Southeastern Minnesota Beacon, for instance, has partnered with 11 county public health agencies and 47 school districts, Kirtane continued, to explore how technology can drive the results they want to see for kids with asthma.

Beacons have demonstrated progress on process and intermediate outcome measures for chronic conditions, including cholesterol control for patients with cardiovascular disease in Bangor and diabetes screening rates in New Orleans. Measures for preventive care, such as cancer, behavioral health and depression screening, also improved, she said. For example, in Grand Junction, Colo., depression screenings for diabetics jumped from 68 percent to 93 percent.

“Driving the results are things like IT-enabled care management, which is affecting utilization in Bangor, Maine, and readmissions in Keystone in Pennsylvania. We’re also seeing some results around screening rates and management of chronic diabetes by just looking at the data and using that data to drive improvements,” Kirtane said.

Beacons are also using innovative tools, including tele-monitoring, personalized clinical decision support (CDS), and personal health records (PHRs) with their patients.

“What we’re hoping is to build evidence that will help people understand where we see consumer-facing technologies are making a difference and how that gets operationalized,” she said.

The next step is to consider linking the beacon lessons with ACOs, perhaps through a new Health IT Policy Committee panel, which could explore how “health IT can support the business needs of ACOs and some of these future payment pilots and innovative care models,” Kirtane said.