For healthcare providers looking to implement or expand a population health management program, comprehensive data analysis and patient engagement efforts can drive costs up quickly, according to a blog post authored by Kent Locklear, MD, CMO for Lightbeam Health Solutions.
To keep these costs in check, Dr. Locklear argues organizations should have strategy and information technology tools to make population health management programs more targeted, accurate and efficient.
Dr. Locklear highlighted the following five elements as being crucial to ensuring the efficacy of an organization's population health management program.
1. Continuum-wide claims and clinical data allowing organizations to get a holistic view of their patient populations
2. Cleansed and normalized data that can be used to obtain accurate and reliable information about gaps in care
3. Prioritized lists of risk-stratified patients that care managers can use to conduct outreach and engage patients
4. Population health management technology that presents actionable insights in easily interpreted dashboards
5. Outreach efforts designed to improve patient engagement and help patients better manage their chronic conditions
"Once effective [population health management] workflows have been established, organizations can concentrate on long-term strategies," wrote Dr. Locklear. "Using their [population health management] technology, organizations should be able to easily create and access reports to identify opportunities for improvement, isolate root causes and leverage verifiable data to encourage provider behavior changes in support of program guidelines."
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