HIT-Driven Patient Engagement Is A Bust – Effective Patient Engagement Begins With The Doctor-Patient Relationship

I hate saying I told you so.  But to quote myself…”patient engagement is a physician-patient communications challenge and not an HIT (Health Information Technology) challenge.”

Just take a look at the Mayo Clinic’s patient portal experience which was discussed at a HIMMS 2013 and reported on in HIT industry press.

The Headline

Mayo Clinic Struggles To Meet Stage 2 Meaningful Use Thresholds For Engaging Patients.

Always innovating, the Mayo Clinic some three years ago introduced a web-based portal to share information with their patients.  During that time some 240,000 patients have signed up for online accounts.  That’s pretty impressive.  But there’s a problem.  A BIG PROBLEM.

According to Eric Manley, product manager of global solutions at the Mayo Clinic, they are having a hard time “getting more than 5% “of all the patients who registered with the patient portal to actually use it.   You see in order to meet Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements, and enjoy the benefits that come with meeting this criteria, people actually have to use the portal to access their own health information.  You just can’t build a portal and in Mayo’s case have fewer than 12,000 unique patients actually use it.    Actually you can…hospitals and physicians do it all the time…they just can’t get incentive payments for their efforts.

 So What Went Wrong?

It’s not like the folks at Mayo haven’t tried.  Mayo’s patient portal offer all the requisite techie gizmos – giving patients access to their medical record, lab results, appointment schedule, and lots of health information.  They also recently introduced their first patient-directed mobile health app call “Patient” which makes it easy for people to access their health information online.   Mayo even has a Center for Innovation to figure this kind of stuff out.

Upon reflection Manley admits that “simply making services available doesn’t cut it,” he said. “Unless you are engaging patients, you won’t meet meaningful use requirements. [Messaging and other mechanisms] need to be a part of your practice.”

But Wait – I Thought Patient Portals, EMRS and Health Apps Were Patient Engagement Strategies?? You Mean We Need To Do More?

Manley is quoted as saying that “patient engagement has been a part of what Mayo has done for a long time, meaningful use, especially Stage 2, is a catalyst to kick it up a notch.”

Let’s face it.  Meaningful Use maybe a good way to get providers to adopt badly needed HIT improvements – but it not a great way to force patients to “engage” with you.   Here’s why.

1)    Forcing patients to do anything is wrong and antithetical to the whole idea of patient-centeredness…even if you think it is in the patient’s best interest. Meeting Meaningful Use seems to take precedence over what the patient wants.  Manley is quoted as saying “just having it [information and portals] out there isn’t enough”…”It’s making the patient use them.”

2)    Patients want to engage with other people regarding their health, particularly their physicians. Health after all is an intensely personal and social affair.  Mobile health apps and email just can’t give patients want they want – to be listened to and understood.  Plus 85% of people want face-to-face access to their physician when they want it.  Patients know that HIT threatens to get in between them and their doctors.

3)    The content on most patient portals is not particularly relevant or engaging after the first 10 seconds….at least from the patient’s perspective.   After all, cognitive involvement is a prerequisite of meaningful engagement and it tough to be interested and spend time thinking about information that is not in context (of a medical encounter), you don’t understand, find boring, completely inaccurate or irrelevant.

So What Is The Solution?

There’s no question that if done right patient portals can and do work.  One need look no further than Kaiser Permanente, Group Health and the VA for great examples.  The key to their success…and hopefully every provider’s success…is integration.

Health care for us patients occurs within the context of social relations with our physicians.  To be engaging…the information you want to share with us needs to be relevant to us from our perspective, come from our physician and be integrated into our overall care plan.    Only then will we have the trust and confidence that the information is ours…and is something we need to pay attention to.  We focus on our health while we are in the doctor’s office…if you really want to engage us…do it there.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

3 First Principles For Evaluating Patient-Facing HIT Solutions

With the HIMSS13 Conference next week we can expect to hear a lot about how health information technology (HIT) and e-Health is expected to challenge and change the way health care now and in years to come.  To be sure great strides have been made in the adoption of electronic medical records, decision support, and patient web portals… with the promise of more to come.  Health Apps, in spite of their painfully slow uptake by many consumers, press forward with innovative new tools.

Yet in order to realize the full promise of patient-facing like EMRs, PHRs, patient portals and the like, we need to be more mindful of the following “first principles.”

