LodgeNet Healthcare is working towards the very same goal, using our patient engagement solutions to empower patients and encourage provider communications in an effort to drive better outcomes. The availablity of electronic health records was key in providing patients with access to their own health information. Now, mobile health products like LodgeNet’s eXPRESS and eXTEND have increased the value of EHR’s by delivering that information to cell phones, making it readily available for patients who are on the go and don’t always have access to their computers. This is an exciting time for the heatlhcare industry and we’re happy to be part of it.

Read Secretary Sebelius’ entire speech here: http://www.hhs.gov/secretary/about/speeches/sp20111205.html

Consistent with the understanding that care quality improvement and cost constraint objectives cannot be met without achieving genuine patient engagement, the final rule retains patient engagement requirements for applicant ACOs and patient engagement dependent quality measures. ACO’s will be required to demonstrate to the satisfaction of CMS that they adequately prepare and involve patients as active participants in the care process using tools such as shared-decision making, understandable education
and information, communication strategies designed to reach diverse patient groups and the development of individualized care plans that reflect patient needs and preferences. Quality reporting and/or measurement during program years will include patient experience of care surveys  (through use of the CAHPS, not the HCAHPS because not all ACOs will include a hospital) and the all-condition readmission measure. CMS adopted approximately half of the proposed quality measures included in the proposed rule, ultimately excluding inpatient safety requirements but retaining care coordination measures applicable to the hospital setting. In an effort to curtail the up-front costs of ACO participants, in the final rule, CMS adopted a plan to pay for the administration of CAHPS surveys for ACO participants in 2012 and 2013.

• evidence-based patient engagement tools and services that anticipate regulatory and market trends,
• disease-specific processes, protocols and content for expensive-to-treat chronic conditions, and
• strategic partnerships and other industry relationships.

“Sachin brings a unique perspective that combines hands-on clinical, public policy and business experience, all directed at finding realistic approaches for empowering patients and improving the healthcare delivery system, which aligns perfectly with our goals,” said Gary Kolbeck, President of LodgeNet Healthcare. “His proven track record as a healthcare consultant, strong advocacy for the use of information technology to improve the coordination and cost effectiveness of healthcare, and deep understanding of issues confronting both the public and private healthcare sectors make him a great addition to our team. He is the latest example of the impressive, talented and accomplished high performers that have joined LodgeNet Healthcare, affirming the momentum we have achieved in the industry.”

Over the course of his career, Dr. Jain has held several high-profile public service and consulting positions. As senior advisor to Dr. Berwick at CMS he played a key role in launching the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which tests innovative payment and care delivery models to improve healthcare. He also oversaw strategy on major CMS priorities such as advancing clinical registries, perinatal quality improvement and diabetes prevention. Prior to that, while Dr. Jain was special assistant at ONC he managed the senior management agenda of Dr. Blumenthal and directed a critical portfolio that included provider adoption of, and engagement with, policies pertaining to
meaningful use, usability of electronic health records (EHRs), and leveraging HIT to address health disparities.

A practicing physician, Dr. Jain has also been a member of the faculty of the Harvard Business School; a consultant to companies including Hearst-Argyle Media, ECity.com, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Carol Corp. and Outcome Sciences Inc.; a fellow at WellPoint Inc.; a summer associate at McKinsey & Company; founder of ImproveHealthCare.org; and a research assistant at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He has written, co-authored, edited and contributed to three books and more than 40 articles in journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Health Affairs, Healthcare Financial
Management, American Journal of Managed Care, and the Harvard Health Policy Review.

He was awarded a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, the Henry Asbury Christian Award and was named a John Kenneth Galbraith Scholar.

“I’m very excited about the opportunity to work with the LodgeNet Healthcare team, and I am extremely impressed with the company’s leadership, technology and commitment to deliver the most innovative, effective and affordable patient engagement solutions,” Dr. Jain stated. “I believe it is essential to educate patients and encourage them to become active participants in their care, and that information to support that effort must be available whenever and wherever it’s needed and convenient. LodgeNet Healthcare does exactly that, while also providing operational efficiencies for nursing and physicians, and I look forward to helping them continue to stay ahead of the curve to meet the needs of the evolving healthcare delivery system.”

Dr. Jain holds an Artium Baccalaureatus degree in government from Harvard University, a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School and a Medical Degree from Harvard Medical School.

