It’s been said that patient engagement develops naturally when there is a regular, focused communication between patient and provider and it leads to behaviors that meet or more closely approach treatment guidelines. It is also believed that patients engaged in their own care make fewer demands on the health care system and more importantly, they experience improved health. Patients who are educated about both their condition and their care are also patients who are most likely to get and stay healthy. In fact, many believe that empowering patients to actively process information, decide how that information fits into their lives, and act on those decisions is a key driver to improving care and reducing costs. Research shows that informed and engaged patients take a more active role in their own care and furthermore, health care organizations are slowly discovering how patient engagement contributes to their financial and quality objectives. Patient engagement essentially revolves around the theory that if patients understand their condition, know the symptoms to watch for, know why they’re taking medication for example and how to implement the necessary lifestyle changes, the chances of them getting and staying healthy are significantly improved and when you proactively engage patients in their care, the quality of that care improves. Listen in to our latest podcast with Brad Tritle, Director of Business Development for Vitaphone Health Solutions, chair of the HIMSS Social Media Task Force and contributing editor of the HIMSS book Engage! Transforming Healthcare through Digital Patient Engagement as we discuss the current state of patient engagement in healthcare, how it is defined, whether it really does have a significant impact on improving health and reducing the cost of care, what engagement initiatives are providers using and what the future of patient engagement may look like.

1. M2SYS Healthcare Solutions
Free Online Learning Podcasts
Podcast length – 52:39
Patient Engagement in Healthcare – How is it defined, does
it have a significant on improving health and reducing the
cost of care, what engagement initiatives are providers
using, and what will future engagement look like?
Brad Tritle

2. Topics Covered in Podcast:
Definition of patient engagement and how it manifested as a
Stage 2 Meaningful Use Requirement
Patient engagement federal mandate parameters
The essential elements of a practical and feasible patient
engagement initiative beyond patient portals
The relationship between patient centered care and patient
engagement
Healthcare provider patient engagement performance and
examples of successes and failures

3. Topics Covered in Podcast (continued):
Healthcare provider patient engagement obstacles
The future of patient engagement

4. • The industry has yet to agree what the definition of patient engagement is
Patient Engagement Defined & Why It’s a Part of
Meaningful Use Stage 2
• The Center for Advancing Health Behaviors provides the best
framework:
“Actions individuals must take to obtain the greatest benefit from the
healthcare services available to them.”
• The patient engagement movement originated from the convergence of
three sources:
• #1 - Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) “triple aim” which is:
• To improve the health of populations
• To decrease the per capita cost of care
• To improve the patient experience (which includes satisfaction)
• #2 - National Quality Forum
• Established “National Priorities Partnership”
• Provided input into the “National Quality Strategy”

5. Patient Engagement Defined & Why It’s a Part of
Meaningful Use Stage 2 (continued)
• Specifically, “Patients and families need to be involved in
their own care.”
• #3 - The Office of the National Coordinator for Health
Information Technology (ONC)
• Released a National Health IT Strategic Plan
• Goal #4 states, “Empower individuals through Health
IT to improve their health in the healthcare system”
• Ultimately the Congress appointed Federal Advisory Committee
established a Health IT Rules Committee that added engagement as part of
Meaningful Use Stage 2
• Patient engagement goals requires that patient action will be more than
5% of a practice’s patients sending secure messages to the provider and
more than 5% of the patients accessing their health information online

6. Patient Engagement Defined & Why It’s a Part of
Meaningful Use Stage 2 (continued)
• Core objective #7 requires the healthcare provider to provide patients the
ability to view online, download and transmit their health information
within four business days of the information being available
Did you know?
Communication continues to be a basic
hindrance to healthcare relationships. – 50% of
seniors do not bring a list of questions to cover
during appointments with their doctors and
more than 60% of seniors do not regularly bring
a list of medications to their physician
appointments. One-quarter of seniors never
bring a list of medications.

