Improving Technology‐Driven Patient Care Coordination: Toward aTechnefor Community‐Based Organization Involvement

Abstract

Health‐care systems increasingly collect and aggregate patient data from electronic medical record systems to aid in their decision making. Community‐based organizations that support patients' health and well‐being have been left behind in the development and use of technologies for coordinating patient care, despite policies that encourage cross‐sector coordination. This article presents the author's work as a rhetorician on a community‐engaged action research project to seek grant funding and health‐care partners to implement a tool that enables community‐based organization professionals to connect to health‐care providers to coordinate care for under‐resourced older adult patients. The team's practices from the project are used to inform a techne, or set of rhetorical strategies, for community‐based organizations to participate in population health management initiatives. Understanding these strategies as a techne to train other community‐based organizations to participate in cross‐sector initiatives may be critical to effectuating the goals of the Affordable Care Act and other health policies that seek to improve population‐level health outcomes.