How to Demonstrate the Efficiency of New Technology to Patients

Technology can be very confusing, especially if it isn't something you wouldn't normally interact with. While most medical technology can seem mundane to doctors, it is elaborate, complex and sometimes scary to patients. This isn't because they are techno-phobic; it is often just because they don't understand.

Introducing new technology to individual patients can be very difficult, especially if you aren't sure how to explain the benefits of using it. Use this quick guide to learn more about how to incorporate technology into your practice and make patients more aware of how things can help them. 

Explaining Change

Technology is improving at a rapid rate and it affects everything that we do. The medical field is no exception, with technology revolutionizing the industry even more. With all of the technology in the medical field, it isn't uncommon for patients to have to undergo new procedures or screenings.

If you need to introduce your patient to a new routine, start by explaining the reason for the change. You don't have to go into too many details. For example, if the screening would better help you understand the vitamin levels in a patient, say so. Explain that the new method is more efficient and tell them how it directly benefits them to use the technology. This will make them more apt to agree to use the new test or device.

Keep in mind that most patients won't understand complex medical jargon. For example, if you are trying to tell them the importance of using a vendor neutral archive, you can't just recite a dictionary explanation. You need to explain that the technology stores images and documents so that other machines can quickly access it. 

Show Examples

While you can't always show specific examples of tests, you can show a diagram that does. Even showing a cartoon drawing of a completed test can give the patient a little clarity. The more detailed the example is, the easier it will be to convey your message. People respond to visuals and can gain a lot of insight just by looking at a picture.

If you are trying to prove that a new method is more efficient than an old one, show the patient results. Even if it is your first time using the technology, you should be able to produce results of previous tests or information from the company showing how much it can help. 

Create a Video

Sometimes, new technology becomes widespread very quickly. To keep from having to explain yourself and the reasons for the change over and over again, try making a video to show your patients. During the video, you can:

• Explain how the technology works
• Why you are choosing this method
• How this method benefits the patient
• Go over statistics and proof that the method works
• Show a visual demonstration of the entire process.


The great thing about using video to demonstrate the effectiveness of medical technology is that it can be viewed at any time. You can send the patient home with a copy or ask them to watch it online before their visit. This helps to save you time and improves the efficiency of your office.

Be Personal and Relate to the Patient

Regardless of what method you use to explain how efficient your medical technology is, you need to be able to relate it to the patient. When patients enter a medical office, they want to know what the fastest and most efficient way to get healed is. If you don't clearly convey that the technology is helping the patient, they might not want to use it.

Demonstrating the efficiency of new technology doesn't have to be difficult. 


About the author: Greg Dastrup is a world traveler and professional writer with a passion for learning new languages. He’s spent most of his career consulting for businesses in North America. You can follow Greg here.

The Medicare Trajectory: Take the Healthcare Quiz

By Nalini K Pande, JD

Want to reduce the nation’s spending on healthcare?  How about your own healthcare spending? This quiz could help do just that.  “How” you ask?  It’s quite simple.  When we think about Medicare spending, we don’t often think about kids, young adults or even adults under 65.  But, we should.  The major driver of Medicare costs is spending on chronic disease.  How do we reduce this spending?  We get people like you and me to take care of their health, focus on prevention, and become an active player in the health system before we become Medicare-eligible.  In doing so, you could end up saving money.  And, we also engage those already on Medicare to better manage their care.  Certainly, this is easier said than done.  

Why is America so alienated from their own health care? Could it be that the health system has become so complex that you would have to be a health care expert to figure out what’s going on?  And, who has the time?  This holiday season as you dine with your loved ones and catch up on some good books, you might consider sharing this fun Healthcare Quiz.  This “take” on the 12 days of Christmas will teach you everything you need to know - well, at least 12 important health topics. 

