6 Types of Data Critical to Population Health Management
Data is crucial to understanding the population whose health you wish to manage and design programs for, which is why data analytics are so important. There are six types of data that effectively drive successful population health management (PHM):
- Clinical data is biometric data, lab data, and possibly health risk assessment (HRA) data that determines risks and cost drivers and that tracks the success of a health program.
- Utilization data deals with patterns of implementation. For example, how are people accessing their healthcare?
- Adherence data has to do with questions concerning preventative care and medication. How well do members and providers comply with medicine guidelines? Are prescriptions filled consistently? Do patients receive preventative care?
- Operational data is participation data, productivity data, disability data and other information that helps monitor and develop the program
- Financial data indicates how healthcare activity you’re offering translates to dollars and opportunities for hard dollar saving. This data is crucial in order to receive senior management support and finances to sustain the program.
- Satisfaction data monitors how participants and your key stakeholders view your program efforts.
Keep these critical data areas in mind when developing population health management programs.
Source: Healthcare Intelligence Network, 6/26/14
Hospitals Use Consumer Data for Population Health Management
Potential controversy simmers as some hospitals begin to use comprehensive consumer data to create files on current and potential patients to determine who is most vulnerable to disease. Information is collected from public records and credit card transactions and then plugged into predictive models that score patients by risk level. They do not disclose shopping transactions – like cigarette purchases – directly to patients’ doctors (yet), they just provide the risk score so care teams are informed about which patients are at highest risk for complications and high cost interventions.
“What we are looking to find are people before they end up in trouble,” said Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes at Carolinas Healthcare System. “The idea is to use big data and predictive models to think about population health and drill down to the individual levels to find someone running into trouble that we can reach out to and try to help out.”
With Pennsylvania exercising its enormous data system and hospitals in the Carolinas signing on to consumer data utilization, population health management is rapidly transforming. This trend is driven by payment reforms tying payment to clinical outcomes, but patients are skeptical nonetheless. Their main concern is that these consumer data profiles will undermine doctor-patient relationships and violate privacy. Two of the largest data brokers who gather consumer data, Acxiom Corp. and Lexis Nexis, reassure uneasy individuals that they never sell consumer data for the purpose of health risk identification.
As critics remain skeptical about the use of consumer data in population health management, supporters claim that healthcare reform demands proactive managed care and extremely targeted interventions.
Source: Bloomberg, 6/26/14
GetWellNetwork Increases Satisfaction, Morale and Efficiency
Florida Hospital Celebration Health has effectively improved patient satisfaction and built a culture of patient empowerment with the help of GetWellNetwork. Florida Hospital patients access GetWellNetwork from televisions installed in their rooms. The advanced program identifies hospital employees when they enter the room, displays options such as meal menus, and enables patients to directly contact different hospital departments depending on their specific need.
This last feature has the potential to revolutionize hospital efficiency, as all too often nurses are constantly called to tend to menial tasks that could be more systematically handled by the nutrition or tech departments, while they could be spending precious time on medical tasks that require their special training. GetWellNetwork also records requests, compliments and complaints which are incorporated in employee training, personnel allocation and human resources. The data is also used to commend nurses for outstanding service to patients and their families by presenting them DAISY Awards.
As a result of GetWellNetwork, Florida Hospital Celebration Health’s heart failure readmission rates have dropped 49.4% and staff responsiveness has increased by 9.5%. The numbers speak for themselves as GetWellNework is positioned at the forefront of revolutionizing patient engagement in the hospital.
Source: InformationWeek Healthcare, 6/20/14
Google Fit Takes Shape
Google Fit took shape at an I/O conference last week where its preview platform was demo-ed. Google Fit is a set of APIs that will enable developers to sync data over wearables and devices. The idea is to compile and integrate fitness data from a variety of programs, and is similar to Apple’s HealthKit platform.
Google Fit was demo-ed with a weight loss app called Noom and Google also mentioned the platform’s incorporation of Adidas smart sensors and a partnership with Nike Fuel that will give Google Fit access to Nike Fuel data.
Apple’s HealthKit is old news, as Google announced that the Google Fit software development kit will become available to the public in a couple of weeks.
Source: Tech Crunch, 6/25/14