Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

23 PATIENT EXPERIENCE Patients are in control with NYU Langone Health's digital health offerings: Q&A with CMIO Dr. Paul Testa By Laura Dyrda N YU Langone Health in New York City has been on the forefront of clin- ical innovation and now is pioneering new ways to improve the patient experience. CMIO Paul Testa, MD, outlines the projects his health system has rolled out to enhance patient communication with physicians and digital health initiatives that give patients access to their medical records. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length. Question: What is the most interest- ing patient-facing innovation you are working on today? Dr. Paul Testa: We're excited by many different things we're working on at NYU Langone Health, but we are particularly proud of the infrastructure and technol- ogy we've created that has helped en- hance the patient and clinical experience through our digital health offerings. With the NYU Langone Health app, patients can log in using their MyChart account cre- dentials to access their health record in a single place on their smartphone or tablet. Patients can schedule appointments, view test results and even see their physician by scheduling a video visit. Providers can access a patient's enterprise health record in Epic as the single source of information where they can see all clinical data and maintain consistent clinical workflows re- gardless of whether a patient appointment takes place in-person or via video visit. All of this is done through the Epic EHR, our core Cisco communication infra- structure and our Vidyo platform for fully integrated video visits. A major component of this strategy was the decision to leverage our own key platforms to create a single, streamlined digital experience making it easy for both patients and providers to access and utilize. Q: Can you expand on the digital offerings at NYU Langone? What are the innovative projects you are working on to improve care? PT: As part of our expanded digital health- care offerings through the NYU Langone Health app, the NYU Langone Virtual Ur- gent Care service allows both new and es- tablished patients to schedule a video visit from the comfort of their own home. ey can log in to their NYU Langone Health app to schedule an appointment, prepare for their visit, video chat with a board-cer- tified NYU Langone emergency medicine physician and access their aer-visit sum- mary. All of the patient's follow-up care, including medications, labs and referrals to NYU Langone specialists are accessed and managed through the centralized NYU Langone Health app. is leads to improved continuity of patient care, as well as a single repository of the patient's health data. is standardized, scalable method- ology has allowed us to create solutions that meet the needs of our current patients in more specific, personally tailored ways. Virtual Urgent Care at NYU Langone is available to adults and children ages 5 and up in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Q: What results have you seen from the virtual visits and digital efforts? PT: More than 7,800 Virtual Urgent Care encounters have been completed since the service launched in 2017, and patients have expressed very high satisfaction with our of- ferings, highlighting the convenience of our services, the ease-of-use of the technology and the easy access to world-class medical care. We measure patient satisfaction by text messaging patients aer their video visit. Our average overall patient satisfaction rating is 4.64 out of 5 stars, and patients rate the ease of use of the technology at 4.60 out of 5 stars. We're excited to grow our virtual health capacity and offer patients and pro- viders even more options. n Patient-aligned care may reduce treatment burden, unnecessary care By Anuja Vaidya A ligning care with patients' priorities may help lessen treatment burden and reduce the number of un- necessary tests for patients suffering from multiple chronic conditions, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers conducted the study at a multisite primary care practice in Connecticut. The study included 366 patients with three or more chronic conditions. Of these patients, 163 received care from providers trained in patient priori- ties care, which aims to align care with a patient's individual- ized health priorities. The other 203 received usual care. The study revealed that health priorities-based decisions were mentioned in clinical visit notes for 108 of the 163 patients receiving patient priorities care. These decisions were not mentioned in cilinical notes for patients receiving typical care. At the nine-month follow-up, the patient priorities care group reported a five-point greater decrease in its Treat- ment Burden Questionnaire score than those who received usual care, indicating reduced treatment burden. The patients who received patient priorities care were also more likely to stop medications and less likely to have self-management tasks and diagnostic tests ordered as compared to the usual care group. n

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