The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) intends to develop animated videos to explain the value of health IT to consumers to improve the quality of care.
ONC will hire a vendor to design one or two animated videos of 10 minutes or less to be used along with other materials to help the average American understand the basic mechanics of health IT.
The goal is to build public support and demand for greater use of IT tools and services to involve patients more in their health and health care, ONC said in the July 12 announcement in Federal Business Opportunities. Vendors that are interested must respond by July 26.
Engaging patients and their families in their care is one of the priorities of the meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs) that healthcare providers must meet to receive Medicare and Medicaid incentives.
With healthcare providers establishing EHRs, ONC said there is a need to explain to the public what it is doing and to link the changes that ONC is driving in the traditional health system and the growing number of consumer health activities that have developed largely independently.
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“The average person needs to know what changes are taking place on a national level, and what they will mean for him or her personally,” ONC said. Consumers and patients are the ultimate beneficiaries of health IT initiatives for providers and the primary decision makers in the management of their health and health care.
Among the activities, the vendor will assemble a small advisory panel to guide the content and style of the videos, prepare a draft storyboard that communicates their content and look and feel and video rough cuts for review. The contractor will also test the completed videos with a small group of consumers, ONC said in the notice.
