Dr. James Holly Receives the 2012 eHealth Innovator Award
Last week, eHealth Initiative (eHI) held its tenth annual conference, drawing healthcare industry leaders from across the country. At the conference, eHI unveiled its strategy for 2012, which involves a new focus on identifying, assessing, and disseminating health IT tools and technologies specifically related to the care and treatment of patients with cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. As is custom at its annual meetings, eHI presented an eHealth Innovator Award to an organization that had demonstrated leadership and excellence in the field of eHealth. This year’s award was given to Southeast Texas Medical Associates (SETMA) for their preventative health initiative, “Lose weight, Exercise, and Stop Smoking” (LESS).
The LESS program uses a simple yet effective approach to improving the health of SETMA’s patients. Focused primarily on diabetes management and cardiovascular health, the program leverages an electronic health record (EHR) system with built-in disease-management and population-health tools, including electronic templates that emphasize risks and automatically make recommendations related to diet, exercise, and treatment. A nurse can perform the LESS assessment and the EHR will generate recommendations for weight management, information about diabetes risk and/or an exercise prescription based the patient’s health. The EHR platform can also be utilized to create follow-up reminders and arrange referrals for support services. Patients are provided a print-out of the information generated by the EHR, and are counseled about losing weight, exercising, and quitting smoking at every patient visit.
The program has had considerable success in improving the care of SETMA’s patients. An AHRQ evaluation in 2011 found that LESS contributed to a leveling off in the prevalence of overweight/obesity, higher than average quit rate for smoking, better blood glucose control for diabetes patients, and fewer racial disparities in the care of some chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes outcomes, hypertension, high cholesterol). Further, LESS has dramatically increased information flow and communication between providers and patients. Providers have direct conversations with patients, which enables reinforcement of key messages, patient education, personal support, and custom referrals. The LESS print-out provided to the patient along with open conversation/communication allows the patient to engage in their own healthcare.
eHealth Initiative is proud to highlight the efforts of Southeast Texas Medical Associates and the LESS program, and we encourage our members and followers to do the same. If you have a similar program, electronic tool, or technology that you would like to share on our blog, please contact alex.kontur@ehealthinitiative.org.
