Consumer Engagement

Portrait of Christian Johnson

Harnessing Electronic Health Data in the Palm of Your Hand: New Survey Data Shows Increasing Availability of Patient-Facing APIs and Early Uptake by Patients

Christian Johnson | November 17, 2021

More and more individuals are using digital data to make informed decisions about their health. Whether it be health information collected by wearable devices or lab test results in a patient portal, individuals can now access, share, and use electronic health data to manage their health needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of individuals taking a proactive approach to accessing to their electronic health information so that they can be better prepared in advance of an emergency.

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Portrait of Kevin Chaney, MGS

Accelerating API and App Connectivity: Consumer Perspectives

Kevin Chaney, MGS | November 24, 2020

With the publication of the ONC Cures Act Final Rule, health IT developers, healthcare providers, and app developers now have formal direction regarding the content and transaction standards required for consumers to access their health information using standards-based application programming interfaces (APIs) and healthcare apps.  Building on this work, we’ve launched a new project to help accelerate the understanding and use of standardized APIs and healthcare apps. The Accelerating APIs for Scientific Discovery project is part of ONC’s efforts to spur innovation and adoption of standardized APIs to enable sharing of electronic health information among consumers,

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Portrait of Lana Moriarty

Understanding the Patient Experience to Improve Patient Access to Medical Records

Lana Moriarty | July 11, 2017

Melissa Crawford is a mother from Concord, NH.  Her two year old daughter, Ava, has a congenital heart defect and was recently diagnosed with epilepsy.  Melissa loves Ava’s physician’s patient portal since it allows her to easily book appointments and refill Ava’s medications online.  But when Ava’s pediatrician needed medical records from Ava’s five specialists, the various patient portals did not provide all the health information the doctor needed.  Melissa set off on a stressful and complicated journey to gather the information from the five specialists in time for Ava’s appointment with her pediatrician.

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Portrait of Lana Moriarty

Trusted Content from Healthfinder.gov Can Improve Patient Portals

Lana Moriarty | June 22, 2017

The ONC Patient Engagement (PE) Playbook was created by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to help healthcare professionals use health information technology (health IT) to provide better care to patients. The PE Playbook focuses specifically on electronic health record (EHR) patient portals, which allow both patients and healthcare teams, concurrent with patients’ privacy preferences, to easily access patient health information — which may lead to increased benefits for healthcare,

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Portrait of Talisha Searcy

New Data Show More Hospitals than Ever Making Information Available Electronically to Patients

Talisha Searcy | September 13, 2016

To help individuals manage their health, beginning in 2011, the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs called on health care providers to enable patients to electronically view, download, and transmit their health information to a destination of the patient’s choice. In 2015, the Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap [PDF – 2.6 MB] reaffirmed this objective.

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