Prescription for ER overuse: Engage patients in EHR data and health information exchange

“Louisiana is known as being woefully behind when it comes to healthcare. But in the realm of population health, it is making some serious progress. The state, in fact, launched both a direct-to-consumer patient engagement campaign and a health information exchange-enabled emergency department data registry. Consequently, in one year the state has realized a 23 percent increase in health IT utilization among at-risk patients and a 10.2 percent decrease in non-emergent utilization of emergency departments among members of one of the state’s Medicaid MCOs.”

“This all came about from a partnership with the state department of health because Louisiana for far too long has been on the wrong end of healthcare ratings,” said Jamie Martin, marketing and communications manager at the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum. “So on the one hand, engaging consumers in the use of health IT to manage their care was critical to improving our standing in healthcare ratings.”

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