The Model Towards Better Health: The Patient Engagement Framework
One of the many aspects of healthcare reform is the concept of patient centered care. To provide patient centered care, healthcare professionals must activate and engage with their patients and provide tools and resources for continued and on-going support.
The Patient Engagement Framework is a model created by the National eHealth Collaborative to guide healthcare organizations in developing and strengthening their patient engagement strategies through the use of eHealth tools and resources.
The Framework is the result of nearly a year of collaboration by over 150 top experts in healthcare, technology and human behavior, and is designed to assist healthcare organizations of all sizes and in all stages of implementation of their patient engagement strategies. This Framework can help organizations create a path towards a more efficient and effective models of care to treat patients as partners instead of just customers.
The Five Stages of the Patient Engagement Framework (as defined by the National eHealth Collaborative):
Inform Me
A healthcare provider in this phase demonstrates basic levels of patient engagement with an emphasis on the use of simple tools that make healthcare more convenient and accessible. This also includes providing patients with standard forms, both printable and electronic, and information about advance directives, privacy and specific conditions.
Engage Me
This phase is indicative of more mature patient engagement strategies and shows increased use of eHealth tools and resources. In this stage patients have access to their electronic health record, are encouraged to use fitness trackers and other eHealth tools, and are able to complete administrative tasks online.
Empower Me
Providers in this phase demonstrate advanced patient engagement activities through substantive use of health IT. Attributes of this phase include use of secure messaging between patients and providers, integration of basic patient-generated data into EHR systems, online quality, safety and patient experience ratings, and participation in a health information exchange or similar effort to enhance care coordination between provider settings.
Partner With Me
This phase reflects providers who use health IT to make the patient a true partner in his or her care. Providers at this stage support patients with condition-specific management tools and access to care summaries. They also integrate significant amounts of ongoing patient generated data, such as preferences, self-care, wellness and home health device data, into their EHR system. Patient records are connected to public health reporting systems and coordination of care happens seamlessly across primary, specialty and acute care providers.
Support my e-Community
This phase is the culmination of a provider’s progress in fully leveraging and implementing eHealth tools to connect a patient with their full care team and support his or her care management both in and out of the healthcare setting. Tools and activities here include fully interoperable EHRs, record sharing among providers and non-provider members of the patient’s care team, while granting patient access to privacy controls. At this phase, patients and caregivers are also provided with online community support from providers, opportunities for e-visits, and information like cost comparisons and outcomes reporting to help patients make more informed decisions about their care and treatment. Providers at this phase will likely be found participating in an accountable care or patient-centered medical home model.
Director of Global eHealth at The University of Edinburgh
10 年Thanks for posting this Susan. It's helpful to see a new model that tries to differentiate the cluster of things that tend to get badged as 'engagement' and 'involvement' in the context of eHealth. I like this one and hope it can be used more widely to help to support consistency and communication in the field.