Quiz Directions: Read the Healthcare Quiz and see how many of these terms you know.  Use the red short answer key to see what these terms mean.  You get 1 point for each numbered phrase/term you know for a total of 12 points. Want to earn extra points?  Then, read the “Detailed Answers” section below to learn why these 12 issues are critical to the health policy landscape and earn extra points.

Detailed Answers
(Give yourself an extra point for every detailed answer you know)

12 States Expanding: The Supreme Court has indicated that states can determine whether they will expand Medicaid to cover some of the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act.  Thus far, 28 states and DC have expanded Medicaid.  You get a bonus point if you know whether your state has expanded.  Click the link to see if you are right.

11 Measures Measuring: Health quality measurement is critical to improving the quality of health care services and identifying areas in need of improvement. Measures also inform consumers.  Check out the following consumer health quality sites: for hospitals (Hospital Compare), health plans (HEDIS), and doctors (HealthGrades), as well as an overview of all consumer sites.  Measures can be controversial given operational challenges, and concerns that incorrect inferences have been made from measures. All of this leads many to question how useful some measures are for determining true health quality. Now that I have you completely confused, let’s move on to the Exchanges.

10 Exchanges enrolling:  Also known as Health Insurance Marketplaces, the Exchanges are where both individuals and small businesses can go to shop for health insurance coverage.  Federal subsidies (premium tax credits) are available to consumers if they meet certain incomes requirements. Some states established their own Exchanges. Other states relied on the federal government to do so.  Open enrollment for 2015 coverage started Nov 15 2014 and ends Feb 15, 2015.

9 Duals pending: Dual eligibles are given this name because they are covered under both the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  They are generally the sickest and most costly beneficiaries of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  Currently, 9 states are in the process of implementing a capitated (managed care) model with goals of improving quality and cutting costs for duals.  What’s pending is the evaluation.  It has yet to be seen how successful these initiatives will be.  Additional states are implementing other models as well.  What’s important is that HHS is focusing on ways to address this vulnerable and high-cost population that maintains strong quality standards while also reducing costs. 

8 Curves a bending: Bending the cost curve in the policy arena really means reducing costs over time.  If someone is acting like a know-it-all about some policy, just throw out the phrase, “but will it bend the cost curve?” and watch them quickly back away.  You get a bonus point if you use this phrase at work or with friends today.

7 COBRAs extending: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) health benefit provisions require group health plans to continue your employer health coverage (18 months) if you have a qualifying event such as being laid off.  However, you will now pay 100% of the premium costs (not just a portion).  If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can also investigate whether the Exchanges give a better deal given their subsidies or check out your local health plan’s website (except in DC and VT) and shop around accordingly.

6 Health apps trending: Health apps are specialized programs/software often used on mobile devices that focus on health, nutrition or exercise programs.  What’s exciting is that a new app focusing on managing chronic conditions is out.  No longer do the healthy get to have all the apps.  Venture capitalists have been challenged to do more in the chronic condition app arena and it will be interesting to see this field develop further.  You get a bonus point if you have a health app on your mobile device and you use it.

5 Bundled payments!!! Bundled payments is a new payment model that transforms multiple claims into a single payment for one “episode” of care based on predetermined lump sum amount. Why is this important?  This new payment model may lead to higher quality and more coordinated care at a lower cost.  It essentially incentivizes providers to coordinate care and prevent costly and avoidable hospital readmissions. The jury is out as to whether this model will be a strong cost-saver. What is most critical is the cost transparency that the new reform represents.

4 EHRs: Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are seen as the wave of the future (and are currently being used in some health systems). EHRs allow doctors and hospitals to access your medical history, lab tests, allergies, immunizations, and radiology images all in one digital format.  EHRs improve quality, efficiency and care coordination across your care while reducing waste such as duplicative tests.  However, adoption has been slow, and transitioning from paper to digital has been challenging. Further, not everyone believes it is improving efficiency given additional burdens and high costs.  Addressing privacy and security issues are critical for successful implementation.  You get a bonus point if you already have access to your health records online (and another bonus point if you actually use it!)

