Last fall, I let you in on my experience with a hornet’s nest and Hixny from my perspective as a patient. As CEO, I had known that providers and their patients had a different view of the information shared through Hixny. That day, though, I realized that we needed to bring those views into alignment.
For many years, we’ve focused on building the data available through Hixny by encouraging consistent use of the health information exchange (HIE) by healthcare providers. We’ve put a lot of effort into refining the way useful, meaningful information is extracted from all of that data, too. Now, we’ve reached the point where, when every member of a consumer’s healthcare team shares all of the data Hixny can accept—and shares it in real time—each of them has a complete view of that consumer.
That’s a reflection of a years-long process. How many years? Well, we have an employee here who is in her 20s. She went into her patient view of Hixny and learned that even her birth records are included in the HIE. She and her healthcare team have an electronic record of her health history for her entire life.
For the average Hixny user, the information available right now is robust and useful. I think of it like a baseball game. We’re in the late innings—maybe past the fifth. We’re past the point where it’s an official game—but there’s still a lot of baseball to play.
What we all have in common—providers, consumers and our teams here at Hixny—is that we’re all someone’s patient. Now we’re at a point when consumers and providers have the same expectations for health records. They expect them to be complete and to work with whatever electronic health record (EHR) system or mobile app they choose—and they expect to be able to understand the information.
But there’s a hitch. At the same time generations younger than mine are realizing that their data is all electronic (not a paper chart to be found), their expectations for the use of electronic data are different, too. That’s not news to most people in healthcare, but the industry is taking longer than it should to meet or exceed those expectations.
Take these findings, for example:
- “Fifty-eight percent [of healthcare executives] placed a high priority on use of digital tools to increase consumer engagement, but just 14% had those capabilities.” (Healthcare Dive, 2017, on a Kaufman, Hall & Associates report)
- “85% of healthcare executives aren’t confident their company has the technology to improve customer experience.” (West Monroe Partners, 2016)
- “All stakeholders developing tools should provide meaningful and easy-to-understand data and access to care and care support such that consumers can recognize the benefit of technology engagement.” (Deloitte, 2018)
At Hixny, we’re taking this shift seriously. We’ve developed some of the most robust back-end technology in the business. Now, we’re beginning to make front-end interface adjustments to ease information use by both providers and consumers.
We’re working to target specific pieces of information to the right people—such as wound care instructions for consumers and discharge summaries for providers—while simplifying the view for everyone.
