promoting personal health records as public policy in florida

HIMSS PHR Workgroup - 12 September 2008

Florida Agency for Health Care AdministrationFlorida Center for Health Information and Policy Analysis

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Promoting Personal Health Records as Public Policy in Florida

Christopher B. Sullivan, Ph.D.Agency for Health Care Administration

HIMSS PHR Workgroup12 September 2008



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AHCA authority and policy interests in PHRs

Developing a website and driving consumers to it through targeted communications

Measurement and assessment of the communications

Promoting Personal Health Records

This talk touches on three areas relating to AHCA’s promotion of personal health records:



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AHCA Secretary Holly Benson affirms the mission of the Agency to champion quality health care.

One of her goals for this year, as stated on the AHCA website home page (http://www.fdhc.state.fl.us/) is “to make information about the care you receive more useful to you”



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AHCA Secretary Holly Benson also cites the Center for Health Information and Policy Analysis website www.FloridaHealthFinder.gov



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Background to AHCA’s interest in personal health records:

AHCA has statutory authority to promote the adoption of electronic health records, which includes personal health records

It has another statutory goal of promoting quality health care through a secure information network

Since 2005 AHCA has expended over $5 million in grants to start up regional health information organizations



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We have all learned lessons from the catastrophe of hurricanes crisscrossing Florida and the gulf states, forcing people to flee their homes without any medical documentation of prescriptions or treatment.

People should protect their personal health information in a safe place to plan ahead for hurricanes or other natural disasters



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Secretary Benson wanted to stress the importance for all Floridians to:

Prepare for a hurricane Protect their medical records Use an electronic Personal Health Record to protect

and secure their medical records

We launched a website to promote this message to coincide with the start of hurricane season on June 1, 2008. The website homepage is at: http://www.fhin.net/PHR/index.shtml.



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The initial promotion of the website was through banners at both FEMA and AHCA websites

An Internet banner and link to Florida Health Finder was placed on the Florida Division of Emergency Management family preparedness web page

http://www.floridadisaster.org/DEMpublic.asp



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The initial promotion of the website was through banners at both FEMA and AHCA websites

An Internet banner and direct link to the Personal Health Records for Hurricane Preparedness website was placed on www.floridahealthfinder.gov

Let’s take a look at the Personal Health Records for Hurricane Preparedness website: http://www.fhin.net/PHR/index.shtml



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To promote the Personal Health Records for Hurricane Preparedness website, we needed to communicate the availability of the website to the outside world

Few resources at AHCA to produce an expensive communication campaign

Used press releases to selected editors around Florida Used banners on FEMA and AHCA websites Created a brochure for circulation to people without

computers



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The effectiveness of the communication campaign is measured by evaluating responses to the campaign.

Need the right metric to determine the effectiveness of the communications. We did this by:

Noting mentions in the press Hits to the website Use of the website logo on other websites Calls to the Florida Center about the website



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Two press releases were sent out over the summer and yielded three mentions in the press.

Hits to the website Between 1 June and 10 September 2008 - note the spikes following press releases



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The pages most visited at www.fhin.net was the PHR for Hurricane Preparedness webpage, with 4,873 page views, or about 24% of all page views



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A website link was posted in the Holmes County Emergency Management website

(http://www.holmescountyfl.org/EmergencyManagement.htm)



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We also are developing a brochure after a call from a nurse at a nursing home who thought a lot of her elderly patients would be interested.



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Next steps include working with EDS, the Medicaid fiscal agent, to develop a claims-based personal health record and care management program for Medicaid recipients.

This would be similar to the PHR products that health plans currently offer to their customers, and include aspects of a care management application.



Christopher B. Sullivan, Ph.D.

Agency for Health Care AdministrationFlorida Center for Health Information

and Policy Analysis2727 Mahan Drive

Tallahassee, FL [email protected]



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Two press releases were sent out over the summer and yielded three mentions in the press.

Mentions Hits to the website – note spikes following press

releases



This graphic is being put on different sites and in emails as link to the Florida Health Information Network website’s PHR page

http://www.fhin.net/PHR/index.shtml



Holmes County website links to the FHIN PHR site

promoting personal health records as public policy in florida

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