3 Co-pays: A copay is a fixed amount that you pay when you visit the doctor’s office or when you buy prescription drugs. Why is it important?  As you probably have seen recently, your premium (how much you pay monthly for your health insurance), co-insurance (a percentage you pay of your medical bill) and your deductible (how much you must pay before your insurance will kick in) has been increasing over the years.  How can you effectively select a plan that will best meet your budgetary needs?  Hint: The lowest premium plans aren’t always the best.  They can have high deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums that might make a different plan a more financially appropriate choice.

2 ACOs:  An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) is a group of coordinated providers (doctors, hospitals) in which provider reimbursements are linked to improving quality and reducing costs for a  population of patients. Doctors get more money if their patients stay healthy and if they save money.  (This is unlike previous systems, where doctors are incentivized to reduce costs without always focusing on improving quality). ACOs are seen as cutting edge.  Whether they are the “next big thing” has yet to be seen.  Pioneer ACOs have seen some real success.

And a PCP in a Pear Tree! No, this is not the drug, PCP, but rather what we call in the health field, a Primary Care Provider.  Why is your PCP important?  Having a PCP leads to better health outcomes and reduced costs (through lower hospitalizations), including improved prevention and better coordination of care for those with chronic diseases. You get a bonus point if you have a PCP. 


What’s your Number? How many did you get right? 
• You get 1 point for each numbered phrase/term you knew based on the red answer key for a total of 12 points
• You get an extra point for every detailed answer you knew based on the detailed answers section above for a total of 12 additional points.  
• You get additional bonus points as indicated above for a total of 6 bonus points.

28+: Congratulations! You are a Health Guru. We need more experts like you!

21-27: Great job! You are a Health Professor.  Everyone in the office comes to you for help with their health questions.  Keep up the great work!

11-20: Nice work!  You are a Health Enthusiast. You are on your way to becoming an active player in the health system.  Keep learning and sharing what you know with others!

1-10: Hang in there!  You are a Health Rookie. Healthcare is a very complex topic. It's hard to understand health reform, health delivery system changes and payment reform when the existing system is so confusing. Keep learning!



Nalini Pande, Managing Director, Sappho Health Strategies has nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare policy and reform.  She has considerable experience in Medicare and Medicaid, and emerging payment models including accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes. Ms. Pande also has strong expertise in dual eligibles and the specific issues facing this unique population.  She previously taught a graduate health quality course at Georgetown University as an Adjunct Professor.  Ms. Pande is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Follow @nalinipande

Health Care Insights | Weekly Round Up

Health Care Insights brings you your weekly healthcare round up. Below you will find relevant articles on key industry topics that we thought our readers would benefit from - enjoy.

Top Stories:

A Post-Election Day Certainty: New Scrutiny for the Affordable Care Act
This week’s elections ensure a new round of political attacks on the Affordable Care Act, but they also create potential opportunities to repair provisions of the law that people on both sides of the partisan divide would like to fix.

Big data: Enabling the Future of Healthcare
Everyone’s talking about the importance of big data in healthcare. Yet, as the data piles up – most of it is isolated in different silos, and health systems are struggling to turn big data from a concept into a reality. Here’s how I see it having a substantial impact on the health of populations, today and in the future.

Electronic Medical Records, Built For Efficiency, Often Backfire
Electronic medical records were supposed to usher in the future of medicine. Prescriptions would be beamed to the pharmacy. A doctor could call up patients' medical histories anywhere, anytime. Nurses and doctors could easily find patients' old lab results or last X-rays to see what how they're doing. The computer system could warn doctors about dangerous drug combinations before it was too late.

Steward’s ACO focuses patient engagement efforts on 4 percent of covered lives
According to Girard, there are two fundamental processes in healthcare, information flows and people flows. The ideal, he said, is for both processes to be happening at the right time in the right place.