First Principles #1 – Health care delivery and healing occurs in the context of interpersonal relationships.

Today, as in the past, health care is delivered within the context of interpersonal relationships, e.g., the physician-patient relationship.  Sir William Osler, the father of modern medicine, recognized this along with the importance of a clinician’s communication skills when he said “listen to the patient and they will tell you what is wrong.”   Today, as in Osler’s time, encouraging patients to “tell their story” is the hallmark of good communication skills.  Eliciting the patient’s story is also a hallmark of strong healing relationships…since the simple act of “talking” and “feeling heard” have been shown to have clear therapeutic benefits.

The same is true with the intensely interpersonal act of “laying on of hands.”  “Touch” as a method of healing dates back to biblical times and beyond.   Today, physicians like Abraham Verghese, MD continue to speak to about therapeutic value of touch as practiced during patient exams in both the hospital and ambulatory settings.  These same physicians caution us against losing sight of the central role and value of the physician-patient relationship in the false belief that technology will one day be capable of replacing the personal physician.

First Principles #2 – HIT cannot compensate for weak physician-patient relationships or poor physician-patient communication skills.   

We hear today about how primary care physicians are very busy…and getting even busier.  EMR systems, e-visits, decision support tools, patient portals and the like are touted as solutions for saving time, increasing quality, etc.  While all this may be true, a great EMR system or secure e-mail visits cannot turn a physician with sub-optimal patient communication skills into a patient-centered Marcus Welby, MD.  It will probably make things worse.

Absent strong, physician-patient relationships and equally strong patient-centered communication skills, such HIT investments are like building castles upon sand.

Another hallmark of patient-centered communication is a “meeting of the minds” between patients and their physicians regarding issues like the visit agenda, the accuracy and severity of the diagnosis and which treatment options will work best.  Unfortunately since many physicians today continue to employ a physician-directed style of communicating with patients…the patient’s perspective is seldom sought…and a meeting of the minds never has a chance to occur.   Even if EMRs accommodated the patient’s perspective, the clinician first has to ask the patient…and that just isn’t happening.

 First Principles #3 – Beware of unintended consequences

Many HIT professionals will quickly dismiss the above first principles cited above in the name of improving physician productivity.  After all, given today’s shortage of primary care physicians we have no choice but to layer on more HIT like EMRS and self-help patient portals.  But as with anything, one needs to be prepared for the consequences.  And there are always consequences.

In addition to improving productivity, health care professionals cite patient engagement as yet another reason to invest in HIT.  But is that really the case?

We have all seen the research citing how patients would “like” secure e-mail with their doctor, online appointment scheduling, access to their doctor’s notes, etc.   Who in their right mind would not like this?  But liking is not the same as using.  Of perhaps more importance is the finding that the vast majority of patients (85%) want to know that they will still have the ability to see their doctor face-to-face when needed after they have access to the above conveniences .   People aren’t dumb.  We/they know that technology is increasingly getting in between us/them and our/their physician.  Provider organizations that try and channel patients into substituting web portals and PHRs for physician office visits run the risk of pushing patients/members into the waiting arms of their competitors.

A recent study of decision support tools underscores yet another unintended consequence – loss of trust in their physician.  Interestingly, certain patients saw the use of computer decision support tools as a reflection of their physician’s clinical knowledge.   That is, physicians that used decision support tools were perceived as being less knowledgeable than physicians that didn’t employ them.  Since clinical skills are a driver of patient trust, the risk of encouraging physicians to “engage” patients by using decision support tools is that you may well be disengaging them by increasing their distrust.

So What’s The Take Away?

We need to recognize that there are fundamental first principles concerning the delivery of healing and health care.  To that extent that HIT professionals and those that write the checks for HIT understand these principles one has a better chance of meeting their expectations.

Here are three questions that need to be considered when evaluating any patient-facing HIT solution:

1. Does technology support or detract from the physician-patient relationship in a meaningful way?
2. Does the technology presuppose the presence of strong physician-patient relations and physician-patient communication skills?
   Do you even know what kind of patient communication skills your physicians have?
3. What are the potential unintended consequences of adopting the proposed technology?

That’s what I think…what’s your opinion?

