Guest post by Madelyn Kearns from Medical Practice Insider
At the end of the day, after satisfying quality measures, enduring systems updates, troubleshooting claims errors and scheduling visits, running a medical practice all comes down to one thing: patients.
You could have the best electronic medical record system, an experienced care team rounding out your operation and the most up-to-date health gadgets the industry can conjure, but none of those are as important as engaging patients.
That’s why the 2014 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition is flush with sessions for providers that detail the ins-and-outs of patient engagement today — so when tomorrow comes, providers and those they provide for will be on the same page.
Here’s a look at some of the top patient engagement sessions to be held at HIMSS14:
1. Engaging Patients Through a Compelling Web Experience (February 24, 1-2pm)
To comply with some of the stipulations within meaningful use Stage 2, practices will face imperatives regarding how to improve access to patient data via health information exchanges and online patient portals. PinnacleHealth System’s CIO Steven Roth and director of strategic technology services Joel Arker aim to help attendees recognize what features may increase the adoption of an online patient portal. They will also discuss how existing web capacities can be used with a patient portal as well as how to develop priorities for rolling out those capabilities using a best practices approach. Learn more.
2. How Technology Can Enable Care Anywhere, Anytime (February 25, 10-11am)
Supporting a patient’s well-being regardless of where they are is becoming an essential motivator for healthcare technology developers and providers. Thus, Kaiser Permanente technology innovation executives Wendy Lee and Faye Sahai will be discussing the ways in which an “Imagining Care Anywhere” experience can aid in teams being seamlessly integrated to members, not to places; and how the approach personalizes health experiences through technology. Learn more.
3. Unlocking the Patient Care Benefits: Maturing EMR Adoption in Primary Care (February 25, 2:30-3:30pm)
Electronic medical records can do quite a lot in advancing patient-provider relationships, according to Neil Gardner, president and board chair of COACH: Canada’s Health Informatics Association. During his session, Gardner will discuss how achieving higher levels of adoption maturity provides a roadmap for ongoing using EMRs in primary care. Gardner will also identify change management challenges associated with introducing EMRs in primary care settings; describe the systematic approach for realizing long-term benefits from EMRs for patients and providers though continuous improvement; and explain how health informatics best practices contribute to achieving better health outcomes through the use of such tools. Learn more.
4. Patient Engagement: Health IT Solutions for Both Patients and the Care Team (February 26, 8:30-9:30am)
Panelists Rosemary Kennedy, PhD, RN, MBA, FAAN and Sarah R. Tupper, MS, RN-BC, LHIT, CPHIMS, will present findings from two health IT patient engagement studies — one which measured the impact of kiosks, portals and mobile phones on decision-making, adherence to care plans and healthcare outcomes, while the other study dealt with the development and rollout of a patient engagement portal to support interdisciplinary care teams in engaging patients. Learn more.
