Nancy Shute has a nice piece in yesterday’s Charlotte Observer that summarizes “6 ways electronic medical records might make diagnosis easier and more convenient, and care safer.” An excellent writer, Nancy has done a good job of boiling down all the grandiose discussions on EHR functionality into tangible, “what have you done for me lately?” functions. This consumer orientation to EHR functionality is badly needed as we define “meaningful use.”

With every one of them, however, by attaching information therapy (Ix) to the technological function, we could substantially expand the utility of that application. So, I’d like to propose amendments to Nancy’s six high-impact apps.

1. “Skip trips to the doctor.” Yes, secure e-mail with your clinicians is a huge convenience factor, and attaching an information prescription about what to do next (or when it really would be time to come into the office) would provide additional value to the patient.
2. “Track Mom’s medical chart even if you’re in Albuquerque or Altoona.” As long as you can actually interpret what’s in the online record, that’s fine. But what if the medical jargon raises more questions than it answers. If the chart via the portal contains links to content that contextualizes the data points, you’ll feel a lot more comfortable staying in Albuquerque or Altoona.
3. “Get lab test results without having to play phone tag with the doctor’s office.” By hyper-linking the lab test results to brief explanations of what each acronym means, what the “normal” ranges are, and what it means if your values are “abnormal,” the lab values will have much more meaning.
4. “Never again drag X-rays to a specialist.” Very few lay people can interpret radiology images, so attaching the radiology report (translated into plain language) to the digital files will empower consumers.
5. “Find out if your prescriptions could have dangerous interactions, before you start taking them.” But then what? Provide some guidance to the consumer about alternatives or what questions to ask your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
6. “Use your cell phone to tap into your health records.” Put everything together from above, and the more ubiquitous cell phone really will ring!

As we move forward in defining what we want out of “meaningfully used” EHRs, let’s take a page from Nancy’s book and boil these functions down into what they actually mean for the day-to-day lives of consumers. But let’s also go the extra step of making the most of the electronic opportunities that present themselves by connecting data points to content that helps all consumers use these tools most effectively.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 9:33 am and is filed under Consumer empowerment, EHRs, Engaging Consumers, Inside the Beltway, PHRs, Participatory Medicine, Patient-Clinician Relationship, Secure messaging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.