Is Your EHR Improving Patient ‘Techquity’?
The following is a guest article by Khalid Al-Maskari, Founder and CEO at HiMS
Technology has transformed healthcare, but the benefits have not been distributed evenly. Technology can actually be a barrier for some populations.
Inequitable access to care in general and technology-based care in particular lead to inferior health outcomes among those affected. Electronic health record (EHR) systems, at the heart of 21st-century healthcare, can help address technology-related healthcare inequities, finally providing what some have dubbed techquity.
Rhyming with equity, techquity is “the strategic design, development, and deployment of technology to advance health equity.”
Although we didn’t coin the term, EHR leaders should stay mindful of techquity as an important principle in better serving patients of all races, genders, ethnicities, ages, occupations, socioeconomic statuses, abilities, and languages. Here are some examples of what techquity looks like in EHR systems.
More Access and Automation
Once a patient has internet access, techquity starts with patient portals. For many busy people, the best customer service is self-service, which EHRs can provide through a robust provider website. Patient portals can constitute a direct line not only to their provider’s office, but to important services like scheduling, form filling, prescription ordering, billing inquiries, payments, and lab reports.
Another powerful tool for equalizing healthcare access is telehealth or virtual appointments. Patients with busy work schedules, demanding childcare responsibilities, transportation hurdles, or personal mobility challenges can use EHRs to see providers remotely.
Innovative providers go further than portals and telehealth, offering patients access to EHRs through companion smartphone apps. The apps provide portal functionality while enabling wearable device users to share exercise, activity, vital signs, sleep, and other key health data with their provider and personal medical file. Mobile apps actively yet efficiently engage patients and caregivers together to enhance the benefits of conventional treatment.
More Face Time for All
Another equity challenge is ensuring that every patient feels heard by their provider. An advanced EHR system maximizes provider-patient face time by letting embedded speech-recognition technology capture conversations. This action eliminates the note-taking burden in both in-person and telehealth visits. Without anyone typing or writing, the system takes detailed notes of patient encounters, including any diagnosis and next steps. Embedded AI summarizes conversations, auto-fills forms, triggers workflows, and populates treatment plans.
Another way an advanced EHR system helps deliver techquity is by expediting successful claims. Denials and delays harm lower-income patients more than others since they are least able to absorb disruptions to their family budgets. Advanced EHRs incorporate a range of tools for making coding and claims quick, complete, accurate, fair, and successful.
Better EHRs also support patients who speak multiple languages. That includes offering interfaces, speech recognition, and translation, captioning, in various languages as well as connectivity to translator marketplaces.
EHR and Social Determinants of Health
Finally and importantly, EHR techquity involves careful tracking of social determinants of health (SDOH). Revenue cycle management software within EHRs can be used to code and track SDOH, helping patients reduce missed appointments, access community support, minimize readmissions, and improve follow-up.
Some RCM software captures Z codes, a subset of the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) billing codes, specifically designed for SDOH. Among commonly used Z codes are those for homelessness, the disappearance or death of a family member, problems living alone, problems living in a residential institution, and problems with a spouse or partner.
Z codes are playing a growing role in health care, especially Medicaid, to secure reimbursement for social determinants like housing, food, nutrition, and transportation. Z codes also enrich HEDIS analyses of health-plan performance. SDOH assessments themselves can be reimbursable, but only if supported by Z coding on claims forms.
The CDC recommends that providers capture SDOH data in an EHR’s diagnosis, history, or provider notes fields; simplify the assignment of Z codes to patient conditions; track unmet patient needs throughout care, services, follow-up, and discharge planning; and report SDOH trends to executives and boards to inform value-based care. Reports can also help social service agencies and health plans improve their service.
These are some of the ways that better EHRs are addressing techquity to improve the lives of everyone.
As a society, we have a long way to go, but accomplishing all you can in your EHR is the right thing to do. For the community, for society, and maybe even your bottom line.
Khalid Al-Maskari is the Founder and CEO at HiMS, a Tucson company that designed AxiomEHR to transform the integrated healthcare experience.
