Health IT

Interventions to increase adoption and use of health IT features

Background

Health information technology (“health IT”), refers to the technologies and tools that allow health care professionals and patients to store, share, and analyze health information. The 2015-2020 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan identifies the increased adoption and effective use of health IT as a key goal. To aid in efforts to improve health IT adoption and use by patients and providers, the Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES) has completed several rigorous evaluations to learn what works.

Portfolio

OES collaborated with the Department of Defense (DOD), the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to test interventions increasing the adoption of health IT.

Reducing concurrent opioid-benzodiazepine prescriptions through provider messages

Targeted messages to providers did not reduce concurrent prescriptions

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Increasing vaccine uptake among veterans at the Atlanta VA Health Care System

A modified clinical reminder did not increase patient vaccine uptake

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Increasing use of patient generated health data through patient reminders

Sending reminder messages focused on provider accountability increased patients’ use of electronic blood glucose flow sheets

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Increasing use of patient generated health data through provider encouragement

A virtual provider training and encouragement increased use of electronic blood glucose flow sheets

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Increasing military patient use of secure messaging through email reminders

Emails sent after an appointment-based intervention had no statistically reliable impact on patient registration for secure messaging

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Increasing military patient use of secure messaging through personal appeal and assistance

Provider encouragement and on-the-spot assistance increased patient registrations for secure messaging

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Increasing patient use of health IT

Revising patient instructions following appointments led to 9.98% increase in online health portal activation

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