ANI Supporting Consumer eHealth at HHS Summit

By Judy Murphy, RN, FACMI, FHIMSS & Christel Anderson

Judy Murphy, RN, FACMI, FHIMSS, is a guest blogger on the HIMSS Blog and now serves as Vice President, Information Technology, Aurora Healthcare; Co-chair, the Alliance for Nursing Informatics; and on the HIMSS Board of Directors.

Pleased at the invitation, the Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI) presented our pledge on Sept. 12 at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ inaugural Consumer Health IT Summit, held during the first presidentially proclaimed National Health IT Week. 

This summit brought together consumers, providers, insurance companies, health IT vendors and organizations from the public and private sectors to discuss how best to empower consumers as partners in their health and care using health IT.  You can also visit the ONC Website and the ONC Blog for additional information and to view a video of the Summit.

Here’s the ANI Pledge we wanted to share with you:

“The Alliance for Nursing Informatics pledges to coordinate a campaign with other national nursing organizations to promote use of Personal Health Records and Patient Portals.  As nurses are the most-trusted health professionals and have a long history of patient advocacy, we expect to have a significant impact on patient participation in Health IT and increase the use of Personal Health Records and Patient Portals from the 10% seen today to over 25% in the next 2 years.”  Read ANI’s full pledge and see what other organizations took the pledge.

What does this truly mean?

In order to effectively achieve health outcome improvements, patients and families will need to become an integral part of the care team, with access to their health information to participate in decision-making about their wellness and illness care. Nurses serve as patient advocates for encouraging adoption of these collaborative practices.

Patients and families also need health education services delivered in a patient-appropriate learning environment and format. Nurses have an extensive knowledge base in patient education methods and tools.

Specifically, we will support the ONC Consumer eHealth Program (beginning November 2011) by:

• Coordinating a campaign with our member nursing informatics organizations, as well as other national nursing organizations, to promote consumer use of PHRs and other health IT resources.
• Sharing resources through the ANI website about the value of consumer engagement through health IT and partnering with health providers to improve health outcomes.
• Increasing consumer access to PHRs to 15% within 12 months and 25% within 24 months.
• Encouraging healthcare employers to prioritize use of PHRs and consumer portals for improving access to health care and engaging with consumers in managing their health.
• Partnering with ANA to ensure execution of their pledge (see below).

We also stood with and delivered our pledge side-by-side with the American Nurses Association:

“The American Nurses Association, in support of one of the strongest tenets of nursing — to educate the health care consumer — pledges to develop educational and instructional materials for nurses to share with consumers on the importance and benefits of using electronic Personal Health Records and Patient Portals.  Additionally, ANA, as the only full-service organization representing the interests of the nation’s 3.1 million registered nurses, will promote the design of innovative ways to use electronic personal health information to improve health and health care, including increased participation in patient portals. ANA values its trusted relationship and partnership with healthcare consumers and their families and looks forward to further engaging consumers in improving their own health through information technology.”  Read ANA’s full pledge

As part of the national campaign, ONC has launched a new consumer-facing section of the ONC website that showcases information directed for consumers.  It includes a section on those organizations that have committed a pledge through this campaign to engage consumers; new resources to be posted will include blogs, videos and interviews.

Will you join us in this new effort to achieve health outcome improvements? Share your thoughts here on the HIMSS Blog.

About ANI: The Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI), cosponsored by AMIA & HIMSS, advances NI leadership, practice, education, policy and research through a unified voice of nursing informatics organizations. We transform health and health care through nursing informatics and innovation. ANI is a collaboration of organizations that represents more than 5,000 nurse informaticists and brings together 28 distinct nursing informatics groups globally. ANI crosses academia, practice, industry, and nursing specialty boundaries and works in collaboration with the nearly 3 million nurses in practice today. Nurses touch the lives of patients in every setting, estimated to be about 18 million patients annually.