Coordinated care and patient engagement
The healthcare breakthrough of the 21st century may not come in the form of a miracle drug from the pharmaceutical industry. Rather, it's more likely to emerge from the ways caregivers interact and motivate patients.


Enjoy the weekend!

Celebrate Columbus Day! Register for FDA/CMS Summit for Payers by Monday & save $300!

Register for the following IIR event and receive $300 off*

Mention code COLUMBUSBLOG to save on the following:

Register here for IIR’s FDA/CMS Summit for Payers event taking place December 11-12, 2014 in Washington D.C., visit the website for full details.

Have any questions? Email Jennifer Pereira.

*This promotion is only valid October 10th-13th 2014. Offer cannot be applied retroactively to confirmed paying registrants and cannot be combined with any other discounts or promotions. All registrants and guests are subject to IIR approval.

In the specialty pharmacy model, do all stakeholders win?

Welcome to the Specialty Pharmacy Collaboration Summit Podcast Series. Today we are speaking with Nick Calla, VP of Industry Relations, Community Specialty Pharmacy Network (CSPN)

Download the complete podcast & transcript here.

Is the specialty pharmacy model a win/win for all stakeholders? Basically, who wins and who loses as the industry grows?

Nick: That’s a very interesting question and sort of a future thought kind of question. When you think about specialty pharmacy, there are two wins, if you will. I think the patient ends up winning because they will get a higher degree of care in these higher touch models, whether it be through central fill – which is perfectly appropriate for some patients – or the community-based and even higher touch face-to-face model that we are working with and developing. I think the patient is a big winner in that space.

I think the provider is a big winner in this space. Again, the provider is a specialty. I’ll take a very specific example in the oncology community. As more and more products move away from infused therapy and move more into oral therapy, the provider needs an adjunct to the healthcare team in order to keep the patient on therapy and successful in their therapy. Side effect management, etc. Again, that’s where the specialist will win in using a specialty pharmacy as an adjunct to his practice.

I think the managed-care organizations are also quite honestly the winners in this space. The organization that ultimately is paying the bill --- well, the employer is paying the bill. But through the managed-care organization, they are winners as well because again you are getting patients compliant to therapy, staying on therapy and being successful on therapy. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce abandonment of therapy or short duration of therapy before you truly make a difference. Again, a very specific example of that would be in the Hepatitis B space where the duration of therapy is so important in achieving a response that can be sustained over time.

Finally, I want to mention the manufacturing community. Again, I think they win in this environment because they are able to promote their product, they have a higher degree of understanding that the patient that is on their therapy is going to be successful on therapy and compliant on therapy. Obviously, that means that they are marketing and selling the product that they have spent millions of dollars in getting to market in the first place. In my mind, everyone kind of wins in the specialty pharmacy model.

You say “Who loses?” I think the only way you lose in this model is if you don’t create a little bit more diversity in the model so that you don’t have as much fragmentation within the model and that the standard of care is consistent across all the different types of models, whether it is central fill or community based, etc. To keep that standard of care high and you basically maintain or retain the notion that specialty pharmacy was created as a high-touch model focusing in on intense counseling of the patient with the overriding goal of keeping the patient on therapy and managing their side effects.

As long you stay true to those basic tenets and don’t allow specialty pharmacy to turn into a quote/unquote “mail order” type of operation, then I think obviously all of the stakeholders I mentioned win. But, if you don’t maintain those, then I think really all the stakeholders end up losing in the end.

Click here to download the rest of the transcript and podcast.

To hear more from Nick, please join him at IIR's Specialty Pharmacy Collaboration Summit, September 15-17 in Boston. Also, you can save an EXTRA $100 off the current rate, $300 in total savings when registering by 8/22 with the code: XP1968BLOG - Register now.

