Engaged patients are part of the health care team

The popularity of patient portals and mobile health applications that collect patient-generated health data are getting patients more actively engaged in their care. These tools can also help clinicians gather information prior to diagnosis. AHRQ is supporting research on how best to collect and utilize patient-reported outcome data to improve the quality and safety of care, better integrating the patient perspective into clinical practice.

Make health IT work to improve the diagnostic process

From information gathering, to helping doctors with the decision process, to learning from errors, health IT can be a powerful tool for improving diagnosis. For example, AHRQ-supported research is currently underway to better understand how natural language processing can help collect relevant information from unstructured data within a patient’s electronic health record and present the data in a more usable way for the care team.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it

We want to get better at tracking and understanding diagnostic errors and make this information available where it matters most—in the hands of those on the frontlines of care. To do so, we must continue to focus on measure development and overcoming the obstacles to gathering the right types of data. We are working with partners to identify opportunities to more efficiently capture important information to clarify the factors that contribute to diagnostic errors and use this knowledge to prevent them. We have collaborated with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in their work with the National Quality Forum (NQF) to use research conducted by AHRQ and others and address measurement gaps in diagnostic accuracy.

diagnostic experience

The last kind of diagnostic content is really powerful because it’s designed to help me solve my problem. It’s both relevant and personal, and designed to get at something that’s in my self interest. It might say something like, “Tim, other staffs covering the Silicon Valley are out-performing your demand gen. Find out why.” Huh, I didn’t know that. I mean, I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but I’d like to find out. I would probably open that email, and if it were a reasonable offer I might actually sign up or call the person back. That’s the kind of stuff that’s in my self-interest, very relevant to me but also designed to solve a problem, and that’s key to diagnostic content.

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