Improving Technology‐Driven Patient Care Coordination: Toward a Techne for Community‐Based Organization Involvement
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.324 |
Published date | 01 December 2019 |
Date | 01 December 2019 |
395
doi: 10.1002/wmh3.324
© 2019 Policy Studies Organization
Improving Technology‐Driven Patient Care
Coordination: Toward a Techne for Community‐Based
Organization Involvement
Dawn S. Opel
Health‐care systems increasingly collect and aggregate patient data from electronic medical record
systems to aid in their decision making. Community‐based organizations that support patients’health
and well‐being have been left behind in the development and use of technologies for coordinating
patient care, despite policies that encourage cross‐sector coordination. This article presents the au-
thor’s work as a rhetorician on a community‐engaged action research project to seek grant funding
and health‐care partners to implement a tool that enables community‐based organization professionals
to connect to health‐care providers to coordinate care for under‐resourced older adult patients. The
team’s practices from the project are used to inform a techne, or set of rhetorical strategies, for
community‐based organizations to participate in population health management initiatives. Under-
standing these strategies as a techne to train other community‐based organizations to participate in
cross‐sector initiatives may be critical to effectuating the goals of the Affordable Care Act and other
health policies that seek to improve population‐level health outcomes.
KEY WORDS: social determinants of health, techne, care coordination
Introduction: Addressing the Social Determinants of Health through
Technology‐Driven Initiatives
Recent U.S. health policy data reveals that its health‐care system remains in
crisis. Even with increased insurance coverage under the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act (2014), millions remain uninsured and underinsured, costs are
rising while choice in and quality of care are decreasing (Himmelstein, Woolhan-
dler, Almberg, & Fauke, 2017). The Affordable Care Act was meant to address
health‐care delivery improvement, using a paradigm called the “Triple Aim.”In
2008, Berwick, Nolan, and Whittington (2008, p. 760)introduced the Triple Aim
concept, a set of linked goals to improve the American health‐care system by
“improving the individual experience of care; improving the health of populations;
and reducing the per capita costs of care for populations.”What differentiated the
Triple Aim from other health‐care improvement strategies was its focus at the level
of patient populations. Population health management (PHM)has emerged as a set
of tactics by which to enact the Triple Aim. While PHM practices may differ from
site to site, most involve the pursuit of (i)improvements in health‐care at the
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