It’s not often that stealing someone’s seat at a healthcare conference actually ends up working in my favor, but last Spring’s iHT2 event in Atlanta proved me wrong. I had the good fortune of accidentally “stealing” the chair of Michael Frisbie, Vice President of Business Development at Learn It Live, an online learning website looking to crack the healthcare market.

After getting the “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” and “I didn’t mean to sit in your seat!” banter out of the way, we had a nice chat about the state of the industry, and Learn It Live’s potential place in it.

Fast-forward more than six months later, and I find Frisbie and his team have gotten in where healthcare needs it most – patient engagement and education. Beginning in the second half of 2013, Learn It Live will roll out pilot video wellness programs via the websites of a number of hospital partners in an effort to help the healthcare facilities’ patients combat chronic conditions like diabetes, smoking and obesity, to name a few.

I stole a few minutes of Frisbie’s time to learn more about the pilot programs, and how, in an age of accountable care, he envisions them affecting patient outcomes.

How many hospitals are you hoping will sign up? How many have signed so far?
We are hoping to have 10 hospitals working within this program by the start of 2013. We have the capabilities for hosting programs for 50+ hospitals as of now, however, and with additional investments can expand upon this quite readily. We have 3 hospitals in the Southeast that are planning to launch programs in the start of 2013.

Why focus on chronic conditions?
The specific conditions of cardiovascular disease, diabetes type II, chronic smoking, obesity, and poor nutrition were chosen due to the fact that the Affordable Care Act emphasizes preventing these diseases to prevent medical reimbursements being cut. Also, and perhaps more importantly, is the fact that Americans tend to suffer from these conditions chronically. It's important to address these public health concerns before they reach an epidemic level.

What other details you can share with me about the video pilot program?
The pilot program includes an interactive classroom, which allows the attendees to chat with each other, see each other via video feed (if desired), and also communicate using an attached microphone. The video feed is, of course, a huge part of what the platform does but is by no means the main feature. The main value-add is that we custom design white-labeled websites for our customers and client organizations, and this allows them to provide a portal of live, real-time and recorded class content for their communities and employee bases.

How will you determine if the program is a success? Will each facility get to determine what “success” means to their patient base?
We'll utilize a system of metrics that analyzes both patient/employee engagement on a qualitative basis (how excited and eager they may be to continue the current program.) Participating/partner hospitals have their own tracking and metrics systems in place that will complement our own measures.

It’s an interesting concept – one that I think could find great adoption in hospitals that already have in place patient bedside education and entertainment systems like those from GetWellNetwork. Not only could patients access these education and engagement videos via laptop, but also from within the hospital itself if ever admitted. (Perhaps watching the first video in a series would be part of a patient’s discharge process?)

Hopefully, Frisbie will chance an opportunity to steal a few minutes of my time for an update after the programs have gotten off the ground later next year.

Jennifer Dennard is Social Marketing Director for Atlanta-based Billian's HealthDATA, Porter Research and HITR.com. Connect with her on Twitter @SmyrnaGirl.