Delaware Health Information Network Launches Healthcare Tracking Tools for Consumers
New integrated marketing campaign supports consumer education
DOVER, DE – May 15, 2017 – Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN), one of the nation’s leading health information exchanges, is revolutionizing the healthcare market with a new consumer- facing program designed to empower patients across the state. Through new tools and information, the program will offer patients access to their medical information, as reported to DHIN, and shared between their medical providers.
“When you provide transparency, you reduce the stress people feel when making healthcare decisions,” said Randy Farmer, DHIN’s chief operating officer. “Our goal with this consumer-facing program is to bring patients closer to their health information.
“Ultimately,” he continued, “this is at the core of our mission to facilitate better healthcare by improving communication and access to information. We want to make people aware of who we are and where we fit into the overarching healthcare landscape all the way down to their own personal plan of care.”
Three Transparency Tools at Patients’ Fingertips
The newly launched program, which is supported by an extensive advertising and educational campaign, offers three consumer-based tools that can connect Delawareans with their personal healthcare information across a variety of platforms.
The Health Check Alert mobile messaging service will send a secure text message to advise a subscriber of several important items: that a medical result has been delivered to his or her doctor; that a medical professional has accessed the patient’s medical record; or that the subscriber has been admitted to the emergency room or hospital.
This free service will offer greater transparency of a patient’s healthcare information and may help to accelerate the identification of potentially fraudulent activity and abuse of health insurance information. It also helps improve care through better communication around patient care plans.
“Let’s say you receive a secure text with information about your lab results being ready, but you haven’t had lab work done,” Stacey Haddock Schiller, DHIN’s director of marketing said. “You and your medical practitioner can immediately identify and prevent another individual’s health information from affecting your personal plan of care down the road.”
DHIN promotes access to telemedicine service through MDLive. This online service provides around-the-clock access to a Delaware board-certified physician, whether at home, the office or on the go. Doctors speak with patients by phone or video chat to diagnose non-emergency medical conditions and prescribe treatment, as appropriate. The service is available for $14.95 a month for an individual or $17.95 per month for a family – less than the cost of an emergency room copay, in many cases.
Health Check Connect is the cornerstone of DHIN’s consumer engagement efforts. The personal health record (PHR) will help consumers access the same information that their medical caregivers see. Personal health information reported into DHIN’s Community Health Record – test results, doctors’ notes and imaging studies, for example – will be made available through a secure portal for a patient to see and to add to with prescription information, vital statistics and data from personal health trackers.
The PHR will be interactive: it can help patients chart their progress towards reaching health goals, allow for the secure exchange of messages with healthcare providers and provide a dashboard for at-a-glance health profiles.
Consumers can learn more about and soon register for any or all three products at DHIN’s new consumer-oriented website, www.DHIN24seven.org.
DHIN Launches Consumer Advertising Campaign
To introduce consumers to DHIN and its patient-facing tools, the organization launched an integrated marketing campaign earlier this spring. To showcase how DHIN creates better access to personal health information and patient engagement with healthcare professionals, a comprehensive advertising campaign consisting of television, radio, outdoor, print and digital advertising runs in all three counties.
The campaign, designed by a.s.a.p.r. Integrated Marketing, directs consumers to a new website, www.dhin24seven.org, which offers white board videos that explain how DHIN and its products work. It also further integrates DHIN’s accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, managed in conjunction with Four Dog Creative.
“The campaign is designed to bring complex and important topics in healthcare straight to consumers, giving them access to their records and promote understanding of how their information moves,” said Schiller. “The bright illustrations work to cut through the clutter and noise so that people are better informed. It’s all about empowerment.”
From Funding to Fruition
DHIN’s consumer facing program is one of several initiatives funded through a grant from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology. DHIN was one of a dozen organizations nationwide selected to receive funds to improve the critical sharing of healthcare data among previously unreached sectors of the population. The programs developed within DHIN’s framework will support the expansion of health information exchange technology, tools and services and ultimately enhance patient experience, reduce healthcare costs and improve healthcare.
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