• A corporate reorganization established LodgeNet Healthcare as an independent, but wholly owned subsidiary of LodgeNet Interactive Corporation (NASDAQ:LNET). This restructuring ensures ongoing operational and product
  development enhancements that will enable the company to introduce and improve product and service offerings that support interactive patient engagement, a key factor in healthcare reform.
• Additional staff was hired to support LodgeNet Healthcare’s growing customer
  base and business objectives. New team members bring valuable expertise in the
  areas of Clinical Strategy, Account Management, Project Management, Product
  Development and Marketing. In addition, the company has internalized its sales
  force and now employs a team of dedicated, knowledgeable sales executives who
  are regionally located throughout the United States.
• Continued growth was further validated by fourteen new implementations,
  currently in various stages of completion in hospitals across the country. These
  hospitals include: academic medical centers, several children’s hospitals, a
  hospital that serves the Cherokee Nation, community hospitals, small rural
  hospitals, several hospitals from a large health system, and a women’s hospital.
  The diversity of contracted hospitals and health systems demonstrates the
  flexibility and scalability of LodgeNet Healthcare’s solutions, which provide
  patient education, empowerment and engagement before, during and after a patient is hospitalized.
• Recognizing the widespread value that LodgeNet Healthcare provides, the
  Texas Health Resources system and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
  (UPMC) named LodgeNet Healthcare a vendor of choice, which will spur greater
  adoption of LodgeNet Healthcare solutions within their systems.
• LodgeNet Healthcare announced that eSUITE™ is being expanded to include new applications that will encourage patients to play active roles in managing their
  health outside hospital walls through the use of home PCs and mobile phones.
  This upgrade will provide robust solutions to improve clinical outcomes before,
  during and after hospitalization by supporting adherence to medication and other
  treatment regimens. eSUITE offers hospitals the ability to “get ahead of the
  curve” when it comes to demonstrating meaningful use of health information
  technology, creating accountable care organizations, implementing quality
  initiatives per value-based purchasing and reducing avoidable readmissions.
• LodgeNet Healthcare entered into an agreement with Amerinet, a leading
  national healthcare group purchasing organization, to provide Amerinet members
  with solutions that support patient engagement throughout the continuum of care
  at a reduced cost. LodgeNet Healthcare also partnered with the American Society
  of Health-System Pharmacists to develop “My Medication,” a clinically integrated
  application that delivers personalized medication education in patient-friendly
  language to improve medication compliance and health outcomes.

“There is growing recognition that patient empowerment and engagement are critical, and these business imperatives will lay the foundation for LodgeNet Healthcare’s continued growth,” stated Gary Kolbeck, President of LodgeNet Healthcare. “We are increasingly being recognized and sought out as an innovator that is leading the way for hospitals to strengthen their relationships with patients beyond their four walls and to support the adoption of collaborative and coordinated patient care. We anticipate continuing growth momentum as we leverage proven studies, existing trends, increasing quality mandates and the enthusiastic support and referrals from our satisfied hospital customers to usher in a new era of patient-centered care driven by involved, educated patients who reject the passivity that has been the norm until now.”

The reorganization is designed to accomplish the following objectives:

• To foster the continued growth of LodgeNet’s healthcare business, which currently serves 60 hospitals and health systems with sophisticated, but easy-to-deploy and affordable patient engagement solutions,
• To better facilitate the development of new and innovative solutions that meet the unique needs of the healthcare market, leveraging the experience of LodgeNet as well as the strengths of third party partners,
• To provide a vehicle through which thought leaders in the healthcare industry and strategic partners can converge to help meet the evolving needs of hospitals and healthcare providers, and
• To assist hospitals and healthcare providers in complying with the extensive and constantly evolving federal mandates related to patient engagement, the meaningful use of electronic medical records and improvement of patient outcomes, each of which can have a significant impact on Medicare reimbursements and the availability of other government incentives.

“After conducting a strategic review, we determined that the best way to enhance shareholder value and the success of the Healthcare group was not only to enable it to leverage synergies, but to develop and execute independently focused strategies based on the unique needs of the healthcare market,” explained Scott C. Petersen, Chairman and CEO of LodgeNet Interactive. “This move demonstrates our strong commitment to proactively respond to the substantial demand for interactive patient engagement and accelerate decision-making to capitalize on the significant opportunities that demand
represents. These solutions can help hospitals transform typically passive patients into more informed, involved, and active participants in managing their health before, during and after their hospital stay.”

Looming health reforms, such as the implementation of value-based purchasing and the preventable hospital readmission program, focus on empowering patients and placing them at the center of healthcare decisions. The goals of these programs are to improve quality, safety, coordination and cost effectiveness of care by tying reimbursement and a hospital’s profit or loss to clinical performance.

