Anyone paying attention is aware of the app explosion happening in healthcare today while questions persist about just how useful so many digital therapeutics actually are in a clinical setting. Work at Mount Sinai, however, is showcasing the promise of digital tools and apps.

Mount Sinai started by constructing a patient design group while developing a GI app — which ultimately lead to feedback that Atreja’s team used to flip the metrics of quality completely around. And it worked.

“We have a 92 percent engagement rate when prescribing a patient an app,” said Dr. Ashish Atreja, Chief Innovation Officer at Mount Sinai. “Now we can get their data back to engage them more.”

HIMSS Chief Clinical Officer Dr. Charles Alessi said he worries that too few health systems have encapsulated that same kind of thinking and that many clinicians still consider therapeutics to be chemical entities they prescribe to a patient.

“The way we accompany people through a life course and develop a relationship with that person is of fundamental importance,” Alessi said.  

Atreja agreed that clinicians have to work with patients on self-efficacy and set targets together that can be achieved.

“That has been our journey,” Atreja said. “From innovation to transformation.”

In the above video Atreja speaks with Alessi and HIMSS TV host Kate Milliken about the power of possibility, building a capacity for value-based care with more than EHRs and digital transformation happening now.

Twitter: @SullyHIT
Email the writer: tom.sullivan@himssmedia.com

Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.