Clear Need for Continued Industry Commitment to Health IT Privacy and Education WASHINGTON, June 12
WASHINGTON, June 12 /PRNewswire/ -- As consumer options for online health
management expand, there is a need for concise and understandable information
to demonstrate how these complex technologies contribute to better health and
added convenience. Wide-spread adoption requires that all Americans must feel
secure in the use of these empowering services for their health care. To
accomplish this, there is a growing need for strong and uniform standards for
protecting personal health information regardless of where the data is stored.
Kaiser Permanente believes that IT is a critical driver in reforming our
nation's health care system and is a recognized leader in health technologies.
Kaiser Permanente, through independent market research company
StrategyOne, conducted a nationwide survey between May 8-11, 2008 to gauge
Americans awareness and perceptions of electronic health records. Key
findings indicate that Americans are using some of the basic online tools for
health information.
-- 65 percent of respondents have gone online to learn about a medical
condition, and 38 percent have used their insurance company's online
tools to learn more about their care, up from 29 percent in 2007.
-- The research also revealed that Americans continue to have concerns
about privacy and thus require assurances from all parties that store
personal data that information is secure.
-- 47 percent had a preference for doctors who use EHRs and 61 percent
had a preference for insurance companies who employed EHRs.
-- 51 percent agreed that health IT should be a top priority for the next
president to ensure that all Americans have access to their own
personal medical records electronically. Kaiser Permanente is leading
the way to make this vision a reality.
As America celebrates National Health Information Technology Week, the
health care industry and the nation as a whole must seize the opportunity and
do much more to tell the personal success stories of health IT and ensure all
Americans can use electronic medical records and other digital health
management tools with confidence. This is a key component of bringing real
change to America's health care system. Kaiser Permanente, through its
electronic medical record Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect(TM), the patient
portal My Health Manager, and a just announced strategic relationship with
Microsoft to integrate the new HealthVault platform, is leading the effort to
make health information technologies available at all points of care.
"Data is a cornerstone tool for transforming care delivery and a critical
driver in reforming our nation's health care system," said George Halvorson,
chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and
Hospitals. "Doctors should have access to information about all of their
patients all of the time. And patients should be able to take a more active
role in tracking and managing their own health information online. But if we
do not empower both patients and doctors to use these tools, then their great
benefits may not be fully realized."
KP HealthConnect is the world's largest civilian electronic medical
record, with all of its 8.7 million Kaiser members. Furthermore, all of Kaiser
Permanente's 13,000-plus physicians now have electronic access to their
patients' medical records in every one of Kaiser Permanente's 421 medical
offices and clinics, and 34 hospitals.
The newly announced Kaiser Permanente strategic relationship with
Microsoft gives consumers another level of access to their health information
and enables them to integrate personal electronic health data from multiple
sources into one secure repository using Microsoft's new HealthVault platform.
For Kaiser Permanente, the move extends the functionality of its already
successful My Health Manager tool currently used by its employees and members
by enabling other health data to be imported into their personal health
record.
Kaiser Permanente not only makes the tools available, but provides the
outreach and education needed to encourage its members to fully utilize these
cutting-edge services. New online tools, such as single visit activation and
a revamped welcome page at kp.org have made patient access to online health
tools both easy and secure. The results of these and other efforts are
already evident.
-- More than 2.2 million Kaiser Permanente members now have access to
secure health information management features, an 11.9 percent increase
between Q4 2007 to Q1 2008.
-- Using My Health Manager, Kaiser Permanente members sent to more than
1.3 million emails to doctors and provides, viewed more than 3.8
million lab test results online, and submitted nearly 800,000
prescription refill orders.
-- The California Department of Insurance recently reported that Kaiser
Permanente, compared to its competitors, has more than four times the
percentage of members using electronic health records.
"This research shows we need to continue to demonstrate the value of
health IT to the consumer, as organizations such as Kaiser Permanente are
doing. The challenge for our industry is to adopt the technology that has been
widely discussed, but not yet fully utilized for all," said James Hereford,
executive vice president, Group Health Cooperative and a board member of the
Center for Information Therapy. Group Health is a health services organization
that both insures and provides care for over 560,000 consumers in Washington
state and Idaho.
About the Survey
This survey was conducted by StrategyOne, an independent public opinion
research company, on behalf of Kaiser Permanente. Data were collected via
telephone among a nationally representative sample of 1,000 American adults,
18 years of age and older, using a random digit dialing (RDD) methodology
between May 8-11, 2008. The overall margin of error for this survey is +/- 3.1
percent at the 95 percent confidence interval.
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health plan. Founded in
1945, it is a not-for-profit, group practice program headquartered in Oakland,
Calif. Kaiser Permanente serves 8.7 million members in nine states and the
District of Columbia. Today it encompasses the not-for-profit Kaiser
Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and their
subsidiaries, and the for-profit Permanente Medical Groups. Nationwide, Kaiser
Permanente includes approximately 159,000 technical, administrative and
clerical employees and caregivers, and 13,000 physicians representing all
specialties. For more Kaiser Permanente news, visit the KP News Center at:
http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter.
About StrategyOne
StrategyOne is a full-service, strategic consulting firm that employs
opinion research and advanced media analysis tools to craft evidence based
communications strategies for its clients. With offices in Washington, D.C.,
New York, Chicago, Atlanta, London and Paris, StrategyOne offers its clients
service on a global scale and with a global perspective. We have conducted
custom research across the globe among myriad target audiences ranging from
CEOs to the unbanked, CIOs to toy buyers, Baby Boomers to GenY movie pirates,
delivery room nurses to cardiologists, retired military officers to leaders at
environmental NGOs, Kenyan opinion leaders to American site selectors, port
authority directors to auto enthusiasts, and Ohio voters to Washington opinion
elites.
SOURCE Kaiser Permanente
