Patient-Facing Digital Tools

Advancing Our Understanding of the IT-Enabled Consumer
Sponsor: The Commonwealth Fund

Substantial public- and private-sector investment has sought to digitize health information with a key goal of engaging patients in becoming IT-enabled to manage their health. Yet in practice, these efforts have largely failed to scale and transform healthcare from an episodic, provider-centric model to a continuous, patient-centric model that empowers patients and caregivers by supporting them in complex health and care decisions. This project will generate new knowledge to reveal why efforts to-date have yet to usher in the era of the IT-enabled consumer – using consumer profiles as the foundation.

An Early Look at Patient-Facing APIs
Sponsor: The Commonwealth Fund

Healthcare is entering the next phase of patient-centered care as healthcare delivery systems start to “turn on” patient-facing application programming interfaces (APIs). As health systems begin this process, it is crucial to capture early successes and best practices so that this transition is safe, secure, and has the intended impact of accelerating patient access and use of their electronic health data and digital health development. Our project will distill these best practices by conducting semi-structured interviews with the health systems that are patient-facing API “early adopters.” The themes that emerge from synthesizing responses across interviews will allow us not only to identify best practices but also to characterize early challenges and pitfalls that may require intervention at the policy level.