The age of the consumer: 3 thoughts for success in value-based healthcare

Practice Management

In the value-based healthcare system, providers may have to accommodate patients' growing demands for more medical treatments options.  

"Healthcare providers have shifted their focus to meeting consumers where they are and delivering the information they want and in the format they want," says Derek Gordon. Mr. Gordon is the general manager of Healthline Networks subsidiary Talix, a healthcare risk management solutions provider. "This means we will see big spikes in innovations in a new care delivery approaches, such as mobile health, telemedicine and retail health solutions."

 

In a recent survey, Healthline found 71 percent of respondents said they obtain medical treatment at their primary physician's office, yet 20 percent of participants sought care at an urgent clinic, and 13 percent utilized a retail health clinic. To stay afloat in a system where reimbursement is tied to satisfaction scores, medical professionals may employ various technologies to survive the consumer-driven market.

 

Here are three key thoughts:

 

1. Mobile health and telemedicine technologies drive the market. Companies are constantly devising new apps and partnering with physician groups to prescribe apps to their patients as a supplement to their treatment plan. Physicians at the top of their game understand the benefits mobile technologies provide patients.

 

Healthline found popular apps physicians prescribed to patients include food logs and calorie counters, fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, blood sugar monitors and medication reminders. Of the respondents prescribed mobile apps, 90 percent said their experience was the same or better than a physician's office consultation.

 

2. Data analytics can help assess patient populations. "Healthcare organizations are increasingly turning to data analytics technologies to help them better understand their patient populations and drive improved outcomes while reducing costs," Mr. Gordon says. "Moving forward, an increased focus will be placed on unstructured content."

 

Data analysis enables providers to manage the combination of structured and unstructured data, and will allow providers to use predictive analysis on a large scale.

 


3. Population health management should be incentivized. With the aging population, providers can use data to identify high risk patients who may suffer poor outcomes. Data allows providers to assign patients to a risk pool based on a patient's family history, medical history and, in some cases, socioenvironmental factors. In combination with mobile health, providers can understand a patient's history/behaviors and covert this information into meaningful data.

 

"Every patient should be assigned to a risk pool or cohort," explains Mr. Gordon. "Doctors will be much better at their jobs if they have access to the complete range of data they need — data that is accessible at the point of care; data that is accurate; and data that is actionable."

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