Value-based care is a proactive concept that keeps healthcare costs down, produces better health outcomes, and enhances patient experience. It embodies the goals of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Quadruple Aim. It takes time and dedication to make the shift to a value-based model. But your organization’s long-term sustainable success and patients’ ongoing well-being are worth it.
- Patient Education
Patient education is an integral component of Value-Based Care. It is a way to help patients understand their conditions and available options in terms of treatment, as well as how to follow medical instructions. This type of education can also improve patient engagement. Healthier, engaged patients are more likely to comply with doctor’s orders, take their medications, and follow a healthy lifestyle.
Patient educational materials may include everything from brochures to infographics to oral presentations. They can also be offered in multiple languages to accommodate patients with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Some healthcare professionals also participate in the OpenNotes movement, sharing their appointment notes with patients to increase transparency and foster trust.
Technology can also play a role in improving patient education by enhancing communication and access to information. Automated medical answering services can provide educational reminders such as surgical requirements (e.g., “don’t eat or drink anything after midnight before your surgery”) and logistical reminders like office hours.
Increasing patient education is one of the most important ways to improve healthcare outcomes and prevent costly complications. Fortunately, using value based care software makes it easier for independent physicians to coordinate with specialty providers and prioritize patient engagement. This can lead to better patient outcomes and lower costs for the practice. In addition, the use of interoperable EHRs helps providers easily transfer information between different systems and healthcare facilities.
- Patient Engagement
As the healthcare system evolves, patient engagement has become a primary focus for many providers. This is especially true for providers with value-based care contracts.
One of the most common definitions of patient engagement centers on patients gaining the skills and confidence to manage their healthcare needs. This includes patients gathering information about their symptoms and illnesses, making decisions about their treatment options, and following through with aftercare instructions.
Other definitions of patient engagement focus on patients playing a larger role in organizational governance and healthcare policy-making. This can include submitting feedback and suggestions or voting on how to pay for services and which doctors to employ.
Patients often want to make decisions about their health care, but it can be challenging for them to do so. They may need more health literacy and are sometimes reluctant to weigh costs. For example, a Yale Law School student and colleagues studied the willingness of 22 insured patients to consider charges when choosing between nearly identical clinical options (such as whether to have a CT scan or undergo magnetic resonance imaging).
This lack of patient engagement can have significant consequences for medical outcomes. In some cases, it can lead to patients revolving in and out of the hospital with recurring health conditions, like Jarrett’s grandmother, who repeatedly returned to the hospital for exacerbations of her congestive heart failure.
- Population Health Management
Whether managing risk, optimizing outcomes or addressing patient needs, healthcare organizations need the right tools to succeed in value-based care. These tools include electronic health records (EHRs), population health management platforms, telehealth, smart hospitals and digital therapeutics.
Many of these technologies can reduce operational costs while boosting efficiency and improving healthcare quality. However, the challenge is integrating them into clinical workflows and ensuring they’re effective.
A key component is enabling physicians to identify patients at the highest risk of complications or hospitalizations. These patients can then be targeted with care management programs, such as at-home monitoring or medication adherence support, designed to help prevent or delay future medical needs.
Value-based care also requires providers to do a lot of data collection and analysis. This can be particularly challenging for providers taking risks under value-based contracts, such as CINs and ACOs. They need powerful analytics tools to collect, aggregate and analyze data that reflects their performance in fee-for-value contracts. The right software can help them make sense of the data, highlight their strengths and identify potential weaknesses to be more successful under risk.
- Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics uses machine learning to search massive data sets for patterns and correlations. This technology has the potential to revolutionize treatment by predicting patient outcomes and identifying risk factors before they become serious medical problems. It also provides actionable insights that can streamline workflows and improve healthcare results.
For example, predictive analytics can identify when certain equipment will require maintenance. This helps hospitals schedule the work when the equipment will be under the least use, reducing downtime and workflow disruption. In the same way, predictive analytics can help to avoid patient no-shows and other operational challenges by identifying patients who are likely to cancel their appointments so that staff can reach out in advance.
Healthcare is unique because it’s a service industry, and many variables exist in patient care and outcomes. While evidence-based medicine is a great step in the right direction, it’s still easy to make missteps or miss the mark when treating individual patients. Predictive analytics can provide doctors with insights into methods of treatment that will work best for their specific patients.
Conclusion
Healthcare professionals often take on new roles and responsibilities as part of the shift toward value-based care. They’re being asked to coordinate and communicate with colleagues from other practices, healthcare facilities, laboratories, and other stakeholders in their patient’s healthcare journey.