I’m always on the lookout for new online communities around Healthcare IT. I test drive them for a little while and then decide how I’m going to incorporate them into my daily routine. I evaluate what benefits I get from participating. Sometimes the benefits of participating are just helping someone out. There’s something really satisfying about doing something for someone else.

My latest test drive has been the Healthcare IT Question and Answer site on Stack Exchange. I’ve used Stack Exchange a bunch before when I needed some programming help. However, I’m guessing that most people in healthcare IT (unless you’re a programmer) probably aren’t that familiar with Stack Exchange. Well, they created such an interesting community around question and answers that they got a whole bunch of VC funding and they’ve been growing their network into all sorts of new niches. Thus, the launch of the Healthcare IT Stack Exchange community.

You can go and check out my techguy profile on the HIT Stack Exchange site if you want to see what I’ve done. I’ve already got a reputation of 46 (whatever that means). I’ve already answered 9 questions on the site and a few people have been nice enough to vote up my answers.

For example, if you are a MUMPS lover, you can see my answers on this MUMPS replacement question and this NoSQL in Healthcare IT one. I couldn’t resist answering a question about CCHIT. I also took a swing at the PHR question, but I’m sure I could have dug a little more on that one to mention some other PHR software. Instead, I opted for the two most popular ones. I even hopped in the chat room, but it wasn’t that exciting since I was the only one there. You can check out the chat room, but you won’t be able to chat until you have enough reputation. Keeps out spammers, but makes for a boring chat room until you get some critical mass.

Of course, the real challenge with any site like this is the standard chicken and egg problem. You need a large number of people to ask and answer questions. However, in order to get a large number of people asking and answering questions, you need a lot of good questions and answers. I guess we’ll see how it evolves over time. The sidebar of the site says they’ve had 113 questions, 241 answers, 319 users and 147 visitors/day. A pretty small community, but a pretty good response rate considering the number of users. I just wish there was more discussion of EMR & EHR on the site since that’s what interests me most.

Let me know what you think and if you see any good questions or answers on the site that you think I should see. I’ll be keeping an eye on it to see how the community develops. I’d hate to have my 46 reputation points go to waste.

Last week I posted a poll asking how many readers of EMR and HIPAA used a PHR. Here’s the results of the PHR poll:

Pretty interesting to see that about 77% of those voting have not started a PHR or started one, but didn’t add much to their PHR. I guess I’m not all that surprised since I fall into that category as well. The scary thing is that this is coming from people who are in the healthcare and healthcare IT industry. If we’re not using a PHR, then I’d imagine that the number of PHR users outside of the industry is even smaller.

I’m still considering the compelling PHR use case since the results from this PHR poll says that one hasn’t shown its face yet. However, I must admit that the more I research and read about PHR and some of the possibilities, the more potential I can see in the PHR. Although, I also believe it won’t likely look like what most people call a PHR today.

Now for this week’s poll about reader’s approach to the EHR stimulus money. This should have some interesting results since I’ve added the time frame people plan to apply for the EHR incentive money as well.

As is often my Sunday tradition, I love to post some healthcare IT related polls. Today’s poll is prompted by this tweet I sent out earlier this weekend:

I want to spend some time thinking about the motivation for a healthy individual to become an active patient. #PHR #ePatient

February 25, 2011 10:15 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@techguy

John Lynn

On that note, I’d love to see how many of my readers use a Personal Health Record (PHR) and more specifically if you update your PHR or not. Of course, this poll will be completely bias since it’s industry people right. Which is why if the results say that few people in the healthcare IT industry are updating their PHR info, then maybe PHR has some issues to be dealt with.

I recently sat down with Jeff Donnell from NoMoreClipboard. We had a fascinating all around conversation, but one of the most fascinating things he told me was the story of his last visit to his doctor’s office. I’ll do my best to recount what he told me.

When he decided he needed to go see the doctor for a visit his wife suggested that he call the doctor to make an appointment. Of course, Jeff “eats his own dog food” and decided that instead of calling for an appointment, he’d request an appointment through NoMoreClipboard. So, he logged into his account and sent off the request for an appointment with his PHR attached. Pretty interesting idea no?

Don’t ask me why, but when possible I’d much rather request something through my computer. Maybe it’s sitting on hold while you wait to talk to someone that’s turned me off to the phone call, but the idea that I could request an appointment online even if the doctor isn’t on NoMoreClipboard is a pretty attractive feature for a PHR.

Of course, since Jeff’s doctor wasn’t on NoMoreClipboard, his appointment request and health record were faxed to his doctor’s office. He got a call from the doctor and scheduled his appointment. The story certainly doesn’t end there.

When he arrived at the doctor’s office he wondered if they’d have his record or not. They handed him the standard clipboard to fill out all the paperwork. He still said nothing and dutifully filled out the paperwork. No one said anything about the record he’d sent until he was with the doctor and the doctor realized that Jeff was the one that sent in his PHR. I guess it was the talk of the office when that fax came in.

Obviously, the idea of requesting an appointment and faxing in your health record using a PHR still has a ways to go. In fact, NoMoreClipboard’s goal is to work with doctor’s offices like these so that the office gets the person’s health record on the forms that the doctor’s are use to getting it on. I think that’s a smart strategy. Not to mention the idea of the patients driving their doctors to use and work with a PHR provider. I think they call that Word of Mouth advertising right?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while when I recently talked with someone from Microsoft’s HealthVault division. I quite frankly asked this gentleman why I should use a PHR. Obviously, if I was a patient with a chronic or complicated illness I could see a compelling use case. However, what’s the use case that will drive and motivate healthy individuals to use a PHR. So far I really haven’t heard a good answer.

Requesting an appointment and not having to fill out that same lengthy cumbersome paperwork is the closest I’ve thought of.

I just came across a few interesting tweets where Howard Luks, Web 2.0 and HC 2.0 savvy Orthopedist fascinated by Social Media and influence on healthcare delivery, posted his 100 patient “poll” on PHR. His first question was how many people were interested in PHR. The second one was how many patients would want their healthcare data online (cloud). Check out the responses.

66/100 not knowing what a PHR is seems high. I would have guessed more like 95/100 wouldn’t know what a PHR was. The split for those interested in their HC information being online seems pretty representative. Over half of the people don’t care or don’t know. So far no PHR vendor has really given us a reason to care.