eHealth Articles and White Papers
Patient Centered Medical Home
By Eric Engelmann - President & CEO
For the past 18 months, Geonetric has put a lot of energy into building our patient portal product. The focus reflects our belief that the patient portal is integral to the success of the patient centered medical home (PCMH).
PCMH, for those who are new to the discussion, represents a new approach to delivering patient care. It promotes continuity of care by creating a partnership between patients, their families, and care providers using a centralized, comprehensive electronic record of the individual's health information and services provided.
The PCMH is one of the exciting things that become possible when the patient portal technology is deployed. Patient portal, in fact, makes PCMH a reality. It moves PCMH beyond theory to make it real for patients and providers because it enables physicians and patients to have an ongoing relationship that doesn't depend solely on episodic care.
The patient portal supports four critical aspects of the PCMH:
1. It increases the frequency of interaction.
Today, most patients think about their healthcare only when they have an upcoming appointment or when they experience health concerns.
The PCMH concept delivers coordinated care over a long-term relationship, particularly for individuals suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. A patient portal provides a mechanism to allow patients to easily track these conditions much more routinely and aggressively with a provider's oversight on a regular basis.
2. It introduces the concept of a care team.
In order to handle the increased frequency of interaction volume, the primary care physician will need help managing patient care on a regular basis. The PCMH philosophy intentionally distributes work to a patient care group.
The care group includes a care coordinator to manage the more routine monitoring and communication, while the physician intervenes as necessary and focuses on the highest value interaction. A patient portal facilitates these electronic communications.
3. It creates alerts based on that information.
High risk patients will regularly provide information through the patient portal. The care team is alerted when information is out of an acceptable range, or in some cases, if patients have failed to submit information on the expected schedule.
This ability to monitor patient data - routine information that physicians have not previously had access to - allows immediate intervention should high risk conditions get out of control, or should low risk conditions begin to worsen. Again, the patient portal is the tool that allows both providers and patients to track and monitor the data over time and see it all in one place.
4. It makes the coordination of care visible to the patient.
Many times, patients have little understanding of why they're being asked to follow certain treatments or instructions.
When the entire care team - from primary care physician to specialist to care coordinator - helps deliver care and translate information into words the patient can understand, the reasons become clearer to the patient, leading to better compliance and outcomes. The patient becomes a partner in the decision-making process.
In short, we believe that patient portals will become the electronic hub for information exchange in the Patient Centered Medical Home model. Geonetric is aligning our software development efforts and partnering with our hospital clients to lead the way!
