As we look ahead...Advancing the field of Connected Health
Friday, January 23, 2009
| Joseph Kvedar, MD
About the author - Joseph C. Kvedar, MD is the Director of the Center for Connected Health
As we start off 2009, hoping that the worst of the economic crisis is behind us and charged with optimism regarding the new administration in Washington, we at the Center for Connected Health are pleased to release our annual progress report for 2008. 2008 heralded a number of advancements in the field of Connected Health and we are proud to have contributed our share.
First and foremost, the Center for Connected Health solidified our technology platform, enabling us to easily integrate new sensors, to integrate with our electronic medical record system, to integrate with Microsoft HealthVault and to standardize the way we apply decision support rules to guide our patients. Also, we hosted the first demonstration of connectivity based on the Continua standards at the 5th Annual Connected Health symposium. Subsequently, the first Continua certified products have made it to market. I spend so much time on adoption and financial sustainability, that I sometimes sell our technological accomplishments short. But the interoperability provided by the Continua standards and the Continua certified products is a real boost for the Connected Health community. Not only do these achievements improve the actual technologies, but they indirectly impact adoption and sustainability as well. Technologies that work well together are easier for consumers to adopt (witness the rise of the iPod in a sea of alternative mp3 players) and cost less because support costs decrease.
On a broader level, 2008 was the year that organized medicine started to take alternative payment models seriously. Pay-for-Performance is growing in popularity, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is sponsoring a number or alternative payment demonstration projects and Blue Cross of Massachusetts has unveiled their “Alternative Quality Contract”. There is talk of implementing case rates as a payment mechanism. To all of this, organized medicine has answered with the “Patient Centered Medical Home”. The Medical Home is an exciting concept, but as my colleague David Kibbe and I have argued, the Connected Medical Home is even more compelling.
We are starting to see examples of the Connected Medical Home here at Partners. A number of practices in our primary care network are adopting our DiabetesConnect program which combines blood glucose monitoring with a web display of the data in context for both the patient and their provider. This tool allows a diabetes educator in the practice to follow a population of patients with diabetes and intervene on those that need it most at any given time - very consistent with the Medical Home Model. And the financial rationale is to help these practices achieve better pay for performance outcomes and higher quality of care.
I hope you enjoy our annual progress report. Many of you are in the forefront of the field - I invite you to share with us your top achievements of 2008!