Advancing Health Care through Health Information Technology

Background: The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, administered by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), was enacted in 2009 to transform health care delivery by accelerating the adoption of health information technology (HIT) to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care.

Program background: Ketchum developed a strategic communications campaign for ONC to help providers adopt electronic health records (EHRs)—the core component of HIT. We conducted research that revealed obstacles in reaching skeptical and resistant health care providers, and in convincing them to change the way they practiced to adopt EHRs. Ketchum segmented the provider audiences using the Diffusion of Innovations theory, and developed tailored outreach strategies to reach them in various stages of adoption. To address concerns about the government mandate to transition to HIT, Ketchum's campaign, Putting the I in Health IT, placed the individual in control—making public policy personal and relevant. We created HealthIT.gov, a central portal to house all campaign assets. To drive providers to the site, we developed a multi-channel strategy that included social and traditional media channels. We engaged users through a mix of personal provider success stories in which the "I" overcomes adversity to achieve personal triumph—with EHRs at the core of every message. Ketchum conducted comprehensive keyword research to uncover the most commonly asked EHR implementation questions being asked by providers and their staff online. We mined these questions for content to populate materials such as web copy, videos, and provider testimonials that answered these most commonly asked questions. To maximize outreach, we launched social media presences on YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Scribd, and LinkedIn. We conducted link building and social media promotion for new content on HealthIT.gov and shared it through YouTube videos, media interviews, and trade publications. These stories were also featured on Health IT Buzz blog, created to provide a platform for diverse voices, which we made mobile-ready to reach providers on their personal devices.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Over three years, there have been 1 million visitors to ONC’s existing policy website and new site, HealthIT.gov, and 100,000 visits to the Health IT Buzz blog; 100,000 people were reached through ONC’s new social media channels. According to the 2013 National Center for Health Statistics reports on EHR use and characteristics, EHR use among office-based physicians increased from 51% in 2010 to 78% in 2013.

Conclusions: Providers respond well to testimonials from peers who already adopted electronic health records. Developing an information portal and multiple online channels to share those stories helped health care providers, with varying ability to access information, adopt HIT.

Implications for research and/or practice: Future research can focus on 1) how the transition to health information technology has affected clinical operations in health care practices/hospitals and 2) the effect of health information technology on the capture and use of health information data.