Population Health Data is emerging as a massively important vertical in healthcare, and for good reason—it supports the shift toward Value-Based Care, the idea that taking a preventative approach to healthcare will result in healthier populations which will help keep the cost of healthcare down. From large healthcare institutions to individual care managers, the focus on population health is expanding at a rapid pace. And the technology used for population health purposes is growing every day.
Cool… but, uh, what is “population health data”, exactly?
Population Health is work centered around keeping patients well and helping patients with chronic conditions be engaged and active in their healthcare. It involves providers across the continuum of care, which means data on those patients might be fragmented and stored in many different places.
Having access to that data helps providers know what events occured in a patient’s life, what preventative care a patient is due for, or even factors that affect the patient’s health that occur outside of a hospital setting. Examining this data allows providers to intervene at the right time with more effective and cohesive treatment, which in turn lowers the frequency of people being seen for chronic or acute care. Naturally, this reduction in time and money spent on high-cost patients is a win for health systems.
Data-driven care has existed long before electronic health records, but it was exponentially harder to obtain, analyze, and use medical data when it was being written down on paper and stored in basements. As new applications and systems are created for patients to track their health and clinical staff to perform their documentation, care for patients is becoming more precise, though the continued fragmentation of the patient’s record remains a risk.
Many different types of patient data are important in population health, including clinician-inputted data (assessment documentation, medications, immunizations, etc.), patient-entered data (medication or therapy compliance, adherence to goals, or device data such as weight, results and more) and data external to the health system and patient. Data can exist as claims and geo-locational data, or be stored in other entities such as community-based organizations, data warehouses, and more.
Alright. Why is this information valuable?
Good question. It’s best answered by first understanding for whom, specifically, this information is valuable.
First and foremost, patients and providers. Data allows for transparency in clinical care and helps patients understand their conditions and how to manage them. From a broader perspective, larger health systems and their partners aim to use that data to lower their costs and improve outcomes.
Enter in ACOs. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are groups of providers and caregivers within health systems that work together through incentives to help move their organizations toward value-based care, with the hope to reduce the cost of care overall.
ACOs have a set of reporting requirements they are measured on to prove their value, and utilizing population data is a great way for them to gain a clearer picture of what’s positively—and more importantly, negatively—affecting population health. With these insights, health systems can select and partner with health applications that address the specific problems their communities are struggling with, thus delivering more cohesive and effective care.
3 main value props for integrating your population health data (aka, why you want to convince a health system to work with you):
1. A more comprehensive view of your patient population
There are a lot of ancillary areas of care that are critical to overall wellness which aren’t often considered in a standard EHR.
- Consider the work done by a food bank worker or an employment counselor, for example, which is documented outside the EMR but has a direct impact on how a person manages their health. Smaller practices with niche EMRs play a major role in the ACO ecosystem as well.
- Social Risk Factors (such as crime rate in the community or food scarcity) are key data points for care managers but are often tracked manually vs. imported from public data sources like the US Census. Geodata is important in understanding how society and environment affect health. It informs the kind of care patients receive and the level of patient engagement caregivers will see (ex: if a patient can’t even find sufficient food, it’s going to be hard to manage their diabetes.)
With integration, reporting is more accurate and timely.
- Providers can provide a more real-time response to patient data, to help provide the right care at appropriate times.
- Quality reporting data is available faster, vs. waiting potentially months to see how providers are performing on their metrics.
2. Better communication from patient to provider
Patients are more empowered in their care.
- Many Congestive Heart Failure patients, for example, use third-party devices in their treatment plans to monitor their health. They have to document and record this information with their doctor, and instead of having to call their doctor’s office to input these numbers, they can just log it with an integrated application that inputs values directly into the EHR.
- Additional technology makes connecting patients and providers in real-time across a wide range of settings feasible.
- This helps increase patient engagement by making care plan compliance much easier.
3. Expand the Breadth of Services in your ACO
- Integrating with Redox expands your ability to find other affiliate providers and specialists with whom you want to connect and share data. Joining our network allows you to better define your strategy through data and expand your network.
- Our network enables you to connect and exchange clinical data with providers and specialists even if they’re running a different system.
Integrating population health data doesn’t have to be scary
Getting data to and from the right parts of an ACO is hard, which is why we’re here to help. We’re experts when it comes to nailing down an integration strategy that will enable you to get the patient data you need in order to deliver on the promise of population health focused value-based care. Reach out today and learn how to get started.
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