Sources

Agarwa, R. et al.   If We Offer it, Will They Accept? Factors Affecting Patient Use Intentions of Personal Health Records and Secure Messaging.    Journal of Medical Internet Research 2013;15(2):e43.

Patient Activation Is Only Half The Solution – Physicians Need To Be Activated As Well

Not long ago Nick Dawson, a friend and fellow blogger, paid me the compliment of saying I had inspired a post of his.   Well Nick now you have inspired me…and this post is the result.

Regarding the February Health Affairs edition on Patient Engagement the and follow-on Washington D.C. briefing, Nick writes:

Personally, I was disheartened by some word choices. Implying patients need to be activated suggests patients are passive and something has to be done to them in order for them to care about their health and interactions with healthcare providers. That misses the mark.

What about physician activation? … We should be helping health systems and providers find ways to reduce the stress and fear for patients who are already engaged.

Nick is right. 

The “Belle of the Health Affairs Ball” based on the social media coverage was Judith Hibbard’s interesting work linking health care costs to a person’s level of health activation.   While Dr. Hibbard takes pains to differentiate “activation” from “engagement,” most people are quick to conflate the two.  (Patient-centered communication bears a close resemblance to patient activation as well.)  Nick’s point is that focusing just on what the patient brings to the party in terms of their “knowledge, skills and confidence” is only half the problem.

What about physician activation?  Where in the Health Affairs special, or anywhere else for that matter, are discussions about the need to make sure that physicians (and other clinicians) have the knowledge, skills and confidence to effectively manage all the “already engaged” patients among us?

It Can’t Just Be About Fixing Patient Behavior

For too long, the focus among health care thought leaders has been all about fixing the patient.   If only patient were more engaged, more knowledgeable, more compliant, more trusting, more prepared, ask more questions, etc. 

There is a significant body of research which suggests that provider behaviors (like their communication style) are just as responsible as patients for many of the short coming in health care today.

Just as PAM research has shown that more activated patients generate lower costs…studies have shown that the physicians with strong patient-centered communication skills have lower costs as well.   I guess you could say that physicians with a physician-directed, bio-medical communication style have an equivalent of a 1-2 level of activation whereas physicians with a patient-centered communication style have an equivalent activation level of 3 to 4.

Which Comes First – Activated Physicians Or Activated Patients?

I would argue that the real challenge facing providers today is to how to avoid disengaging or deactivating otherwise engaged and activated patients.

That’s because most people are already engaged in their own care, albeit not necessarily in the same way that providers want or expect.   So too, patients may well believe that they have the skills and knowledge they feel they need to deal with their own health…even if it is different from those skills, etc. measured by tools like PAM.

See : Patients Are Often More Engaged In Their Health Than Providers Think

In fact there is evidence to support this.  Patients with a regular source of care displayed significantly lower levels of patient activation that those without a regular source of care.  According to the researchers, “one possible explanation is that respondents with a regular physician are more likely to take a passive, deferential role in their care, believing their health care needs are being met by their provider(s).” *

The degree to which there is a “meeting of the minds” on engagement and activation between patient and physician, particularly during the office visit, will determine if patients are as engaged and activated when they leave the doctor’s office as they were when they entered.  It all boils down to how well the physician and patient are able to communicate.

Here’s what I mean.  How engaged or activated is a person going to be if what they have to say is interrupted, ignored or otherwise dismissed by busy, stressed  clinicians?  Is a patient going to share information or new skills they found on the internet with their physician if they are dismissed as a Googler?

The Take Away?

Nothing against PAM or Dr. Hibbard’s work which stand on its own merits.  Rather, it’s about health care being a two-way affair…with patients and clinicians both have a stake in health outcomes.  The sooner health care providers, academic researchers, and health publications like Health Affairs realize this…the sooner things can improve.

That’s what I think. What’s your opinion?

Sources:

Levinson, W., Lesser, C. S., & Epstein, R. M. (2010). Developing physician communication skills for patient-centered care. Health Affairs, 29(7).

Olson, D. P., & Windish, D. M. (2010). Communication discrepancies between physicians and hospitalized patients. Archives of Internal Medicine, 170(15), 1302-7. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2010.239

Roumie, C. L., Greevy, R., Wallston, K. a, Elasy, T. a, Kaltenbach, L., Kotter, K., Dittus, R. S., et al. (2010). Patient centered primary care is associated with patient hypertension medication adherence. Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

Bertakis, K. D., & Azari, R. (2011). Patient-centered care is associated with decreased health care utilization. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, 24(3), 229-39.

