Event Notification in Support of Population Health: The Promise and Challenges from a Randomized Controlled Trial

摘要

Event notifications are real-time, electronic alerts that have the promise of improving population health by exchanging critical information to a patient's extended care team. In a trial of event noficiations in U.S. Veterans Affairs facilities, we seek to understand the impact of notifications on health care utilization within 30 and 90-days. Lessons from the trial have implications beyond the evidence by informing strategies to develop and implement event notifications in other health systems. Event notification is the real-time, electronic, automatic alerting of providers to their patients' contact with other health care facilities [1]. Also referred to as an alert or subscription service, event notifications are messages triggered by specific patient activities, such as a visit being registered in a hospital's admission-discharge-transfer (ADT) system. Triggers often involve an inparient admission, discharge, or emergency department visit. Event notification systems fall under the broader category of health information exchange (HIE).