Informatics for Consumer Health:  Nov 5-6, 2009
Summit on Communication, Collaboration, and Quality
Developing an agenda for integrating consumer products into health information networks will be the focus of a two-day summit November 5 and 6, 2009 organized by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT, in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute and their sister agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Summit to be held just outside Washington, DC is an invitation-only event for up to 200 healthcare leaders, with sessions viewable to the public through Webcasts and other sessions limited to the invited audience. Webcasts will require prior registration. While a range of issues will be covered, privacy, security, and confidentiality are considered critical to the success of the Health IT initiatives. Susannah  Fox, who leads Health Research and digital strategy for Pew Internet & American Life Project, has already published a post about the privacy, security and confidentiality panel discussion to be held on Day Two.

The proposed outcomes are a “Supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine,  Policy oriented white paper, and Alert service that provides updates on research and practice advances, funding opportunities and relevant meetings and conferences.”

General Information excerpted from the Summit site:
http://www.consumerhealthinformatics.org
Videocast information 
              Pre-registration requires for each day–Nov 5, 6, 2009.
Summit Agenda
See end of post for additional conference materials.

Summit Focus
“Increase the quality and utilization of evidence-based consumer products that may be integrated into health information exchange networks.” 

Background/Rationale
“Consumer behavior is an essential contributor to quality improvement in health care. Changes in basic preventive behavior—smoking cessation, better diet and exercise, and routine screenings—have already contributed substantively to decreases in death from cancer, from heart disease, and from diabetes. Predictions are that better support systems will be needed in preventive care as the U.S. population struggles with an impending epidemic of obesity and chronic disease. Within the health care system, better support for patients has been shown to improve quality of care in a system that is becoming increasingly reliant on outpatient treatment. Improvements in quality and decreases in cost have been documented through applications such as patient reminder systems, secure messaging systems between patients and providers, in-home monitoring tools, pharmaceutical error checking routines, patient education systems, and enhanced decision support tools for self-care.

“At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services maintains a national goal to improve health care through the strategic use of health information technology. In a report released in the first quarter of 2009, the National Research Council warned that efforts to invest in Health I.T. will be fruitless unless they are aimed at providing better cognitive support for physicians, patients, and their caregivers.

“The purpose of this summit is to bring together the stakeholders involved in creating a safer, higher quality health system and from a set of structured interactions within that group to create a blueprint for improving health care quality through enhanced behavioral support for health care consumers.”

Goal:
“Increase the quality and utilization of evidence-based consumer products that may be integrated into health information exchange networks.”

Summit Objectives
“1.Increase collaborations and partnerships,
2.Develop knowledge products including a journal supplement, alert service and policy oriented white paper, and
3.Stimulate development of commercially-viable products.”

Partners:
Department of Health and Human Services
■Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
■Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
■National Cancer Institute (NCI)
■National Library of Medicine (NLM)
■Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)

Department of Commerce
■National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Proposed Outcomes of the Meeting/Collaboration
■”Supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine
■Policy oriented white paper
■Alert service that provides updates on research and practice advances, funding opportunities and relevant meetings and conferences.”

Representatives from the following sectors will be attending:
■Commercial IT
■Government
■Healthcare
■Research
■Wellness/Advocacy

Invitation-only closed sessions excerpted from Summit site.
Topic 1.
Improve quality, safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities.
“This goal embodies the primary objectives for quality improvement articulated by the Institute of Medicine’s Crossing the Quality Chasm report. The break out group will focus on the contribution of consumer informatics to the question of continuous quality improvement as described by the IOM report.”

Topic 2.
Improve care coordination.
“One of the great promises of an interoperable electronic health record system is the capability to bridge discontinuities of care in a fragmented health care system. The goal becomes especially important as health care reform begins to evolve a more pre-emptive, personalized stance. In this break-out session, participants will identify strategies for resolving the continuity of care problem with consumer-accessible informatics solutions. Topics to be covered will likely include a renewed discussion of the medical home, continuity of care records (as a technological solution), and the role of third party continuity solutions (e.g., MS Health Vault) in bridging the gaps of an otherwise fragmented system of care.”

Topic 3.
Engage patients and families.
“There has been considerable discussion in the public health and chronic care communities over the value of encouraging patients as active participants in their health care. Doing so means creating a health information environment that is supportive of patients’ self-management goals, and is encouraging of patients’ efforts to live healthier lives. In this session, participants will discuss the role of consumer facing informatics applications in encouraging proactive involvement from patients and their families in health care.”

Topic 4.
Improve population and public health.
“In the initial proposal to create a National Health Information Infrastructure, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics argued that a network of interoperable, interconnected electronic health records could help dissolve the barriers between patient monitoring and efforts to improve the health of populations. This panel will consider the ways in which a national health information infrastructure could be exploited to improve population health.”

Topic 5.
Ensure adequate privacy and security protections.
“Privacy and confidentiality issues will continue to collide with national goals for health information sharing as technology specialists and advocacy groups look for new and evolving solutions to that tension. In this working group, participants will continue discussions begun earlier in the day on privacy and security issues in a more detailed discussion of recommended solutions.”

Topic 6.
Diffusing technology-based health interventions.
“Following a meeting held in Rhode Island two years ago, the National Cancer Institute has been working with a panel of specialists to develop solutions to the diffusion of technology-based health research interventions. Session attendees will share their own experience disseminating technology and discuss a potential framework and process to help others succeed.”

Topic 7.
Delivering applications to people regardless of time or location.
“Channels and strategies for delivering health information and behavioral applications are changing rapidly, from PCs to mobile telephones and other devices. In addition behavioral applications are increasingly being delivered through newer technologies such as social networking and new media. This working group will consider the challenges and opportunities of delivering behavioral applications to people at critical moments regardless of time or location.”

Topic 8.
Health 2.0.
“Shortly after the “dot.com” implosion weeded out the least successful from the most successful Web applications, industry observer Tim O’Reilly convened a panel of experts to discuss what the attributes of a second generation Web (i.e., Web 2.0) might look like. Together, the group described a collection of new approaches that emphasized (a) creating architectures for participation, (b) enabling the formation of a “collective intelligence,” and (c) utilizing data as the new “Intel Inside” for applications. This working group will consider the viability of the Web 2.0 phenomenon as it is applied to health.”

Summit Conference Materials
Program (5MB PDF)
Marketplace of Opportunities (2MB PDF)