Achieving improvements in care quality and cost necessary for accountable care organizations requires collection and analysis of patient data across the care continuum and pinpointing ways to improve, according to a recent Executive Insight article by Wanda Kochhar, founder and chief executive officer at analytics firm Outcomes Health Information Solutions.
Rather than focusing only on the data presented when a patient appears for treatment, Kochhar says, ACOs should drill down into the data to find patients with gaps in their care. If an ACO includes 200 patients with coronary artery disease, for instance, rather than waiting for them to make appointments, it might be best to reach out to those patients to encourage them to seek appropriate care before their chronic condition becomes acute and more costly.
Tina Buop, CIO of La Clinica de la Raza, a community health center in Oakland, Calif., spoke with FierceHealthIT earlier this year about how her organization uses predictive analytics to reach out to at-risk patients, such as those with diabetes, to ensure that they are getting preventative care. She says an organization can go bankrupt quickly if it doesn't understand and address the risk posed by its patient population.
Meanwhile, ACOs also want more help from pharmaceutical companies to achieve their quality and cost-reduction goals, according to a survey from Oliver Wyman. While physicians want drug companies to be more involved in ACOs and value-based delivery models, they still question whether pharma companies can provide the data necessary to demonstrate drug cost savings.
To learn more:
- find the Executive Insight article