LodgeNet Healthcare’s eSUITE™ interacts with patients throughout the entire care continuum. eXPRESS™ helps patients prepare for a hospital stay or procedure by providing relevant videos, timely reminders and more. eNGAGE™, an inpatient solution, prescribes and delivers education content to patients through in-room televisions based on an individual’s specific diagnosis, age and language. He or she can also access information about their care team, condition, treatment, procedure, test, medication, daily schedule, and post-discharge instructions while still in the hospital, when they are able to interact with care providers. Patients can even use the interactive technology to order approved food and control their room’s temperature and lighting. The system tracks viewership, measures patient understanding through a series of interactive questions on the TV, generates follow-up prompts for clinicians, makes it easy for hospitals to identify when additional patient counseling and intervention are necessary, and dynamically records all actions in the patient’s electronic health record (EHR). Once patients leave the hospital, providers can use eXTEND™ to deliver personalized information via the patient’s preferred bi-directional communication devices including mobile phones, home PCs and Web-enabled TVs.

According to Petersen, “Facilities that deliver high-quality and cost effective clinical outcomes will thrive while others will experience adverse effects to their bottom line because of reduced Medicare reimbursements. The more informed and involved patients are in their care, the better they, their hospital and the overall healthcare system will be, meaning that providers must fundamentally change how they interact with and treat patients inside and outside their four walls.”

“Patient engagement is now a business necessity for all providers, and LodgeNet Healthcare is rapidly becoming a top resource for hospitals moving in this direction,” added Gary Kolbeck, President of LodgeNet Healthcare, Inc. “This reorganization will enhance LodgeNet Healthcare’s market responsiveness during a period of unprecedented change, opportunities and challenges.”

“eSUITE is a robust solution that hospitals can use to prepare for, and address, the sweeping health reform requirements such as meaningful use of electronic health records, the creation of accountable care organizations, value-based purchasing, and quality-enhancing initiatives that include reducing avoidable readmissions and hospital-acquired infections,” stated Gary Kolbeck, General Manager of LodgeNet Healthcare, a division of LodgeNet Interactive Corporation and the leader in clinically integrated patient engagement solutions.

“Over the next four years, these new regulations will significantly impact reimbursement rates and will dramatically transform the way organizations treat and interact with patients,” Kolbeck continued. “Our powerful, easy to use, affordable and comprehensive solution is a joint decision-making tool designed to help hospitals enlist patients as partners in their own care by making them more informed, engaged and active in managing their health before, during and after discharge.”

eSUITE facilitates two-way communications with patients, making it significantly more effective than passive solutions. Its compatibility with a variety of communication devices helps providers reach even the most vulnerable audiences who don’t use (or have access to) computers. eSUITE can report when individuals view content, measure patient comprehension and alert staff when additional intervention is necessary. All of this information can be dynamically documented in the electronic medical record (EMR). eSUITE interacts with patients at three key stages in their care process:

• eXPRESS is a pre-admission solution that prepares patients for their upcoming hospital stay or procedure using his or her preferred communication channel. For example, a patient could receive a text message when it’s time to stop taking a blood thinner prior to surgery.
• eNGAGE is an in-patient solution that allows hospitals to “prescribe” education videos for viewing on patients’ televisions based on their specific diagnoses, age, preferred language and other criteria. Patients can also access information about their care team, daily schedule, medications, procedures and what they must do to manage their condition after they leave the hospital. The system can track viewership and measure comprehension through a series of interactive questions on the TV. This makes it easy for hospitals to identify when additional counseling is needed and intervene while patients are able to directly interact with their care team.
• eXTEND is a post-discharge solution that keeps patients engaged via ongoing medication and follow-up test and appointment reminders, encouragement, support group details and other useful information. Patients choose their preferred bidirectional communication channel, which can include smart phones, cell phones, PCs and Web-enabled TVs.

It is well documented that patients’ failure to follow treatment regimens and change their lifestyle results in poor outcomes and higher costs. “A major benefit of eSUITE is that it provides hospitals with a long-term, integrated strategy to meet the patient engagement requirement found in the four reform programs that will directly impact Medicare reimbursements. Hospitals can meet the requirements of each program separately, but with respect to the patient engagement component, an integrated strategy allows for focused investment that can avoid duplicative acquisitions and provide the foundation for growth as staging evolves and requirements become more complex,” Kolbeck said.

Moving forward, hospitals’ finances will be closely intertwined with how informed and involved patients are in their care. For example, a robust patient engagement strategy will contribute to the increased patient satisfaction requirement of value-based purchasing where the estimated cost for the failure to meet the requirements is almost $2 million for an average-size hospital over the next five years. Assuming that the patient engagement requirements (among others) are met, participation in an accountable care organization can generate an estimated annual shared savings return of $10 million for an individual hospital.

