There are multiple factors that are involved in determining population health. Thus making it challenging for healthcare professionals to identify the right set of approach to show progress. While it is generally acknowledged for a simple understanding of making ‘our lives’ healthy, it gets complicated when we include aspects that are influencing the change.
The two main components that are involved in calculating the improvement of population health are mortality and quality of life with respect to health. Positive impact on life expectancy and quality of health relies on technology and active participation of patients. Providers are expected to reach out to patients beyond the hospital walls, set health goals and monitor their progress which is more often than not a two way communication.
It is inevitable to have a metric defined at each step to assess the health outcomes of population groups. One size fits for all approach has not yielded many results. Hence it is time for us to think about outcome-based care to better the results and improve the quality of care offered.
How does financial optimization help?
Both payers and the providers aim at reducing healthcare cost. While payers concentrate on reducing the payment that is going out for healthcare services offered to their clients, providers will be working in cutting down their expense and reducing the number of claim rejections they handle month on month. Though all the functionalities of healthcare system have a common goal of reducing costs, the way one party in the system achieves that, could be of conflicting interest for another party in the system resulting in no benefits for either.
Providers should initially identify the areas of overspending in their operations and must be willing to take action. Investing in technology could help them better the way they function. Though it looks like an expenditure at first sight, analyzing the advantages of employing technology will help optimize their spending in various operations within the system. Return on Investment for technology will be seen through operational profit and increasing efficiency of practice.
Health Evaluation of Population
As the old saying goes, prevention is always better than cure. Healthcare providers must keep careful observation of population, and grouping the population must be made by various parameters that will include, demographics, geographic, etc.
Eliminating language barriers and enhancing communication between the patients and caregivers is vital to improving the patient experience. Patients feel more convenient to communicate to caregivers speaking their language and be willing to discuss their health issues.
Putting modern day technology to use, creates a big difference in the outcome. Among healthcare professionals, some of them have shared their success stories about how an implementation of predictive analytics tools in their practice helped them to be more accurate and efficient.
Effective Data Management and Interoperability
Data management plays a crucial role in improving the standards of care provided to the patients. More often independent physicians associated with an IPA or ACO network face the interoperability challenges, which means, patient information data from one system even within the same network is inaccessible. This happens when the systems in a particular network are not capable of communicating with each other.
Effective data management should be put in place in a way, to let the doctors access patient information on the go and be able to make informed medical actions.
Making this idea into a reality will not only save cost but will also have a positive impact in reducing the mortality.
Patient engagement objectives
Percentage of readmission is increasing consistently and it is one of the biggest concern for providers. It has been understood that many a time, a patient is readmitted for reasons that are avoidable, which results in repeated efforts for hospitals,
Including a care continuity plan at the time of discharge could help reducing readmission rates, and the providers are incentivized for providing transitional care planning and execution.
Care continuity is made simple with an evolution of Technology, EHR can be integrated to TCM solution and patient information can be accessed at the time of need without many efforts.
Continuous care and real-time monitoring can not only avoid readmission but will enhance the care provided to the individuals.
