Quality is king in healthcare, a fact that is best demonstrated in emerging coordinated care models that reward physicians who achieve positive clinical outcomes. There is no better way to realize high quality care delivery than with analytics designed to track practice performance. With meaningful information at their fingertips, providers can identify areas for improvement and optimization and create a solid foundation for moving forward. As more and more practices are looking to take advantage of incentives offered through participation in new models of care, benchmarking solutions are becoming widespread.
However, many physician offices still lack the tools necessary to help manage patient populations or easily modify administrative procedures. Fortunately for organizations ready to make the leap, there are powerful analytics that help practices turn large amounts of raw clinical and financial data into useful information. Extracting data from patient records, physicians can gain insights into their performance on several clinical quality measures such as immunizations, cancer screenings or nutrition counseling provided for certain populations. And with technology to track their patients’ chronic diseases such as asthma or diabetes over time, physicians will be in a better position to offer preventative services and clinical interventions that lower overall healthcare costs.
With analytics that provide insights into their practice’s clinical performance, physicians also have the opportunity to drive additional practice revenue from emerging care delivery models that reward quality improvement, including patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Bundled Payments Initiative.
Practices that have successfully leveraged analytics tools to track performance and collaborate with diverse care teams are able to not only reap the benefits of financial incentives and improved outcomes, but they are also in a better position to participate in incentive programs such as the CMS Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) initiative. The goal of the CPC is to foster collaboration between public and private payers and primary care physicians, creating a funding stream for resources that allow practices to better coordinate care1. Programs like the CPC give practices that are ahead of the curve access to additional funding and resources to better coordinate care for their patients.
As healthcare organizations move away from traditional fee-for-service payment arrangements and into quality-based, shared savings models, it has become evident that benchmarking data will be a vital tool for change. With an enhanced understanding of both clinical and financial performance, practices will be able to better coordinate care for all their patients, improving clinical outcomes at a lower cost.
1. http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/comprehensive-primary-care-initiative/
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Analytics Provides a Head Start for Participation in New Models of Care