Complimentary Webinar | Moving and Improving: Using Data and Informatics to Inform Your Business Strategy, Save Lives and Improve Quality

A complimentary webinar from Healthcare Data Insights

 

Date: August 19th

Time: 11:00AM - 12:00PM EDT

Moving and Improving: Using Data and Informatics to Inform Your Business Strategy, Save Lives and Improve Quality

The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), the member organization of 120 non-profit Academic Medical Centers and their affiliates, encourages hospitals to integrate data into their business plans, in part by demonstrating how data can be used to save lives and improve quality scores. With transparent access to data from more than 400 hospitals (which includes more than 5 million inpatient discharges annually and 25 million outpatient encounters), learn how they make the case for member hospitals to “move and improve” with innovative programming based on data.

Speaker: David Levine, MD, FACEP, Vice President, Informatics, and Medical Director, UHC

In this seminar, David will show how members maximize hospital and physician data to measure efficiency and effectiveness. Work in both the inpatient and outpatient settings to capture performance over the continuum of care will be emphasized. The data challenges will be highlighted especially with cost and capturing all inputs to care.

• Key metrics being used to measure overall hospital performance
• How Academic Medical Centers are looking at physician variability
• How to identify key opportunities for cost reduction
• Importance of risk adjustment and using proper compare groups to engage clinicians in improvement
• Challenges of integrating databases and gaps in data

Register for the Webinar - Use Priority Code: W1BL

Moving and Improving: Using Data and Informatics to Inform Your Business Strategy, Save Lives and Improve Quality

A complimentary webinar from Healthcare Data Insights - August 19th, 11:00AM - 12:00PM EDT

Moving and Improving: Using Data and Informatics to Inform Your Business Strategy, Save Lives and Improve Quality

The University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), the member organization of 120 non-profit Academic Medical Centers and their affiliates, encourages hospitals to integrate data into their business plans, in part by demonstrating how data can be used to save lives and improve quality scores. With transparent access to data from more than 400 hospitals (which includes more than 5 million inpatient discharges annually and 25 million outpatient encounters), learn how they make the case for member hospitals to “move and improve” with innovative programming based on data.

Speaker: David Levine, MD, FACEP, Vice President, Informatics, and Medical Director, UHC

In this seminar, David will show how members maximize hospital and physician data to measure efficiency and effectiveness. Work in both the inpatient and outpatient settings to capture performance over the continuum of care will be emphasized. The data challenges will be highlighted especially with cost and capturing all inputs to care.

• Key metrics being used to measure overall hospital performance
• How Academic Medical Centers are looking at physician variability
• How to identify key opportunities for cost reduction
• Importance of risk adjustment and using proper compare groups to engage clinicians in improvement
• Challenges of integrating databases and gaps in data

Register for the Webinar - Use Priority Code: W1BL

Clinical Pathways, ACOs, COAs: Introducing 'Value' in Cancer Care

Below is an article from AJMC - a media partner for the upcoming Summit for Oncology Management. To learn more on topics like this, sign up for email updates. 

Via AJMC: Although advancements in medical science have greatly improved overall life expectancy and the ability for many to survive a cancer diagnosis, a recent study predicts that cancer care alone will cost the American health system $157 billion by 2020. It is well known that a major driver of these surmounting costs is the rising cost of chemotherapy and other treatments, in addition to the variation in how these treatments are used across the health care system.  However, there are several ways that providers, payers, and patients can work together to establish a more medically and financially effective cancer care model that also reduce costs and inefficiencies in the system.

Develop “clinical pathways” to reduce inappropriate use

For many cancers, there are multiple drugs that can be equally effective in treating a patient’s condition, but the price of these treatments can differ in cost by tens of thousands of dollars. Currently, oncologists are responsible for purchasing their own chemotherapy drugs, processing and maintaining them in a specialized pharmacy-like set up, and then administering them to their patients. Insurers then reimburse the oncologists for the cost of the drugs plus a margin to defray the price of maintenance and administration. Since oncologists receive a share of their income from the margins on the drugs they prescribe, insurers assert that there is an incentive to prescribe the pricier drugs, even when lower cost options of equal effectiveness exist.

