Patients and providers communicate with new technology
In many areas of the country, gone are the days when patients must call doctors, request prescription refills by phone, fill out countless applications and answer the same questions by various nurses and physicians over and over again.
Instead, most large-scale health care providers throughout the United States have transformed their once paper-based systems into ones that are computerized.
Kaiser Permanente’s almost 9 million members can now email their doctors, refill their prescriptions, check their lab results and watch videos or listen to audio podcast about health and wellness—all on a secure online Web portal.
“Patients just love it,” says Dr. John Mattison, Kaiser’s chief medical information officer and one of the architects of the company’s medical record system, HealthConnect®. “How many times have you seen a receptionist and nurse and doctor—and all say, ‘What are your allergies?’ Now, if you’re asked the question once, you’re done.’” Mattison says more than 50 percent of Kaiser’s eligible members use the HealthConnect system, as do the company’s 14,000 physicians.
Other health care providers have also adopted similar electronic systems that not only maintain a database of patients’ health care information but that allow for easier communication between staff and doctors, and between doctors and their patients.
The Baylor College of Medicine, which operates Houston’s Texas Medical Center, a 1,000-acre complex of 47 independent medical institutions, has saved over $180,000 since it started its patient Web portal about a year ago, says Jenifer Jarriel, a vice president and spokesperson for the college. Cost savings come in part because Baylor now sends lab results and messages electronically, rather than incurring postage costs.
Baylor patients can also access their health care accounts via their iPhones® and Kaiser will soon have a mobile application as well for its members.
Jeffrey R. Steinbauer, MD
Chief Medical Information Officer
Baylor Clinic
Despite these positives, health care providers still face challenges when trying to implement new technology. Dr. Jeffrey Steinbauer, Chef Medical Information Officer and the physician in charge of Baylor’s clinical implementation of its new electronic system, says not all doctors have embraced the change, particularly those who prefer the old way of doing things.
“It’s a mixed bag,” he says. “We have physicians very adept with computers and they take to it readily. And we have other clinicians who don’t keep a computer in their office, don’t type, don’t do email—and rely on their staff members to do it. The latter group is in the minority at this point.” The hardware configurations and complications of the software program also can make it difficult for physicians to navigate, Steinbauer adds.
What’s more, physicians everywhere get nervous they will be inundated with email from patients, but in fact, that has not happened at Baylor. “For the most part people use it very appropriately,” Jarriel says.
Mattison at Kaiser agrees transitions can be tough. “The initial six to 12 months of converging people from paper and pen to a keyboard and a screen can be very painful,” he says. “But you can’t find anybody who uses this system at Kaiser who now says, ‘I want to go back to paper.’ The quality of what we can do is so dramatically improved that even people who fought tooth and nail are now saying, ‘I would never practice without this.’”
Clearly, the advantages to using electronic health systems are many. The technology not only allows for a freer communication flow, but it also allows patients to receive reminders electronically, and it saves health care providers both time and money.
Baylor recently sent out flu shot reminders. “Within the first day we had over 1,500 responses back,” Jarriel says. Baylor estimates they receive a 20 percent response rate when they send paper letters—but a 40 percent response rate when they send reminders electronically. “The efficiency and timeliness of our communication is so much better.”
Also, with electronic medical records, all patient data is stored and easily accessible by staff and doctors within the system and phone calls by patients to doctors are drastically reduced because patients can see their results online or communicate via email.
“For me, the transition has been terrific,” Steinbauer says. “Now patients can email me and that message comes attached to that patient’s chart. It also lowers our cost and increased patient satisfaction.” Some of the more routine emails from patients—such as for prescription refills—are routed to health care staff members and not the doctor.
And most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that these new electronic medical records and communication systems help patients be more proactive with their own health care and more in touch with their providers to get much needed screenings and check-ups. “We’ve already seen dramatic improvements in quality outcomes and early interventions in reducing the morbidity and mortality by early detection of colon cancer and breast cancer,” Mattison says.
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