Axial Exchange And Becker’s Hospital Review Partner To Launch The First-Ever National Patient Engagement Index (PEI)

National PEI Will Rank U.S. Hospitals on Comprehensive Patient Engagement Programs

February 25, 2014 09:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

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RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Axial Exchange, Inc., a pioneer in using mobile applications to deepen the patient’s role in improving outcomes, today announced that it has partnered with Becker’s Hospital Review, a leading healthcare trade publication, to conduct the first National Patient Engagement Index (PEI) in 2014. The national PEI will evaluate provider organizations across the United States, ranking hospitals’ patient engagement efforts based on an analysis of publicly available data in three categories.

Developed in 2013, Axial Exchange’s regional PEI created a renewed focus on patient health management tools and provided benchmarks for provider organizations’ patient engagement initiatives. Axial Exchange and Becker’s Hospital Review will build on the success of the regional PEI by broadening the scope of the PEI on a national level and adding Becker’s Hospital Review’s industry insight and primary research capabilities to create a more robust analysis of patient engagement initiatives.

“Our regional PEI has been very successful in showing the variability of patient engagement across the industry,” said Joanne Rohde, CEO of Axial Exchange. “We’re excited to partner with Becker’s Hospital Review to strengthen our research methodology and build out the scope of the PEI on a national level. The national PEI will highlight the increasing importance of patient engagement as provider organizations are seeing how more active patient engagement leads to improve clinical outcomes, lower readmission rates and reduce costs.”

For the PEI score, Axial Exchange and Becker’s Hospital Review will evaluate provider organizations’ efforts to engage patients and to promote personal health management, awarding maximum points to those organizations that not only offer electronic access to patient health records, but also provide resources for ongoing health management support—including mobile, tablet and desktop tools. In the national PEI, Axial and Becker’s Hospital Review will also rank hospitals according to readmission rates and the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, a standardized instrument for measuring patient satisfaction, which is used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) to determine reimbursement levels for Medicare patients. Lastly, Axial Exchange and Becker’s Hospital Review will analyze the extent to which hospitals and health systems engage their patients via social networking channels. The highest possible ranking a hospital can receive in the PEI is a score of 100.

“Patient engagement is increasingly at the center of healthcare reform, and achieving excellence in clinical outcomes has been proven dependent upon enhanced patient involvement,” said Lindsey Dunn, editor in chief of Becker’s Hospital Review. “Partnering with Axial Exchange — the first organization to develop a metric for evaluating patient engagement efforts and programs — to expand their regional PEI on a national level was a natural choice. We are proud to work with Axial Exchange to extend this industry-first benchmark for assessing hospitals' efforts to engage patients in their care.”

Axial Exchange and Becker’s Hospital Review will announce the results of the 2014 National PEI at the Becker’s Hospital Review 5th Annual Meeting, on May 15-17, 2014 in Chicago, IL. The top 100 hospitals nationally will be named to the inaugural list of 100 Top Hospitals for Patient Engagement – powered by the Becker's-Axial Patient Engagement Index.

All hospitals will be notified of their ranking, and provided with the published data for consideration in their own initiatives toward Meaningful Use and heightened reimbursement.

About Becker’s Hospital Review

Becker's Hospital Review is a monthly publication offering up-to-date business and legal news and analysis relating to hospitals and health systems. Content is geared toward high-level hospital leaders, and we work to provide valuable content, including hospital and health system news, best practices, and legal guidance specifically for these decision makers. Each issue of Becker's Hospital Review reaches more than 18,000 people, primarily acute-care hospital and health system C-suite executives. For more information, visit http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/.

About Axial Exchange

Axial Exchange is revolutionizing the way that patients manage their health. With Axial, hospitals are able to keep their patients continuously engaged, resulting in dramatically improved health outcomes and much more satisfied patients. Axial drives engagement by giving patients the information and interactive tools patients need in order to get well -- all delivered securely to the device of the patient's choice. Patients can share their health information with providers and caregivers. Health systems benefit via lower readmissions and improved patient satisfaction scores. For more information, visit: www.axialexchange.com.

Contacts
Aria Marketing for Axial Exchange
Sumenta Paul, 617-332-9999 x213
[email protected]