Project HealthDesign's Patti Brennan Emphasizes Value of Patient-Generated Data, ODLs at Meaningful Use Workgroup Hearing
Project HealthDesign’s national program director Patti Brennan testifies today at the HIT Policy Committee, Meaningful Use Workgroup’s hearing on patient and consumer engagement. You can find Patti’s testimony here.
Patti makes a key point that reflects Project HealthDesign’s current work: patient-generated data are not simply traditional clinical data (like blood pressure or glucose) collected by patients. Instead, patient-generated data could include a whole host of observations about health behaviors, symptoms and environmental factors that are relevant to someone’s health. As we’ve discussed over the past couple of years in various posts (see here or here), “observations of daily living” on diet, activity, sleep, pain, mood and others can help paint a clearer picture of one’s health and the factors that influence it and also drive an incredible variety of applications that give people valuable feedback.
Patti specifically offered the committee three things that she believes must be accomplished:
- Health information that is selected and gathered by patients must be integrated into clinical care. The flow of information about an individual’s health should go both ways – not just from providers to patients – because patients are experts about their daily activities, and providers need their insights.
- Health information must be accessible to patients in a computable form. Project HealthDesign’s grantees and numerous private sector companies have been developing applications and services designed to let patients use health data in innovative ways, whether via PCs, mobile devices, online communities or other means.
- Health information for patients must be actionable. Health information must be meaningful to patients as they make decisions about their own health care.
Project HealthDesign National Advisory Committee Chair Paul Tang co-chairs the Health IT Policy Committee Meaningful Use Workgroup; other speakers today included National Advisory Committee member M. Chris Gibbons of Johns Hopkins, first round grantee James Ralston of Group Health Research Institute, Dave deBronkart (better known as ePatient Dave), Eric Dishman of Intel and Scott Mackie of IDEO's health and wellness group.
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