The triple aim—improving population health, enhancing the care experience, and reducing costs—was first described in 2008 by Berwick and colleagues as a “North Star” for health care improvement. In 2014, these goals were expanded to the quadruple aim in recognition of the growing challenge of burnout (ie, exhaustion, cynicism, and professional dissatisfaction) among physicians and other members of the health care workforce.
“The Quintuple Aim for Health Care Improvement” a recent publication by the IHI, calls for the addition of Health Equity to the previous four aims. Health Equity is defined as “the state in which everyone has the opportunity to attain their full health potential, and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential, because of social position or other socially determined circumstances.”
COVID-19 has supercharged the health-tech innovation pipeline, and innovators remain mindful of the fundamental aims of the healthcare industry as they evolve. Here are four easy steps that can help you leverage the convergence of health and technology to reap the benefits new innovation can provide for patient experience, health outcomes, cost reduction, clinician well-being, and improved health equity.
- Implement Data Automation
A report by Martha Hostetter and Sara Klein from The Commonwealth Fund titled “Using Patient-Reported Outcomes to Improve Healthcare Quality” notes “Patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) are a critical component of assessing whether clinicians are improving the health of patients.” In short, they can be used to benchmark the relative performance of providers.
Automating Patient Data Collection is key to overcoming the obstacles of implementing performance analysis in clinical practices at scale, a key component of analyzing population health for value-based care success. Utilizing pre-visit survey collection, automated scoring, a visual scoring interpretation for providers, and intervention recommendations are all examples of solutions for the implementation of a PROMs collection strategy at scale.
2. Utilize Meaningful Upstream Clinical Decision Support For Prevention
Proactive care methods are essential to positively impacting clinic population health. Utilizing EHR-friendly patient care registries is another way that technology can generate immense value for the goal of providing value-based care at scale. We recommend checking out the CME (“continuing medical education”) published by the American Medical Association’s “Steps Forward” program: Patient Care Registries – Proactively Manage Chronic Conditions
3. Leverage Remote Monitoring Technology to Change Patient Behavior
There has never been a better time to leverage remote monitoring in your practice. Proposed 2022 Medicare Guidelines are friendly to providers with an inclination towards tackling upstream lifestyle disease risk. Patient qualification and MD oversight requirements are painless, allowing for only a single chronic disease diagnosis and flexibility on which staff members perform monthly reviews. This presents strong contracted opportunities for revenue through device training, monthly RPM review, and patient intervention reimbursements, all while accelerating your transition to value. Learn more about remote monitoring in primary care here.
4. Utilize Technology Partnerships to Accelerate Disease Prevention and Patient Behavior Changes
Device interoperability poses a challenge to the accessibility of high-value remote patient monitoring technology for primary care providers. Don’t go it alone. Quality Improvement is hard. Behavior change is hard. Adapting your provider’s workflow is hard. Transitioning to value-based care while maintaining current practice revenues is hard. Identifying which patients are likely to adopt an intervention is hard. Implementing shared decision-making in your practice takes time, effort, and training. Find strategic partnerships that will accelerate and compliment your current EHR’s capabilities. Consider a strategic co-development partnership with a population health company that can fill in the quality improvement gaps for you.
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