With the new site, healthfinder.gov, HHS and CVS aim to improve health literacy and support clinical preventive services.
Tens of thousands of deaths annually could be averted and population health could significantly improve with increased support of clinical preventive services, according to a report cited in a Thursday HealthAffairs blog post coauthored by Karen DeSalvo, MD, the national coordinator for health IT.
“However, the same report, citing estimates from the CDC, suggests that fewer than half of older adults (65+) and only 25 percent of adults aged 50-65 years are up to date on their preventive services,” the authors wrote. “Several studies have identified barriers to the uptake of preventive services, including limited health literacy, insufficient access to primary care, and poor understanding of benefits and availability of preventive services.”
Healthfinder.gov is a tool for users to overcome those barriers and educate themselves. The myhealthfinder interactive feature provides personalized recommendations for users that the Affordable Care Act requires most health insurers to cover free of charge.
A May pilot project found that by integrating the myhealthfinder application into CVS Health’s MinuteClinic site, traffic to myhealthfinder more than tripled. In the first six weeks, more than 2.5 million patients visiting MinuteClinic used myhealthfinder, compared to the 600,000 patients who visited myhealthfinder via healthfinder.gov. Healthfinder.gov now offers a widget that enables other sites to link to the portal, increasing visibility for the resources it offers.
“Because of retail pharmacies’ consumer and convenience focus, and their important role in connecting patients to and sustaining their relationships with primary physicians, retail pharmacies add valuable perspective and insight to the assessment of preventive care,” the post reads. “HHS hopes to continue to collaborate with non-Federal entities as a key pathway to making prevention more convenient and easier to navigate for patients.”
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