Source: The Hill

Oncology Management Podcast Series with Bill McGivney

Welcome to the Oncology Management Podcast Series. 

Joining us today is Bill McGivney, Principal, McGivney Global Advisory LLC & former CEO, National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Below you will find a teaser from Bill's podcast session, click here to listen to the complete podcast and to download the transcript.

How and to what extent do various stakeholders bring value to the treatment of patients with cancer?

Bill: Well, I think that’s something that we really need to look at closer because there are a lot of discussions, obviously, about the level of healthcare expenditures and the increase and rate of rise and expenditures of care to treat patients with cancer.

First of all, you look at providers and clearly their expertise, their acumen and their understanding is really about providing what the optimal treatment recommendations are for patients. Carrying out that treatment plan brings a lot of value to the system.

And then you look at the manufacturers, the biopharma companies, the medical device companies and they bring innovative products to the market that address the many, many needs and unmet needs that still exist for the many different types of cancer specifically. And that’s critical. They bring value to patients directly.

Then, you start to get down into other areas of the healthcare system that are more management operations oriented and you look at managed-care companies. They bring value in the sense that they help to organize the system. They pay the claims and the develop networks of clinicians to work with patients specifically.

But, really, what I think we need to do is, as we expend resources to bring care ultimately to patients with cancer, we really need to take a closer look at, again, which components, which stakeholders bring actual value to the treatment of patients.

Download the rest of the Podcast here.

To hear more from Bill, please join us at IIR’s Annual Oncology Management Summit, July 21-23 in Philadelphia, PA.

To save 15% off your registration rate, use the code: XP1914BLOG

Register Now!

MMCC Podcast Series with Perry Patton of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers

 IIR's Healthcare Podcast Series

In this week’s podcast, we are speaking with Perry Patton, who will be presenting at the 2014 Medicaid Managed Care Congress in Baltimore May 19th through 21st.

Perry is talking with us today about a program that she works on as a part of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers. What we’re hoping to do is get a general sense of what you and Jason are going to let folks know about at the Conference.

Why don’t you give me an overview of the program itself in terms of who the team members are, who the patients are, what the model is, where the care takes place – just kind of the basics of who, what and where.

Perry: Our program, is called the “Care Management Initiative”. What it is is a short-term – about 30-60 day intervention – that works with vulnerable patients in the Camden City area. Camden is a city in New Jersey, which definitely experiences – as does many cities across North America or a large population of people living in poverty. Many of these individuals also have complex medical problems, which sends them in and out of the hospital. What we do is target patients who utilize the hospital in the emergency room frequently.

Our patients generally --- the eligibility to be on our panel is that they have to have at least two in-patient stays or emergency department visits within the past six months and one or two of several chronic conditions that we work with like diabetes, asthma, things of that nature. So, our care team is interdisciplinary. We have a social work, RN, LTMs and intervention specialists and health coaches – that’s my role – all on board to help coordinate the care of these patients.

So, from the time that they are enrolled to the time that they graduate from the program, what we try to do is really help coordinate their care better across the board. Many of these patients are going in and out of the hospital because they don’t have the proper coordination between their different providers or just haven’t been to a primary care doctor in quite a long time. So, we help to reintegrate them into the healthcare system, get them connected to a primary care physician if they aren’t and also help connect them to other social services that will make it easier for them to take care of themselves – things like food delivery or food assistance if they need that, as well as connecting them to transportation, which is a big issue for many of our patients.



Download the rest of the Podcast here.

To hear more from Perry, please join us at the 22nd Annual Medicaid Managed Care Congress, May 19-21 in Baltimore, MD.


To save 15% off your registration rate, use the code: XP1926BLOG

Register Now!