1997 Partnerships for Networked Consumer Health Information Conference

Summaries of Plenary Sessions and Breakout Sessions

Redefining Roles #3: From Vision to Reality, Implementing CHI on a Community-Wide Basis

Wednesday, April 16, 1997
9:30-11:00 AM

Moderator: Vince Kuraitis. Vice President, Corporate Development and Specialty Services, St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center

Speaker: Donald W. Kemper, MPH, MSIE, Founder and CEO, Healthwise, "Implementing Consumer Health Information on a Community-Wide Basis"

Speaker: Tonda Johnston, Benefits Specialist, Hewlett-Packard Company, "Healthwise Community Project: An Employer's Point of View"

Speaker: Sylvia G. Rickard, Idaho Breast Cancer Coalition, "An Idaho Consumer's Perspective"

Statement of the Subject

From vision to reality. How one community is trying to reinvent the patient and change the fundamental way that people and their doctors work together. This three-year partnership effort among employers, insurers, providers and the 280,000 people of four Idaho counties aim to create the smartest health care consumers on earth. The project involves self-care and shared decision making through book, clinic, mass media, workshop, web and call center interventions.

Key Issues

• A consumer paradigm shift from patient to partner. Is it possible to change the way doctors and patients work together in a way that results in greater patient involvement, better outcomes and lower costs?
• A system paradigm shift from competition to coordination. Is it possible to simultaneously promote public health and private interests?

Roles, Responsibilities, and Priorities of Key Sectors

1. Healthwise, Incorporated

• Healthwise is a not-for-profit organization that developed the vision, developed community support, acquired funding for and managed the operation of the project. Healthwise also provides the information base used to enhance the role of the patient through its print and electronic publications. Healthwise employs and houses the 15 people who staff the project.
• Healthwise roles include planning continuation of the project in Idaho and replication in other communities.

2. Employers and Insurers

• Fourteen organizations representing virtually all of the large, self-funded employers in the area along with Blue Cross of Idaho and MSB Blue Shield of Idaho form the Payor Steering Committee for the project. These groups have all contributed on a per employee or per subscriber basis to support the project. They coordinate project support within their organizations and they will determine the degree to which the project will be funded for continuation after the three year evaluation period.

3. Hospitals, Physicians and Other Health Professionals

• All major hospitals in the area along with physician leaders, public health leaders and representatives from other health professions make up the Provider Steering Committee for the project. The primary responsibilities of this committee are:

1. a. To advise the project on the development of interventions that will assure high quality information for patients and acceptance by providers.
2. b. To help the project win the support of the medical, hospital and other health professional communities.

4. General Public and Volunteers

• The real work of this project is done in the bathrooms, kitchens and living rooms of the 280,000 people living in the area. It is the responsibility of the population to accept a more active role in their own health care, to use the information made available to them and to encourage changes in the health care system which will allow them to further develop as reinvented patients.
• The role of the patient is being developed by mailing handbooks to every home, making in-depth disease management information available on the Web, setting up information stations in public locations throughout the area and conducting workshops. Healthwise has also worked with church groups, self-help groups and other voluntary health organizations to increase awareness of and coordination with the project.

5. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• The $4 million, three-year project is being supported in part through a $2.1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Foundation is also separately funding a comprehensive evaluation of the project being conducted by the Oregon Health Sciences University. Next Steps, Phase I of the project beginning April, 1996 focused on self-care. Each of 120,000 households received a Healthwise Handbook as a basic foundation for health information.
• Phase II focusing on shared decision-making began in October of 1996 with the addition of a nurse call center (care counseling), free standing Healthwise Information Stations and the HCP Web site for in-depth medical information. All of the interventions are now in place and working well. The next step is to build acceptance of these methods step-by-step until they are fully integrated into the way medicine is practiced in the area.

Early evaluation results indicate that community-wide cost savings from Phase I alone could amount to over $2 million per year. Phase II evaluation results will determine the degree to which the project is made permanent in Idaho and is replicated in other communities world wide.

Back to Summaries and Transcripts page.