Fall 2014The Connected Patient Initiative
by Dianne Baker
As Jim Brady outlines in his President’s Message - without a doubt, HIMSS Southern California is on the leading edge of the healthcare transformation underway across our nation and participates in both regional and national industry initiatives.
Our Chapter is supporting the new Patient Engagement initiative being launched by National HIMSS. The HIMSS Patient Engagement framework provides a five-milestone roadmap for health providers looking to support patients through the use of IT tools and resources: inform me, engage me, empower me, partner with me, and support my e-Community. Patients want to be engaged in their healthcare decision-making process, and those who are engaged as decision-makers in their care tend to be healthier and have better outcomes.
HIMSS has also kicked off the HIMSS Patient and Family Caregiver Advisory Council. The council will give an ongoing voice to HIMSS patient engagement initiatives. The council represents patients, caregivers and families and advises the Connected Patient Committee, The Center for Patient and Family-Centered Care, and the Connected Patient Community on the development of HIMSS thought leadership and tools and resources.
Mary Griskewicz, MS, FHIMSS, is the senior director of health information systems for HIMSS National and shares this insight with us:
“These valuable HIMSS resources are the result of the expertise and time of our many HIMSS volunteers whose guidance advances our thought leadership and work on patient engagement,”. Griskewicz cited the ONC Consumer Health IT Summit, an event held on Sept. 15 during NHIT Week 2014 and focused on consumer health and the connected patient, as another example of our focus on connecting patients and providers through IT. “All of our collaborative efforts continue throughout the healthcare community not only at HIMSS, but also, with the many partners involved during National Health IT Week.”
We invite you to get engaged and learn more about the HIMSS Connected Patient Community! HIMSS has also just released a great resource on this initiative, The State of Patient Engagement & Health IT .
Our Chapter’s upcoming Newsletters will reflect contributions from both our regional members as well as select articles from invited contributors. This quarter we will be featuring several perspectives on the Connected Patient Initiative, beginning with an interview with one of our local industry experts, Dr. Eric Topol, Chief Academic Officer at Scripps. We also feature an article from an invited contributor and past President for the HIMSS New Jersey Chapter, Rich Temple.
Dr. Eric Topol has led the flagship NIH-supported Scripps Translational Science Institute since 2006 and co-founded the West Wireless Health Institute. He is a professor of genomics at The Scripps Research Institute and Chief Academic Officer of Scripps Health. Dr. Topol pioneered the development of many routinely used medications, including t-PA, Plavix, Angiomax, and ReoPro. He was the first physician to raise safety concerns about Vioxx. He has published 1100 peer-reviewed articles and over 30 medical textbooks.
In 2009, GQ named Topol one of the 12 "Rock Stars of Science." In 2011, the University of Michigan initiated the Eric Topol Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine. His alma mater, University of Rochester, awarded him its highest honor, the Hutchinson Medal. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine. His book The Creative Destruction of Medicine (Basic Books) was published in 2012.
Our Chapter’s team of Sri Bharadwaj, Dr. Vikram Kumar, along with Mary Griskewicz, John Sharp and Ian Hoffberg from HIMSS National, participated in a recent call with Dr. Topol. Sri Bharadwaj provides a summary of the interview.
Read here for our two featured articles in this section:
Flip the Visit – Patient in Charge!
by Sri Bharadwaj
Patient Engagement Today
by Rich Temple