Holly Miller runs Cleveland Clinic’s MyChart. Cleveland Clinic has rolled out Epic EMR to its main campus, all its primary care clinics and about 25% of its affiliated specialists. Also rolling it out to community physicians who admit to its affiliated hospitals.

MyChart is a complex combination of a view a) into the Epic system, plus b) to their own editorial information plus c) into WebMD content (to which they supply content). The information has been empowering to patients. They can see the visit note, which includes a patient instruction function. The patient can get information about all kinds of stuff based on their own test results, connected to those results, including what the test is, what it means, and what the normal range is (plus whatever note the doctor wants to add). She has one patient who read up on diabetes in conjunction with a physicians visit, realized that she was on the verge of becoming morbidly obese, and read up on how to stop it. 70% of messages sent out are opened in the first week.

They are now starting to have information from diabetics input straight into the system, with immediate feedback on results, including surveys, information, etc, and what to do if the measure is way out of line (It also has histories, etc,etc). They’ve been running the study for a while. Only about 25% are looking at the information links they’re sent, but more are looking at lab results.

They’re pretty serious about this, and have a person who’s job it is to monitor web behavior both in terms of customer service (following up on appt requests within a certain time) and trying to figure out how to move and improve patient online behavior. Keep watching this space….with PAMF, Kaiser and Group Health of Puget Sound, these guys are leaders in the provider-based PHR world.