We all have examples of times when medical recommendations were not clear or were not relayed accurately between family members.
When my grandmother was at the end of her life, we brought her home so she could be comfortable and surrounded by family in her final days. Unfortunately, it was not a smooth transition. There was confusion and great emotion among her 10 children and disagreements about what medications she should be receiving. She had to return to the hospital, which was not our goal. Access to her physician’s notes and the ability to review discharge instructions would have helped avoid this situation and others like it.
Managing our own care or that of a loved one should be easier. We need to make it easy for our patients and families to get answers to common questions such as: What did the doctor say? What were the test results? How did the procedure go? What is the treatment plan? Which medications should be discontinued or added? Who is on the care team? Who can I call or chat with to clarify instructions?
Empowering patients with their own health information is at the heart of MyHealth, Spectrum Health’s patient and member web and mobile application.
On MyHealth, patients and their family caregivers can check test results, read doctors’ notes, check insurance payments, pay bills, schedule appointments, renew prescriptions, export medical records, message the provider and even conduct a MedNow or a virtual doctor’s visit. Spectrum Health now has more than 500,000 MyHealth accounts through which patients and health plan members can engage in their care through their smartphones, tablets and computers. As consumers have learned about the convenience and easier access to important information offered by this consumer-based health technology, its popularity has grown: 135,000 people use MyHealth each month, with more than 2,500 new users joining every week.
Our MedNow telehealth service connects consumers with providers 24/7, 365 days a year from wherever they are in the state of Michigan. Our recently launched MedNow app has had more than 5,000 downloads in one month. We’re seeing year over year growth of 260% and more than 2,700 patients seen in one month.
18-year-old Kaitlyn Jones is just one example of a patient seeing the benefits of the service. She was able to get an immediate appointment on MedNow and got a prescription to treat her flu symptoms. “I don’t think Kaitlyn even got out of her pajamas,” said Kaitlyn’s mother, Holly.
We are not the only health system employing digital technology to improve health. A record-breaking $3.5 billion was invested into nearly 200 digital health companies in the first half of 2017, and 95 percent of hospitals provide patients digital access to their data, according to Rock Heal+h.
But many of these digital health technology tools have fallen short of their promise. As an industrial engineer trained in the interaction of organizations and systems, I believe the application of digital health can fulfill its promise to improve the experience, quality, efficiency and affordability for the people we serve. It can also change the landscape of how health providers engage with consumers.
We see digital health as an opportunity to rethink how we interact with our patients and family caregivers as well as members of Priority Health, our health insurance company. We want our digital products to be as innovative, customizable, personal and usable as Google Assistant, Fitbit and Mint.com. Imagine accessing health services, information and tools that are as seamless as banking and shopping online.
How can we use digital health capabilities to make health care less costly, more convenient, and, most importantly, better? At Spectrum Health, we started by targeting four areas: appointment scheduling, patient engagement, bill simplification and by anticipating consumer wants and patient needs.
To improve appointment scheduling, MyHealth users have immediate online access to their doctor’s schedule, avoiding time spent calling for an appointment. If their preferred time is booked already, they can put themselves on a waiting list called “Fast Pass,” a convenience for them that will automatically notify them if an opening occurs.
In the future, once people make an appointment, we will show them how to get there and even alert them to leave early if traffic is heavy.
Engaging more meaningfully with patients is important because we need to better connect the care team with patients and families when they are not at Spectrum Health facilities. For instance, we anticipate MyHealth will alert patients with allergies when there is a high pollen alert, integrate with fitness tools and provide health and wellness assistance beyond the traditional care encounter.
Last year we launched Find-a-Doctor, a new web-based tool that allows consumers to find a good match by exploring physicians’ biographies, ratings, and even short videos of them. More than 90,000 patients have posted comments and ratings for our physicians while searches for our services have grown exponentially; Find-a-Doctor now generates more than half of our overall internet traffic.
We are one of the first hospitals in Michigan to allow patient access to the doctor’s notes and diagnostic data, which enhances their understanding of their condition and what they need to do. Our patients also get access to their test and radiology results the same day the doctor sees them, and can ask questions online. Patients no longer have to wait all weekend for important test results.
Simpler billing and understanding of the cost of care is a perennial desire. MyHealth offers a detailed billing statement and can answer questions online. This improves the patient’s experience and their understanding of the cost of care. Since MyHealth is integrated with Priority Health, patients who are also Priority Health members can see actual dollar amounts for their deductibles, copays for specific services and other specific benefit information in MyHealth. We anticipate incorporating information from other insurers in the future as well.
We get insights into what people want and need through feedback and digital engagement. Over the next year, patients can automatically send us data from their wearable devices so we can better track their fitness activities, eating and sleeping habits, and overall condition – and follow up if this data raises red flags.
Nothing excites me more than making it easier for people to access and engage in their health. But I am also eagerly anticipating the potential for digital health to fulfill the promise of personalized medicine. We’ll be able to tap the exponentially growing body of health information coming from genome sequencing, electronic health records, medical imaging, wearable devices, real-time medical research and population health data to detect, treat, cure or even prevent disease.
Digital health has the power to help us more actively manage our health – or the health of our loved ones – in ways never before thought possible.
Tina Freese Decker is Executive Vice President and COO of Spectrum Health, a $6 billion integrated health system with a hospital group, medical group and health plan based in Michigan.
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