7. Patient Engagement Federal Core Objective
Parameters
• Core Objective #7
• Healthcare providers must allow patients to view, download, and
transmit their health information within four days of their visit
Measurement: The provider must make the information available to 50%
of all the unique patients seen while in turn, more than 5%* of all unique
patients seen must view, download, or transmit their health information
• Core Objective #17
• Requires the use of secure electronic messaging to communicate
with patients on relevant health information. This will be measured
by more than 5% of unique patients sending secure messages using
the messaging function of your Certified EHR.
Measurement: More than 5% of unique patients must send secure
messages using the messaging function of your Certified EHR
*Originally discussed that the threshold should be 10% before it was changed to 5%

8. Patient Engagement Federal Core Objective
Parameters
• The question becomes: 100% of patients can access their medical
information electronically, but how many actually will?
Did you know?
Stage 2 of the CMS EHR Incentive Programs will
begin in 2014 for those Eligible Professionals
(EPs) who have completed two stage 1 reporting
periods. Stage 2 includes new objectives to
improve patient care through better clinical
decision support, care coordination, and patient
engagement.

9. Essential elements of a practical and feasible patient
engagement initiative beyond patient portals
• Most people look to patient portals as the first step of engagement
• Some providers are offering patients the ability to download their
information and store in in a data repository like Microsoft HealthVault –
allows patients to combine health information from multiple providers
and medical devices
• Social media provides an interactive platform to engage patients
Examples:
• Blogging (knowledge sharing) – gather a list of
commonly asked questions by patients and dedicate a
blog post to each (e.g. – “The Top 5 health concerns for a
2 year old.”)
• Facebook, Twitter – Establishing a page/tweet stream for
healthcare organizations can help build communities and
trust through quality engagement
• Videos – developing short clips that answer common
patient questions and creating v-logs
(video blogging), a YouTube channel or both!

10. • Key tip - Healthcare providers unsure of whether social media is relevant
should start by identifying where their patients are and then listening
before developing a strategy
Essential elements of a practical and feasible patient
engagement initiative beyond patient portals (cont.)
Did you know?
The Journal of Internet Medical research reports
that 60% of adults use the Internet to find
desired health information.*
*Social media sites are emerging as a potential source for online health information. However, little is known about
how people use social media for such purposes. – via The Journal of Medical Internet Research)

11. Essential elements of a practical and feasible patient
engagement initiative beyond patient portals (cont.)
• As more patients turn to peers for advice about healthcare, social media
will become more prominent in provider communications strategy
• Social media is evolving into a competitive advantage for healthcare
providers who understand how to effectively use it – it helps attract and
retain patients
• Patients will communicate with or without your presence on social
media
Did you know?
A recent report by Nielsen revealed that 92% of
participants recognize that the greatest source
of influence comes from the people closest to
us.

12. Relationship Between Patient Centered Care and
Patient Engagement
What is patient centered care?
• Patient centered care – supports active involvement of patients and
their families in the design of new care models and decision making
about individual options for treatment
• The Institute of Medicine defines patient centered care as,
“providing care that is respectful and responsive to individual
patient preferences, needs, and values and ensuring that patient
values guide all clinical decisions.”
How does patient centered care work with patient engagement?
• In some medical facilities, patient engagement facilitates patient
centered care
• There is a definite need to have informed, activated, and engaged
patients

13. Relationship Between Patient Centered Care and
Patient Engagement
• Patient engagement tools help prime active and engaged patients – basic
care questions can be answered via tools so physicians can concentrate
on deeper issues
• Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) were created for providers but
patient has become central steward of information exchange –
engagement enhances patient role as information liaison
• In order for patients to take action they need:
• To be informed
• To have tools
• Patient engagement tools help facilitate collaborative healthcare
decisions between provider and patient and fosters a patient centric
environment

