AHIP 2017: Analytics help insurers manage chronic conditions, personalize care and fight the opioid epidemic

Technology and data analytics are hot topics across the healthcare industry, and this year’s AHIP Institute & Expo features two tracks to help insurance executives delve into the topic.

Sessions span a range of issues, from using tech to engage members and coordinate care to employing data strategies that improve outcomes and battle public health epidemics such as opioid abuse.

RELATED: AHIP 2017—Shaking up the health insurance industry

As the payer industry prepares to gather in Austin, Texas, next week for the American Health Insurance Plans annual conference, here are some of the tech sessions from two tracks—technologies and business solutions, and data analytics and insight—that caught our eye:

Precision Analytics: How to Power Clinical Interventions

Thursday, June 8
9:45 a.m.

Richard G. Popiel
Richard G. Popiel

Richard G. Popiel, M.D., executive vice president and corporate chief medical officer at Cambia Health Solutions, will explain how the Portland, Oregon-based health plan uses precision analytics to target specific chronic conditions, identify care gaps, support care management, reduce repeat ED and inpatient admissions and ultimately improve the overall return on investment of its clinical interventions.

“Robust and meaningful precision analytics hold the potential power to transform a healthcare organization and unlock new sources of value,” the agenda notes. “With advances in how health data is captured, organized and analyzed, it is possible to target individuals most likely to benefit from a clinical intervention.”

The Opioid Epidemic: Mastering the Complexities and Improving Outcomes

Thursday, June 8
4 p.m.

Analytics, care management, pharmacy, provider network and cost control strategies can help identify, manage and monitor members who abuse illegal drugs.

The speakers, including Thomas Duncan, president and CEO of the District of Columbia’s Trusted Health Plan, will discuss medical and pharmacy solutions that use effective end-to-end strategies to improve health outcomes for members caught up in the opioid epidemic.

Developing Innovative Collaboration for Effective Care Coordination

Friday, June 9
7:30 a.m.

This session will explore how health plans and providers, acting as a team on behalf of their member-patients, integrate innovative technology with a high-touch, hyperlocal approach to care coordination. Speakers include Barbara Berger, VP of care management services at FirstCare Health Plans in Austin, Texas, and Kim Ingram, chief nursing officer at HealthEdge.

As value-based care continues to impact the industry, health plans and providers must improve collaboration that centers on the individual member, the session description notes. “Value-based care can achieve its desired aims when a common mission is shared along the care continuum, coupled with leveraging data necessary to maximize impact to members.”

Empowering Care Via Automation: Using Web-based Content and Technology to Optimize the Payer-Provider Workflow

Friday, June 9
7:30 a.m.

Lynn M. Kryfke
Lynn M. Kryfke

Children's Community Health Plan will share the story of how it optimized the prior authorization process, taking it from a labor-intensive manual effort to one that automates the use of evidence-based guidelines to provide real-time authorizations.

Speakers, including Lynn M. Kryfke, R.N., director of health plan clinical services, will explore driving clinical transformation in the provider network in conjunction with administrative streamlining within the Wisconsin-based health plan.

The presentation will include “key metrics illustrating the tremendous success of this endeavor [and] emerging tools which support the next stage of workflow evolution,” the agenda notes.

Operationalize Before You Analyze: Innovation and Growth Powered by Data

Friday, June 9
10:15 a.m.  

Analyzing data and operationalizing data are not the same thing. It’s easy to get distracted by the “shiny ball” of analytics, but healthcare organizations should first focus on improving operational agility and speed, the description for this session notes. Speakers including Sunil Godbole, senior director of application development at Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna, and L.A. Care's Shahran Haider, managing director of enterprise data strategy and analytics, will share use cases and success stories about “next gen” data strategy, architecture and technology to achieve innovation, growth and modernization results. They’ll also discuss the key attributes of establishing a “Center of Excellence” and rolling it out at enterprise scale.

What Can Health Care Learn from Netflix? Leveraging Predictive Analytics to Personalize Care

Friday, June 9
11:15 a.m.

“Today’s businesses are now connected to the customer like never before,” according to the description for this session. “And these new connections generate massive amounts of data. Companies like Netflix that can take the many new sources of data and use them to modify the customer experience will create sustained competitive advantages.”

So what can the healthcare industry learn from companies like Netflix, and how can health plans mine data to transform patient care? Pamela Peele, Ph.D., chief analytics officer of UPMC Health Plan, will answer those questions and explain how advanced analytics is changing how the Pittsburgh-based payer makes strategic decisions.