Health IT, Hospitals

Geisinger shares some secret sauce ingredients for making population health work

Most providers are facing a steep learning curve to shift from fee-for-service to accountable care […]

Most providers are facing a steep learning curve to shift from fee-for-service to accountable care that the Affordable Care Act seeks. It will be a complex conversion to be sure, but some institutions such as Geisinger are helping other health systems with the conversion. In a recent webinar, Geisinger Health Plan directors shared some insights on best practices for helping providers with the transition.

Collaboration: A complex web of partnerships is at the heart of making the shift to accountable care work. The sweet spot of population health is a collaboration between payers and the clinical expertise of hospitals, according to Janet Tomcavage, Geisinger Health Plan’s chief administrative offer, and Vicki Harter, director of clinical systems.

Tomcavage pointed out that physician leadership needs to be committed. After all, they are the ones who are leading the care teams of nurses, pharmacists, nutritionists and case managers. Without that commitment, making the transition to accountable care tools won’t work.

One population health platform Geisinger is using springs from its collaboration with healthcare analytics provider Caradigm. Interestingly, Caradigm is also the product of a  joint venture between Microsoft and GE.

Leveraging electronic health records and healthcare technology: Caradigm’s Care Management tool identifies at-risk patients and enrolls them in appropriate care programs. It also helps providers develop care plans that outline problems, goals and interventions and chart their progress. It’s also intended to help manage patients and conditions with interventions using real-time, event-based alerts.

Identifying and stratifying  patients: By flagging up patients with chronic and complex conditions, members of the care team from case managers to physicians can identify who is most likely to be readmitted and set up a care plan to help spot problems earlier. At the same time, determining what tests or checkups healthy patients need will help spot signs of poor health earlier.

Improving transparency: This is probably one of the biggest challenges providers face since there is no one easy way for all members to understand who is intervening with the patient and when. Members of the care team such as nutritionists, pharmacists and case managers all contribute to updating this data and making it easily available.

Using telehealth: With an eye to highlighting any significant changes in patients’ conditions, Geisinger is using scales embedded with Bluetooth technology for heart failure patients. That way, their weight can be tracked for any changes that might point to potential problems. It also has a new strategy to provide access to specialists from primary care offices.

 [From flickr user beautiful cataya]

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