After reading 2016 trends, let's take some action

Maybe you've been sifting through a some of the news and industry posts on 2016 healthcare IT trends. As you read, you might be thinking to yourself, "Hmmm, yes, I can see that <some 2016 trend> would be big in 2016." But what are you going to do about it? That's the real question. 

Below, we also offer some of the most likely trends, but then, in addition, offer concrete actions you can take to move your healthcare organization forward. Here’s to a fantastic 2016!

2016 trend: Changing stakeholder dynamics

Healthcare purchasers will be increasingly consumer-driven including the use of high deductible health plans (HDHPs) and self-referrals. The most successful organizations will refine, brand, and market their services to meet consumer needs while managing costs and care quality outcomes. Organizations will need to increase coordination and engagement with referring providers, individuals, neighboring health systems, and payers to act on the patient’s behalf to attract and retain these consumer-driven patients.

Suggested Plan of Action:

  • Get more patient engagement out of your EHR. Nordic can help you implement EpicCare Link, MyChart Open Scheduling, e-visits, video visits, and other Epic modules and features to improve patient access to your organization.
  • Implement self-pay management. We've developed a tested project toolkit to improve your management of self-pay patient balances to help protect your revenue and allow patients to make informed decisions on their care.
  • Improve care quality and cost management. We can help your clinical specialties improve care quality and outcomes while managing costs through implementation of clinical decision support (CDS).
  • Improve your online presence. We have a service package built with strategic steps towards improving your web presence and notoriety to help you stay top-of-mind for consumers. 

2016 trend: Increasing emphasis on value-based care and population health

Image of Nordic consultants laying out a plan of actionAn increasing percentage of revenue from both government and commercial payers is being tied to patient safety and clinical outcomes and is expected to gradually climb to 50 percent of reimbursement by 2018*. These increasing value-based care incentives will push organizations to provide more care coordination, population health, and preventive medicine services. It will be more important than ever for organizations to understand incentive programs, increase negotiations with payers on risk-based contracts, and partner with external organizations in ACO models.

Suggested plan of action: 

  • Understand the changing incentive model. Review the Merit-Based Payment Incentive System (MIPS) and understand adjustments to Medicare alternative payment models here.
  • Improve care coordination. We can help you improve care coordination and education through a comprehensive suite of solutions focused on managing the patient care team as well as patients, clinics, and payers across all care mediums including pre-visit authorizations and preparation, acute care, transitions of care, and chronic care management.
  • Develop population health capabilities. We can help you identify and stratify your patient population, develop registries, engage patients and families in their care, and deliver the right interventions at the right time in the right medium to get results. We offer advisory solutions to help you develop and improve your program as well as deep knowledge of Epic’s Healthy Planet application to integrate your EHR and power your efforts.
  • Empower revenue integrity. We can help your revenue integrity department revise revenue capture and reconciliation processes to align with changing payer contracts and reimbursement requirements to protect your bottom line.
  • Increase reporting transparency. We can help you review your existing reporting infrastructure and clinical outcome reports to ensure you can meet payer and regulatory requests. We can also help you automate chart abstraction and leverage report data to improve clinical care

2016 trend: Clinical standardization and evidence-based care proliferation

Value-based care reimbursement will drive increased focus on providing those services that drive to the greatest outcomes and EHR data will allow research and action on discrete improvement areas. Clinical standardization and evidence-based care is becoming more feasible than ever and providers, are understanding the value. Organizations will implement care standardization to meet quality outcomes and patient safety requirements while also controlling the cost of care and reimbursement.

Suggested plan of action: 

  • Optimize clinical systems. We can help you improve system usability and align operational processes with EHR workflows to ensure data is collected to support analysis of clinical interventions and outcomes and allow for targeting and implementing care improvement.
  • Develop governance committees. Organizational governance committees with strong leadership and clinician involvement is critical to messaging to systematically review best practices and manage clinician engagement, education, and collaboration.
  • Extend your reporting framework. We can help you establish and improve data governance, build reporting infrastructure and foundational reports, as well as use your data to support business intelligence and predicative analytics to support research, inform decision makers, and drive care improvement.
  • Implement clinical decision support (CDS). We can help you assess current quality, safety, and outcome metrics relative to patient diagnoses and maximize the use of Epic’s tools to direct clinicians to recommended order sets, interventions, and care plans.

Additional quick wins in 2016:

  • Competing priorities will continue to present challenges to CIOs who will need to balance must-do-projects with routine system maintenance and implement those solutions that best align with operational needs and organizational goals.
    • Work with us to Improve governance and prioritization with our Advisory Solutions team, prioritization matrix, and roadmap workshop.
  • The implementation of e-prescribing for controlled substances will continue to be a priority in New York, Ohio, and other states.
    • Work with us to Implement e-prescribing to support dual authentication and smoothly integrate with clinical workflows. 
  • Organizations will continue to position for market share and position themselves as industry leaders while achieving economies of scale. This will drive
    • Ongoing need for right-sizing of service lines and specialties.
    • Further consolidation with more mergers, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships.
      • Our Affiliate Solutions team can help you roll out your EHR to community hospitals and clinics. 
      • Work with us to Roll out EpicCare Link to your community physicians to increase visibility and coordination. 
    • EHR optimization focused on further differentiation of tool set for specialties. Optimize your clinical specialties to align operational processes with your EHR, streamline workflows, and implement clinical decision support. 

In conclusion

We hope you found this discussion helpful. If you'd like to discuss any of these trends or next steps - big or small - with us, please get in touch. We'd enjoy the conversation. 

CONTACT US

*Goals from Medicare: http://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2015/01/26/better-smarter-healthier-in-historic-announcement-hhs-sets-clear-goals-and-timeline-for-shifting-medicare-reimbursements-from-volume-to-value.html

Topics: patient engagement, EpicCare Link, Performance Improvement

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