Mayo Clinic Creating Souped-Up Extension Of MyChart

As you probably know, MyChart is Epic’s patient portal. As portals go, it’s serviceable, but it’s a pretty basic tool. I’ve used it, and I’ve been underwhelmed by what its standard offering can do.

Apparently, though, it has more potential than I thought. Mayo Clinic is working with Epic to offer a souped-up version of MyChart that offers a wide range of additional services to patients.

The new version integrates Epic’s MyChart Virtual Care – a telemedicine tool – with the standard MyChart mobile app and portal. In doing so, it’s following the steps of many other health systems, including Henry Ford Health System, Allegheny Health Network and Lakeland Health.

However, Mayo is going well beyond telemedicine. In addition to offering access to standard data such as test results, it’s going to use MyChart to deliver care plans and patient-facing content. The care plans will integrate physician-vetted health information and patient education content.

The care plans, which also bring Mayo care teams into the mix, provide step-by-step directions and support. This support includes decision guidance which can include previsit, midtreatment and post-visit planning.

The app can also send care notifications and based on data provided by patients and connected devices, adapt the care plan dynamically. The care plan engine includes special content for conditions like asthma, type II diabetes chronic obstructive heart failure, orthopedic surgery and hip/knee joint replacement.

Not surprisingly, Mayo seems to be targeting high-risk patients in the hopes that the new tools can help them improve their chronic disease self-management. As with many other standard interventions related to population health, the idea here is to catch patients with small problems before the problems blossom into issues requiring emergency department visit or hospitalization.

This whole thing looks pretty neat. I do have a few questions, though. How does the care team work with the MyChart interface, and how does that affect its workflow? What type of data, specifically, triggers changes in the care plan, and does the data also include historical information from Mayo’s EMR? Does Mayo use AI technology to support care plan adaptions? Does the portal allow clinicians to track a patient’s progress, or is Mayo assuming that if patients get high high-quality educational materials and personalized care plan that the results will just come?

Regardless, it’s good to see a health system taking a more aggressive approach than simply presenting patient health data via a portal and hoping that this information will motivate the patient to better manage their health. This seems like a much more sophisticated option.

   

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