Take the Fear Out of Patient-Connected Health
Friday, April 23, 2010
| Trisha Torrey
About the Author: Trisha Torrey, Every Patient's Advocate, and author of You Bet Your Life! The 10 Mistakes Every Patient Makes (How to Fix Them to Get the Health Care You Deserve)
As a patient, I am usually the interloper to conversations among professionals about connected health. I read and hear about connections among providers, connections to payers, connections established to databases that help diagnose or treat, connections from one doctor’s office to another, even connections from remote areas to more urban, better equipped facilities….
But when I hear the occasional reference to an electronic connection between a doctor and a patient, it’s often met with an “I wish” from the patient, but a more deer-in-the-headlights reaction from the provider.
Unfortunately it seems like “patient-centered” among professionals in the connected health environment too often refers to what is done FOR and TO patients, rather than WITH patients.
When patients think of the word connected, they think of connections to other people. No matter how much access they have to Internet information or even their own health records online, whether that takes place with a computer or a cell phone or an iPad, patients want and need someone with expertise, who they believe cares about their outcomes, to help interpret, analyze, recommend, discuss. They want and need that personal connection with their doctors.
Most physicians see connected health with patients quite differently, especially as it applies to e-connections. Their first reaction is often a fear of wasted time. Time they probably can’t get reimbursed for. Time they are tired of giving away for free. Time most believe they just don’t have. In a world of decreasing reimbursements and pay-for-procedures, it’s certainly understandable.
Then there’s HIPAA. Too many doctors invoke HIPAA as their explanation to patients about why they can’t share information through email. It works, too! Because most patients don’t realize that HIPAA isn’t a valid excuse.
My challenge to those with the means and capability of developing all things e- or m- for connected health would be this: Help physicians see that the more personal connections made through tools like email or instant messaging or texting (how about med-exting?) don’t have to cost them time or money. Help them see the personal side of connected health as efficient, effective, and both personally and financially rewarding.
Because that’s what patients want. That connection is what we need to take our medical care into the future, whether those connections are in-person or “e”. It’s the doctors who are willing to go there WITH us who will be most successful and happiest with their careers.