During the Patient-Centered Health Information Technology (PCHIT) Initiative, one of the central tenets was that the best way for us to understand what was really going on with consumers and clinicians, the best way to was to actually observe them. We called this shadowing, and most of what we did was in the exam room, though we shadowed some consumers in their experiences using PHRs from their homes–such as with consumers in Boston, among migrant farm workers in California, and our own experiences with health plan tools.

I was interested to see a story today about the New York State Health Commissioner shadowing a PCHIT user. Commissioner Richard Daines shadowed a county nurse making a house call to see how a consumer makes use of a new technology that helps her manage her chronic lung disease and stay connected with her clinicians from far away.

Is this the beginning of a shadowing trend? What better way is there to learn about the needs of real consumers?

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