14. Patient Engagement Performance and Examples of
Successes and Failures
• Meaningful Use Stage 1 saw over 11,000 providers offering patients
timely access to electronic information (e.g. – lab results, allergies,
medications) – providing access seems to be a success
• The ability to download, view and transmit data is still a work in progress
• Direct transfer of information from a provider to a patient vis a vis an
account like Microsoft HealthVault is on the rise
• Secure messaging has proved to be an effective and efficient tool
• Medicare experimenting with providing access to personal health records
(PHRs) through patient portals
• Traditional PHRs are on the decline because of their inability to store real
clinical data
• Kaiser Health is seen as an healthcare industry patient engagement
benchmark – over 2 million patients actively use their portal
Industry Benchmarks

15. Patient Engagement Performance and Examples of
Successes and Failures (continued)
Industry Benchmarks (continued)
• Mayo Clinic and their work with patient portals is another example of a
patient engagement industry benchmark provider
• In a Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
2013 Leadership survey asking: “What are your priorities for health IT?”
• 28% of respondents said Meaningful Use
• 20% of respondents said optimizing their current system
• 2% said consumer related healthcare issues
• Effective patient engagement is evolving into a tool to attract patients
• It is in a healthcare provider’s best interest to make consumer
engagement a priority
• Providers can place themselves at a competitive advantage & increase
the quality of their services through patient engagement

16. Patient Engagement Performance and Examples of
Successes and Failures (continued)
• Successful patient engagement is also found to lower accounts receivable
Did you know?
83% of Americans don’t follow treatment plans
given by their doctors exactly as prescribed. 42%
of Americans feel they would be more likely to
follow their prescribed treatment plans if they
received encouragement and coaching from
their doctors between visits.

17. Healthcare Provider Patient Engagement Obstacles
• Patient portal costs can be prohibitive
• Remaining reactive vs. being proactive
• Failure to shift to a more patient centric data model (e.g. – not providing
patients with the opportunity to accumulate data from multiple
providers)
• Paradigm shift – failure to evolve into a collaborative patient care model
• Reimbursement structure – how engaged can you be with patients in a
fee for service model?
Did you know?
Patients who had access to their online records
and who may have taken advantage of other
features on a patient portal used the healthcare
system more than those who didn't participate
in the portal, according to a study by researchers
at Kaiser Permanente.

18. New Book on Patient Engagement:
Engage! Transforming Healthcare Through Digital
Patient Engagement
• Available at HIMSS Web site: http://bit.ly/19V4Czb
• Collaborative effort between several healthcare professionals
• Wide range of provider viewpoints represented – from small town
practices to provider behemoths
• Contains case studies and recommendations in each chapter that can
implemented by even small, private physicians
• Contains information on what Payors, Pharma, and patients themselves
are doing around patient engagement
• Possible missing pieces of patient engagement outlined in book:
• A single, longitudinal, interoperable medical record under the
patient’s control that crosses providers – in order for providers to
make the right decision, they need access to the right information
• Patients should proactively set up their own online medical records
that aggregate health data into one single repository (e.g. –
Microsoft HealthVault)

19. The Future of Patient Engagement
• Clinical data flowing to patient personal health platforms will spur growth
and use – must be deployed by entities that the public trusts (insurers,
providers, etc.)
• We will continue to see healthcare apps flourish as patient engagement
shifts to mhealth platforms – apps that physicians prescribe and may be
reimbursable under insurance
• Medical monitoring devices will become smaller, cheaper, and more
interactive and passive to spur more patient engagement
• More social media functions will be built into medical applications

20. Thank you to Brad for his time and
knowledge for this podcast!
To learn more about Brad’s current
project, please visit:
www.vitaphone.com

21. John Trader
PR and Marketing Manager
M2SYS Healthcare Solutions
1050 Crown Pointe Pkwy.
Suite 850
Atlanta, GA 30338
jtrader@m2sys.com
770-821-1734
www.m2sys.com
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