A Shift in Thinking
More and more patients are coming around to the concept that healthcare should be focused on producing health, as opposed to treating disease.  Handled properly, early detection and treatment can curb healthcare costs and provide your patients with a better Quality-of-Life.  Corporations are finding Prevention and Wellness Programs are reducing their healthcare costs and increasing productivity.  Consumer Retail settings are on the rise, driven in part, by the concept of Prevention and Wellness.  With all this activity, PCPs, who have long been considered the source of Prevention and Wellness services, need to step up their focus and Patient Tools can help.

Health Risk versus How's Your Health
The typical Health Risk Appraisal process of cataloging risky behavior, using morbidity tables to estimate an associated reduction in life expectancy and then expecting the patient will be concerned enough to modify their behavior; has been shown to be relatively ineffective.  A much more effective approach is to catalog healthy behaviors and health concerns, let the patient know what are the good and bad behaviors and help the patient with a plan and education to deal with their health issues and risky behaviors.  The HYH assessment is a great example of this approach.  Administered using an annual protocol, this is a natural format to use to as a  pre-screen to trigger more in-depth assessments around specific areas of concern (psycho-social, sleep, etc).  

Health Status
Shifting over to the concept of producing health, Health Status assessments such as the Duke Health Profile or the Rand 36 are good measures of overall health and can also serve as a pre-screen for in-depth assessment around specific problem areas.  Using an annual protocol with Health Status measures and aggregating the information is a great way to understand your patient population (initial visit) and how effective your Wellness Initiatives have been (comparison with aggregate information from subsequent years).

Patient Education & Health Promotion
Along with being able to pre-screen for the health concerns of individual patients, as well as monitor your patient population as a whole, the individual reports that are produced can be tailored to Patient Education & Health Promotion.  Duplicate copies of the report can be produced (one for the PCP and one for the patient) or more commonly, a separate report can be produced for the patient that triggers educational information or references for resources that is tailored to the specific results of the patient.   

Please Contact Us to learn more or discuss how our Chronic Condition Management capabilities might work in your setting.