Allscripts launches patient engagement tool designed to improve outcomes

CHICAGO — Allscripts on Thursday announced the market launch and general availability of Allscripts FollowMyHealth Achieve, a consumer-friendly, patient engagement innovation intended to mobilize and empower patients as active partners in the management of their care.

 

Achieve is now generally available for Allscripts TouchWorks EHR and Allscripts Sunrise EHR users, and will soon be available for use with Allscripts Professional EHR. 

 

Allscripts FollowMyHealth Achieve, first introduced at HIMSS14 in Orlando, Fla., helps enable providers and patients to stay connected between formal visits or encounters. Clinicians can use Achieve to monitor patient compliance with care plans remotely and initiate interventions in a timely manner to influence behavior and impact outcomes.

 

With Achieve, providers can enter care management instructions for four conditions — congestive heart failure, diabetes, hypertension and obesity — and make those care plans available to patients through their Allscripts FollowMyHealth accounts.

 

Achieve functionality enables users to potentially leverage savings associated with remote monitoring and the use of consumer technologies. Patients can use Achieve to carry out orders at home, using such wireless devices as scales, glucose meters and blood-pressure monitors that those patients have integrated with FollowMyHealth. Readings and results are forwarded to the applicable Allscripts EHR and incorporated within the patients' medical record.

 

"Creating an environment where patients are active partners in their health is critical," said Robert Davidson, chief information officer, Hutchinson Clinic, a beta-user of Achieve. "Allscripts FollowMyHealth Achieve is an important tool to help patients and the care team stay connected, and allow us to more closely monitor patient status. Patients tell us they like the convenience Achieve offers and, because they are more engaged, we're finding patients are following care plans more closely and paying better attention to factors that impact their health."

 

"Providers are increasingly looking for ways to improve patient engagement, specifically as it relates to chronic diseases such as diabetes," said Peter McClennen, president for Population Health Management at Allscripts. "Achieve represents a critical step forward, as it is a consumer-oriented solution that optimizes the involvement, connection and coordination of the care team as well as the patient. It is a powerful tool that we believe will have a tremendous impact on the quality of care our clients can deliver."