Patient-centered care is essential for achieving high-quality and cost-effective health care. This is particularly important for patients with chronic or complex conditions who utilize more health-care services and require comprehensive care coordination. This case report draws on a longitudinal journey map—a valuable tool to capture patient experience and inform the care process—for a patient with multiple chronic conditions who needed a hip replacement. An analysis of the patient journey revealed 3 critical needs for a more patient-centered process: (1) making the patient health goal visible; (2) instigating transparent, shared decision-making; and (3) using a closed-loop communication process. Although key challenges exist, systems can facilitate more patient-centered care enabling health-care organizations to improve the patient experience across the continuum and provide higher quality care.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to rapid change in health care, accelerating the use of digital health services, including telehealth. Moreover, growth in value-based care has compelled consumers to become more engaged in care processes. It has also provided opportunities to enhance patient experiences by increasing patients’ access to online health information and services. This study assessed online patient engagement practices for 6 common patient touchpoints by reviewing the websites of the top 32 hospitals, including the top 10 children’s hospitals. The great majority of these hospitals provided some information related to these patient touchpoints. However, the scope and extent of task automation varied significantly and many options were not convenient. Based on this study, it is clear that patient experience can be enhanced by improving online patient engagement, particularly during the current global pandemic.

Objective Growth in big data and its potential impact on the healthcare industry have driven the need for more data scientists. In health care, big data can be used to improve care quality, increase efficiency, lower costs, and drive innovation. Given the importance of data scientists to U.S. healthcare organizations, I examine the qualifications and skills these organizations require for data scientist positions and the specific focus of their work. Materials and Methods A content analysis of U.S. healthcare data scientist job postings was conducted using an inductive approach to capture and categorize core information about each posting and a deductive approach to evaluate skills required. Profiles were generated for 4 job focus areas. Results There is a spectrum of healthcare data scientist positions that varies based on hiring organization type, job level, and job focus area. The focus of these positions ranged from performance improvement to innovation and product development with some positions more broadly defined to address organizational-specific needs. Based on the job posting sample, the primary skills these organizations required were statistics, R, machine learning, storytelling, and Python. Conclusions These results may be useful to organizations as they deepen our understanding of the qualifications and skills required for data scientist positions and may aid organizations in identifying skills and knowledge areas that have been overlooked in position postings.

Background.-Best practices to facilitate high-quality shared decision-making for lung cancer screening (LCS) are not well established. In our LCS program, patients are first referred to attend a free group education class on LCS, taught by designated clinician specialists, before a personal shared decision-making visit is scheduled.Objective.-To evaluate class effectiveness in enhancing patient knowledge and shared decisionmaking about LCS.Methods.-For quality improvement purposes, participants were asked to complete one-page surveys immediately before and after class to assess knowledge and decision-making capacity regarding LCS. To evaluate knowledge gained, we tabulated the distributions of correct, incorrect, unsure, and missing responses to eight true-false statements included on both pre-and post-class surveys and assessed pre-post differences in the number of correct responses. To evaluate decisionmaking capacity, we tabulated the distributions of post-class responses to items on decision uncertainty.Results.-From June 2017 to August 2018, 680 participants completed both pre-and post-class surveys. Participants had generally poor baseline knowledge about LCS. The proportion who

The need for population health management expertise has increased as the health care industry shifts toward value-based care. However, many organizations report hiring gaps as they seek to fill positions. The purpose of this study was to analyze the types of population health management positions for which health care organizations are hiring, including qualifications and competencies required for these positions. A content analysis was conducted on 271 job postings collected during a 2-month period. A typology of qualifications and competencies was developed based on the content analysis. Profiles were generated for the top 5 job title classifications: directors, coordinators, care managers, analysts, and specialists. This study highlights the investment health care organizations are making in population health management and the prominent role these positions are playing in the health care environment today. Many organizations are building out population health management teams resulting in multiple positions at different levels being added. As the market demands competent candidates who are equipped with specialized population health expertise as well as practical experience in program development, technology applications, care management, and analytics, professional education programs will need to adapt curricula to address the required areas. Competencies for specific job title classifications may need further evaluation and refinement over time. Study results can be used by organizations for strategic planning, by educators to target needed qualifications and competencies, and by researchers and policy advisors to assess progress toward value-based care.