In the past, I’ve been pretty hard on the AMA when it comes to digital health. Last year I gave the organization a particularly hard time when it rolled out its Physician Innovation Network platform, which is designed to help physicians network directly with health tech firms, as it seemed to be breaking little to no ground.
However, to be fair the AMA has been a relatively quiet but solid presence in health IT for quite some time. Its health IT efforts include cofounding Health2047, which brings together doctors with established health IT companies to help the companies launch services and products, serving as one of four organizations behind mHealth app standards venture Xcertia and managing a student-run biotechnology incubator in collaboration with Sling Health.
But what it hasn’t done so far, at least to date, has been to offer physicians any hands-on guidance on using emerging health IT. Now, at long last, the AMA has taken the plunge, releasing a guide focused on helping physicians roll out digital health technology in their practice. At least this time around, I have to give the organization a high five.
The new guide takes a lifecycle perspective, helping practices work through the digital health implementation process from preparations to rollout to gathering data on the impact of the new technology. In other words, it lays out the process as a feedback loop rather than a discrete event in time, which is smart. And its approach to explaining each step is concise and clean.
One section identifies six straightforward steps for choosing a digital health technology, including identifying a need, defining success early on in the process, making the case for political and financial buy-in, forming the team, evaluating the vendor and executing the vendor contract.
Along the way, it makes the important but often-neglected point that the search should begin by looking at the practice’s challenges, including inefficiencies, staff pain points or patient health and satisfaction problems. “The focus on need will help you avoid the temptation to experiment with new technologies that ultimately will result in tangible improvements,” the guide notes.
Another offers advice on tackling more immediate implementation issues, including steps like designing workflows, preparing the care team and partnering with the patient. This section of the report differs from many of its peers by offering great advice on building workflow around remote patient monitoring-specific requirements, including handling device management, overseeing patient enrollment and interactions, and assuring that coding and billing for remote patient management activities is correct and properly documented.
The guide also walks practices through the stages of final implementation, including the nature of the rollout itself, evaluating the success of the project and scaling up as appropriate. I was particularly impressed by its section on scaling up, given that most of the advice one sees on this subject is generally aimed at giant enterprises rather than typically smaller medical practices. In other words, it’s not that the section said anything astonishing, but rather that it existed at all.
All told, it’s great to see the AMA flexing some of the knowledge it’s always had, particularly given that the report is available at no cost to anyone. Let’s hope to see more of this in the future.