“With the national spotlight focused on health reform and patient-centered care, the recognition of the critical role technology plays in educating and communicating with patients about their diagnoses, conditions, treatment, tests, procedures and follow-up care has never been greater,” Kolbeck said. “eSUITE offers hospitals a necessary and cost-effective tool to improve discharge planning processes, enhance patient understanding of their conditions, change patient behavior, and facilitate early identification of patients at risk of readmission. As a result, organizations will be able to act appropriately and quickly to improve quality, outcomes and care collaboration; reduce liability risk; lower rehospitalization rates; save lives, increase patient satisfaction, cut costs and be well equipped to take advantage of market trends and succeed as health reform efforts continue to accelerate.”

Readers will also learn how they can improve clinical outcomes for all patients – including the most underserved populations – to reduce or eliminate long-standing treatment disparities while promoting hospital and physician efficiency and reducing costs. The whitepaper also explores the challenges and benefits of integrating “patient centeredness” into the culture of healthcare delivery and how this will impact all stakeholders including patients, physicians and other healthcare professionals, hospitals, and payers.

“To defeat the passivity of patients and transform the culture of care delivery, we must motivate patient interest and solicit interaction,” said Gary Kolbeck, General Manager of LodgeNet Healthcare. “Instead of expecting patients to conform to a one-size-fits-all system, we need to provide unique programs to reach them at the right time in their care journey, at their level of health literacy, in their native language, using their cultural norms, and where they want to be reached geographically and technologically.”

The whitepaper recommends that hospitals incorporate the following components for an effective patient engagement strategy that addresses quality improvement and cost containment:

• Utilize flexible, financially sustainable, customizable technology that can easily accommodate evolving regulations and best practices during and
  after a hospital stay. A hospital that leverages in-room interactive television and preferred bi-directional technologies such as smart phones, home televisions, printed materials and computer communication following a hospital stay can reach 100 percent of in-patients and 90 percent of patients post-discharge. To close the “disparity gap”, hospitals must determine whether a patient engagement solution will reach even the most difficult-to-reach patients. This means offering an array of communication options that can apply to patients of all ages, with different types of medical conditions, at various locations, regardless of their health literacy.
• Solicit and respond to patient preferences, stimulate joint decision-making, promote patient safety, and customize the delivery of patient education and tools to yield activated patients with the capacity and willingness to take on their essential roles in optimizing clinical outcome. Engaged and empowered patients are far more likely to make positive lifestyle changes and participate in follow-up care. The success of outcomes will be increasingly measured by the extent to which they correspond to patient preferences. Improvements to patient safety will require affirmative efforts to involve and interact with patients. Evidence has shown that when patients participate in defining the objectives for care and feel like valued members of the care team, they are also less likely to file lawsuits.
• Educate inpatients about their condition, medication, and discharge instructions using media that is easy to use and familiar. To be effective, communication about a patient’s medical condition must be timely, understandable and easy to access. Education, when provided during the care
  episode, serves as the foundation for productive dialogue with care providers
  and allows team members to identify high-risk patients that require specialized
  and personalized follow-up.
• Incorporating educational materials into a valued entertainment option that increases overall patient satisfaction and encourages patient participation. Patients enjoy the entertainment value provided by interactive TV. This positive reaction extends to the value they place on being able to control their access to age-appropriate, “prescribed” educational materials that are specifically targeted to their needs. Knowing that they can review the materials as often as they like, share the information with visiting family members and identify where information gaps may persist so they can receive needed one-on-one attention has an empowering effect on patients who welcome a personalized, non-cookie cutter approach.
• Track patient compliance and comprehension. An interactive TV system can automatically track when patients view required educational material and whether they fully comprehend the material. This information can be entered in a patient’s electronic health record and alerts can be issued if additional assistance is required. Patient comprehension can be evaluated, documented, and supplemented with instructions from the nursing staff.

The whitepaper outlines how an interactive television-based strategy can form the foundation for cost-effective patient engagement without:

• requiring the addition of new staff or significant re-education of existing staff,
• workflow disruptions, or
• investment in expensive new technology.

“It’s important to remember that patient engagement can effectively utilize existing technology to achieve many of its aims,” Kolbeck explains. “Often just making something good a bit better can help us achieve our goals. We don’t always need to replace what’s working with something new. The use of interactive TV to encourage patient engagement and participation is a perfect example.”