The following is a guest article by Khalid Al-Maskari, Founder and CEO at HiMS
Technology has transformed healthcare, but the benefits have not been distributed evenly. Technology can actually be a barrier for some populations.
Inequitable access to care in general and technology-based care in particular lead to inferior health outcomes among those affected. Electronic health record (EHR) systems, at the heart of 21st-century healthcare, can help address technology-related healthcare inequities, finally providing what some have dubbed techquity.
Rhyming with equity, techquity is “the strategic design, development, and deployment of technology to advance health equity.”
Although we didn’t coin the term, EHR leaders should stay mindful of techquity as an important principle in better serving patients of all races, genders, ethnicities, ages, occupations, socioeconomic statuses, abilities, and languages. Here are some examples of what techquity looks like in EHR systems.
More Access and Automation
Once a patient has internet access, techquity starts with patient portals. For many busy people, the best customer service is self-service, which EHRs can provide through a robust provider website. Patient portals can constitute a direct line not only to their provider’s office, but to important services like scheduling, form filling, prescription ordering, billing inquiries, payments, and lab reports.
Another powerful tool for equalizing healthcare access is telehealth or virtual appointments. Patients with busy work schedules, demanding childcare responsibilities, transportation hurdles, or personal mobility challenges can use EHRs to see providers remotely.
Innovative providers go further than portals and telehealth, offering patients access to EHRs through companion smartphone apps. The apps provide portal functionality while enabling wearable device users to share exercise, activity, vital signs, sleep, and other key health data with their provider and personal medical file. Mobile apps actively yet efficiently engage patients and caregivers together to enhance the benefits of conventional treatment.
More Face Time for All
Another equity challenge is ensuring that every patient feels heard by their provider. An advanced EHR system maximizes provider-patient face time by letting embedded speech-recognition technology capture conversations. This action eliminates the note-taking burden in both in-person and telehealth visits. Without anyone typing or writing, the system takes detailed notes of patient encounters, including any diagnosis and next steps. Embedded AI summarizes conversations, auto-fills forms, triggers workflows, and populates treatment plans.
Another way an advanced EHR system helps deliver techquity is by expediting successful claims. Denials and delays harm lower-income patients more than others since they are least able to absorb disruptions to their family budgets. Advanced EHRs incorporate a range of tools for making coding and claims quick, complete, accurate, fair, and successful.
Better EHRs also support patients who speak multiple languages. That includes offering interfaces, speech recognition, and translation, captioning, in various languages as well as connectivity to translator marketplaces.
EHR and Social Determinants of Health
Finally and importantly, EHR techquity involves careful tracking of social determinants of health (SDOH). Revenue cycle management software within EHRs can be used to code and track SDOH, helping patients reduce missed appointments, access community support, minimize readmissions, and improve follow-up.
Some RCM software captures Z codes, a subset of the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) billing codes, specifically designed for SDOH. Among commonly used Z codes are those for homelessness, the disappearance or death of a family member, problems living alone, problems living in a residential institution, and problems with a spouse or partner.
Z codes are playing a growing role in health care, especially Medicaid, to secure reimbursement for social determinants like housing, food, nutrition, and transportation. Z codes also enrich HEDIS analyses of health-plan performance. SDOH assessments themselves can be reimbursable, but only if supported by Z coding on claims forms.
The CDC recommends that providers capture SDOH data in an EHR’s diagnosis, history, or provider notes fields; simplify the assignment of Z codes to patient conditions; track unmet patient needs throughout care, services, follow-up, and discharge planning; and report SDOH trends to executives and boards to inform value-based care. Reports can also help social service agencies and health plans improve their service.
These are some of the ways that better EHRs are addressing techquity to improve the lives of everyone.
As a society, we have a long way to go, but accomplishing all you can in your EHR is the right thing to do. For the community, for society, and maybe even your bottom line.
Khalid Al-Maskari is the Founder and CEO at HiMS, a Tucson company that designed AxiomEHR to transform the integrated healthcare experience.
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2024-12-18 20:30
Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Healthcare Central is published from a syndicated feed.
