospitals in England have been told to consider allowing “more liberal use of mobile phones”, following new guidance issued today by the Department of Health.

Under the new guidelines areas of hospitals where mobile phone use is banned could become the exception rather than the norm. Bans will remain in place in areas where critical care equipment is susceptible to electro magnetic interference.

The latest guidance says NHS trusts “should consider giving patients, staff and visitors the widest possible use of mobile phones, where it doesn’t interfere with equipment, the privacy of others or cause a nuisance”.

Although the main reason for these changes in England are not for the same reasons we stated above:

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: “Close support and comfort from loved ones when you are poorly in hospital is essential. Mobiles phones are commonplace in everyday life these days and people have told us that they’d like to be able to use their phones more in hospital to keep in touch.”

Bradshaw added: “That’s why we’re keen to encourage sensible use in NHS hospitals where it is safe to do so, in addition to other services offered in hospitals such bedside payphones, TV and internet access.”

It appears to be more about the patient experience than on the improvement of care… but both are really one and the same so it is good all around.

One question still remains… when will see hospitals adopt mobile technologies more widely?  Will the iPhone do it?   With Palm sinking rapidly and physicians no longer able to defend the ailing platform, BlackBerry may have a chance to win hospitals over especially if they go with the enterprise pitch.  However, on an individual basis I am sure that the iPhone stands a better chance of winning the hearts and minds of caregivers.  We shall see.

**An extremely similar version of this entry has also been posted on our other site.

Our family doctor retired this past summer for personal reasons.

I know we are not alone when I say it has been terrible. Even though I was able to find a doctor for my children and myself well before our doctor retired, I am having a terrible time getting our records (now I say ‘our’, but do we really own them?). I sent in a request for transfer and heard nothing. I called the receptionist and was told I needed to pay for the transfer, so I offered to pick them up and was told that was not allowed. It is one thing when you switch doctors out of choice, but when your doctor quits … should this really be your responsibility? If they are ‘your’ records, should you not be allowed to just pick them up? These are records describing your child births, miscarriages, surgeries … who really owns them if not you?

I waited and did not receive an invoice, big mistake…a month later I called our soon-to-be retiring doctor to see where the files or the invoice were, as I had received neither. The number had been disconnected. I left messages hoping for some info but never received a response. Two weeks later I got a call from the Medical Record Storage in Toronto, asking $340 in exchange for the records of my five children (more than $400 if I wanted my own). They eventually lowered the price to $260 and all six of us to … $360. If the records had of been sent as per my request, the charge would have been $35 per record. This fee is outrageous .

Almost my whole family has had this same doctor since 1992, including my parents, my sister, her husband and their four children, and my two brothers (not to mention numerous other people from our community.

When I found my children a paediatrician, he agreed to take my sisters’ children as well, and our requests for a transfer were sent in at the exact same time. My sister was lucky enough to receive the invoice for their records and paid promptly, however the cheque was cashed and the records were still shipped to the storage company. Ridiculous. Her situation has been rectified and records forwarded for no additional fee from the storage company. She is still waiting for those records and they are being sent directly to her. Imagine that.

Our doctor is a great man and doctor and I wish him the best at whatever he has decided to do in place of his family practice. I would also like to thank him for the many years of providing a great service to our family. However, his office doors should not have been closed until each and every file transfer request was filled.

If I had been ‘allowed’ to pick up our files -what would I be doing right now? Spending an extra $360 on my children for Christmas instead of paying for something I should already own?

Tessa Sparks Omemee