* Alexander, J. a, Hearld, L. R., Mittler, J. N., & Harvey, J. (2011). Patient-Physician Role Relationships and Patient Activation among Individuals with Chronic Illness. Health Services Research, 1-23.

The Truth About Those High Patient Satisfaction Scores For Doctor-Patient Communication

We have all seen them.  You know…those charts showing us how satisfied patients are with the way their doctors communicate.  Did your doctor listen to you?  Did you doctor explain things in a way you could understand?

Funny thing about these charts, whether they be for hospitals or doctor’s offices,  1) they never seem to change from year to year – 80% – 90% of doctors communicate well with patients and 2) patients consistently rate their doctors’ communication skills as high.

The problem with satisfaction data related to doctor-patient communication is that, at face value, it simply doesn’t correlate with other published data on the subject. There is a “disconnect” between what patients say in satisfaction surveys and what happens in actual practice.

Here’s what I mean.

Recent studies of hospitalized patients have shown that:

• 68% to 85.3% of patients could not name the physician in charge of their care.
• 43% to 58% of patients did not know the reason for their hospital admission.
• 67% of patients received a new medication while hospitalized… yet 25% of these patients were unaware that they were given a new medication.
• 90% of patients given a new medication reported never being told of adverse effects of the new medication.
• 38% of patients were not aware of planned tests for the day.

The amazing thing was that majority of these patients (up to 58% in one study) said that their doctors always explained things in ways they could understand!

The same types of “disconnects” show up in satisfaction surveys done in doctor’s offices.   Studies of primary care physicians show that:

• Patients are interrupted by their physicians within the first 18 seconds of their opening statement during office visits

• Physicians and patients agree on the reason for the office visit only 50% to 70% of the time

• Physician underestimate the patient’s desire for health information in 65% of the time

• 50% of patients walk out of their doctor’s office not understanding what their doctor told them to do

• Patient are not asked if they have any questions in up to 50% of office visits

Again, I am sure these same patients praised their physicians’ communication skills on one or another satisfaction survey.

So What Explains The “Disconnect” Between How Physicians Actually Talk To Patients…And Patient Satisfaction?

Today’s high patient satisfaction scores are an artifact of the way we (when we become patients) have been “socialized” when it comes to a trip to the doctor’s office. Here’s what I mean.

1) Beginning with childhood, we have all been socialized to assume the “sick role” when seeing the doctor.  From our initial visits to the pediatrician with our Mom we quickly learned that the doctor is in charge and that our Mom’s role (and ours) is to sit passive by while the doctor does most of the talking.  Notwithstanding all the “talk” about how empowered patients are today, most of us still assume the “sick role” when seeing our doctor.

2) Accustomed as most of us today are to the sick role, and accepting the fact that physicians are very busy, we are not surprised when doctors don’t seem to listen to us or interrupt us. We are not surprised that they don’t have time for all our questions or frown on us bringing in lists of things we have researched on the internet. This for most patients is what we are used to…it is what we are satisfied with given that most of us have don’t another or better point of comparison, i.e., a highly patient-centered physician.

3) Consistent with the sick role, we as patients “tend to be overly patient.” We “grant our doctors the benefit of every doubt.” Most of us begrudgingly put up with poor service, inconvenience, and unnecessary discomforts, until we can’t overlook it anymore. Even then we are reluctant to take our busy, overburdened doctor to task for these shortcomings by giving them a low score on a satisfaction survey.

The Take Away?

Hospital, medical group, IPA and ACO executives need to:

• Be cautious about putting too much credence in patient ratings of physician communication skills. “One can assume that the quality of care is actually worse than surveys of patient satisfaction would seem to show” to quote Avedis Donabedian, MD, an old professor of mine.

• Recognize that high quality, patient-centered communications (the gold standard for physician-patient communications) is essential to patient engagement, optimal patient outcomes and great patient experiences. If physician communication were as great as patients satisfaction surveys suggest, we wouldn’t be having the problems we are with low levels of patient engagement and non-adherence.

• Benchmark the patient centered communication skills of the primary care physicians on their staff (employed and otherwise) and compare the findings against established best practices.

