Recently, I had the opportunity to see Hixny’s number one user in action. Adetutu Adetona, MD, whom you may remember from our 2017 annual report, addressed the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) board. Wow, did she make an impression.
The board invited Dr. Adetona, of Lansingburgh Family Practice, to speak about her experiences both with Hixny and as the top performer in CDPHP’s Enhanced Primary Care program.
In the audience were a number of people with very impressive resumes, including New York State’s leaders in health information technology, as well as New York State Senator and Chair of the Committee on Health Kemp Hannon and New York State Assembly Member and Chair of the Committee on Health Richard Gottfried.
By sharing her story, Dr. Adetona reenergized the meeting attendees. Her experiences prove that a value-based approach to care shows positive results—and that integrating the use of a health information exchange (HIE) like Hixny into a primary care workflow improves patient care.
Two of her examples really stood out to me:
- By checking Hixny before ordering a chemistry test for a patient with high blood pressure, Dr. Adetona found recent results from the same test in the HIE. As a result, she was able to avoid ordering a duplicate test. Dr. Adetona pointed out that approximately 14 million patients nationwide have uncomplicated high blood pressure. By avoiding the duplication of that single test in those patients, providers could help save hundreds of millions of dollars each year—which, she explained, could then be put to better use.
- A new patient signed a Hixny consent during her registration with the practice. As is the practice protocol, Dr. Adetona pulled all of the patient’s records from Hixny before her first appointment—including images and labs. When the patient arrived, Dr. Adetona was already aware of her age (50s) and her 14 chronic conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, and a history of heroin use, among others. She knew the patient was seeing eight specialists in different locations and had been prescribed 15 medications—and that she’d started skipping appointments and doses. During the first appointment, Dr. Adetona was able to immediately help the patient develop a plan to regain control of her health. Since then, the patient has dropped from eight specialists to three and from 15 medications to four. And, Dr. Adetona explained, about 30 percent of her patients share the same number and type of conditions.
The meeting attendees were impressed by Dr. Adetona’s approach to care and to the seamless integration of the HIE into her workflow. Many of them echoed the sentiments that CDPHP President and CEO John Bennett, MD, expressed in his introduction, when he said that if CDPHP had a couple hundred providers just like Dr. Adetona, they’d be doing great.
I share that feeling. If Hixny had a couple hundred providers as involved and invested in the HIE as Dr. Adetona, there’s no doubt that the quality of information-driven care available to people in our region would skyrocket.
Who would guess that this firm advocate for the power of the HIE was once a reluctant Hixny user? (You can read that story here.)
