News Feature | August 5, 2014

AAFP Shifts Health IT Focus To Optimization

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

AAFP Health IT Focus Shift

The AAFP is introducing the Alliance for eHealth Innovation as a way to increase its focus on helping family physicians optimize their EHR investments.

After over a decade in existence, the American Academy of Family Physicians is giving its Center for Health IT a new name and a redefined focus. The Center for Health Information Technology will now be called the Alliance for eHealth Innovation. In an interview with AAFP News, Alliance Director Steven Waldren, M.D., explained the reasons behind the changes.

"Nearly 80 percent of our family physician members now are using electronic health records (EHRs) in their practices," said Waldren. "It's time for the AAFP to increase its focus on helping family physicians optimize their EHR investments so that they can achieve the triple aim of improving population health, enhancing the patient experience and reducing health care costs."

Secondly, he said, "In the eyes of family physicians, the AAFP has done a good job of exposing them to EHR technology, but nationwide, we need more progress on the interoperability and usability front. That's what this change is all about."

“The initial establishment of the center signaled the importance of the need to move from paper-based to computerized information systems in the family physicians office,” AAFP EVP Douglas E. Henley told HealthData Management. “We’ve seen real progress with adoption of EHR technology – in 2014, 80 percent of our members are using an EHR. Now it’s time to focus more heavily on optimal use of that technology.”

The AAFP recently announced a shift in its health information technology focus from implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) to optimization of the technology. The Academy will partner with innovative family physicians and health IT stakeholders to solve issues pertaining to EHR usability and interoperability. According to Waldren, the term "alliance" was specifically chosen to point the partnerships the AAFP plans to cultivate.

"There are many family physician innovators in our membership who have successfully optimized health IT," said Waldren. "We want to partner with them, learn from them and share their best practices with other family physicians."

Waldren stressed that family physicians can count on the Alliance to be a reliable EHR resource just as they have always counted on the AAFP for guidance on health IT questions. Ditto for the Academy's advocacy efforts on federal legislative and regulatory issues – such as electronic prescribing and meaningful use – that affect how family physicians go about their daily work.

"We'll continue all of those important activities even as we expand our work on interoperability, usability and workflow," Waldren explained.

An AAFP news release about the Alliance described the Academy's new health IT focus as covering four areas:

  • Discovery – Identifying best practices among members who have found high job satisfaction and high care quality.
  • Deployment – Sharing those best practices throughout AAFP membership and the primary care community.
  • Development – Working with industry partners to fill gaps in current information technology products and developing new innovative offerings.
  • Data – Provide analytics to demonstrate and improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of family medicine.

Touching on the data piece, Waldren said, "I anticipate a much greater interest in analytics – gathering data and making it more accessible to family physicians. We need to have the data in hand to drive all of these efforts and to show that family medicine really is delivering on that elusive triple aim."