• Take the additional reimbursement you will get from CMS for your patient high satisfaction scores and invest it back into improving the patient-centered communication skills of their physicians and patients. That is, if you don’t have to pay a penalty to CMS for high re-admission rates – which by the way is another by-product of poor physician-patient communication.

Remember that there is perhaps no better, more cost-effective way to differentiate your physicians (and your brand) these days than to have physicians on staff who really know how to listen and relate to patients.

That’s my opinion…what’s your?

Sources:

Makaryus, A. et al. Patients’ Understanding of Their Treatment Plans and Diagnosis at Discharge. Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 2005;80(8):991-994

Boland, B. et al. Patient-Physician Agreement on Reasons for Ambulatory General Medical Examinations. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 1998;73(1), 109-117.

O’Leary, K. et al. Hospitalized Patients’ Understanding of Their Plan of Care. Mayo Clinic Proceedings 2010;85(1):47-52.

Olson, D. et al. Communication Discrepancies Between Physicians and Hospitalized Patients. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2010;170(15):1302-1307

What Kinds Of “Patient Experiences” Are Occurring In Your Doctors’ Offices?

Hint: They Aren’t As Good As Your HCAHPS Scores Suggest

Now that over 50% of physicians are employed by hospitals, this is a question that should be on the minds of progressive hospital executive teams.  With good reason. Patient-reported outcomes, including satisfaction and loyalty, are going to play an increasing role in determining how much hospitals and physicians are paid. This means that astute hospital marketers will be able to build a strong business case for investing in programs aimed at creating superlative ambulatory and inpatient experiences for patients.

But Our Physicians Already Have High Patient Satisfaction Scores

Health care executives should take little comfort in the global patient satisfaction and loyalty ratings found uniformly in HCAHPS  and every patient satisfaction survey.

Generally speaking,  “one can assume that the quality of care is, actually, worse than surveys of patient satisfaction (suggest)”according to Avedis Donabedian, MD, the father of today’s quality movement.   Donabedian goes on to say that “patients are, in fact, overly patient; they put up with unnecessary discomforts and grant their doctors the benefit of every doubt, until deficiencies in care are too manifest to be overlooked. “

Just look at the quality of physician-patient communication, a key ingredient of the “patient experience” in the physician’s office.

1. In only 26% of the visits are patients allowed to complete their opening statement (agenda) without interruption (by the doctor); in 37% the physicians interrupted; and in 37% physician never asked about the patient’s visit agenda.
2. Studies suggest that patients do not express their health concerns, expectations or opinions in up to 75 percent of physician visits principally because their doctor never asked.
3. Primary care physicians typically spend less than 60 seconds informing patients how to take new medications…or why.
4. Primary care physicians and patient disagree about the diagnosis, treatment, and cause/severity of their condition over 50% of the time.
5. Over 50% of patients walk out of their doctor’s office not understanding what they were told, including why or how to take their medications.

For their part, patients today are hard pressed to rate the effectiveness of their relationship with their doctor.  The evidence shows that poor physician-patient communications is the norm rather than the exception.   As such, most patients do not appreciate all the ways in which their doctor could in fact do a better job communicating with them.

Why Is Any Of This Important?

Simple.  Hospital and physician reimbursement is increasingly determined by things that are closely linked with the a physician’s patient communication skills:

• improved patient outcomes
• fewer hospital re-admits
•  fewer medical errors

So if hospital chiefs of staff or health plan medical directors are looking for a way to improve these types of metrics consider improving the way your physicians and patients talk to each other.   In the long run patients and physicians will thank you for doing so.

That’s what I think..what’s your opinion?

Sources:

Dyche, L., & Swiderski, D. (2002). The Effect of Physician Solicitation Approaches on Ability to Identify Patient Concerns. Family Medicine, 267-270.

Lang, F., Floyd, M. R., & Beine, K. L. (2000). Clues to patients’ explanations and concerns about their illnesses. A call for active listening. Archives of family medicine, 9(3), 222-7.

Howard Waitzkin, MD, P. (1984). Doctor-patient communication – Clinical Implications of Social Scientific Research.  JAMA, 252(5), 2441-2446.

Heisler, M. (2008). Actively Engaging Patients in Treatment Decision Making and Monitoring as a Strategy to Improve Hypertension Outcomes in Diabetes Mellitus. Circulation.