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Tag: HealthCatalyst

Data For Improving Healthcare vs Data For Exasperating Healthcare Workers

The phrase “healthcare data” either strikes fear and loathing, or provides understanding and resolve in the minds of administration, clinicians, and nurses everywhere. Which emotion it brings out depends on how the data will be used. Data employed as a weapon for purposes of accountability generates fear. Data used as a teaching instrument for learning inspires trust and confidence.

Not all data for accountability is bad. Data used for prescriptive analytics within a security framework, for example, is necessary to reduce or eliminate fraud and abuse. And data for improvement isn’t without its own faults, such as the tendency to perfect it to the point of inefficiency. But the general culture of collecting data to hold people accountable is counterproductive, while collecting data for learning leads to continuous improvement.

This isn’t a matter of eliminating what some may consider to be bad metrics. It’s a matter of shifting the focus away from using metrics for accountability and toward using them for learning so your hospital can start to collect data for improving healthcare.Continue reading…

The Top Five Recommendations For Improving the Patient Experience

Healthcare organizations are working diligently to improve patient satisfaction and the patient experience of care. After all, patient experience of care is a critical quality domain used to evaluate hospital performance under the 2016 CMS Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program (accounts for 25 percent of a hospital’s VBP score)—and comes with the potential for a penalty or bonus.

Patient experience of care is also one of three essential dimensions of the industry-guiding IHI Triple Aim (a framework for optimizing health system performance):

  1. Improving the patient experience of care.
  2. Improving the health of populations.
  3. Reducing the per capita cost of healthcare.

Improving the patient experience can seem like a moving target influenced by a variety of factors. For one, despite the fact that healthcare organizations have been talking about and focusing on patient experience and patient satisfaction for a long time, universally accepted definitions don’t exist. For example, patient satisfaction survey vendors use contrasting language, leading to varying patient interpretations. The industry also lacks conclusive research that proves the connections between patient satisfaction and outcomes. And with so many resources focused on improving patient satisfaction, it’s no surprise healthcare leaders want to understand the connection.

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Making Sense of MACRA

Health Catalyst FlameThe healthcare transformation from fee for service to fee for outcomes just got an adrenaline shot in the arm April 27th when the Department of Health and Human Services surprised many in the market by announcing a Quality Payment Program, a proposed set of new rules to take effect in 2019.

While the dust is yet to settle from the momentous thud of the 962-page proposal that was dropped seven days ago, Bobbi Brown, Health Catalyst Vice President of Financial Engagement, has a head start in understanding the ramifications of this proposal with more than 30 years working across the largest and most complex healthcare organizations.

Get answers to questions like:

  • What does this mean for you?
  • How will it impact your payments?
  • What should you be doing today to prepare?
  • With quality as a key component to payment, how will it be measured?

Learn more about this important webinar for THCB readers here.

Preparing Your Organization for MACRA 1.0

flying cadeuciiWhat does the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), signed into law in 2015, mean for healthcare organizations and providers? At HIMSS 2016, the CMS Center for Clinical Standards and Quality Director, Kate Goodrich, MD, stated MACRA’s goal: “to have a single, unified program with flexibility. The new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) will offer that flexibility and not be a one-size fits all program. The new rule will reimburse physicians based on four factors.”

Health systems are still waiting for additional details about the “four factors” Goodrich mentioned (listed in this article under “MIPS”) or how CMS will reward providers for delivering better care. We’re aware of MACRA’s general structure, but still waiting for clearly defined rules and regulations. Until then, it will be difficult to evaluate this new law.

Even though health systems are currently in a waiting period for clarifying details about the proposed MACRA regulations (with major impacts in 2019), MACRA’s base year will likely be 2017—and 2017 is just around the corner. This article provides an overview of MACRA and guidance about what health systems should do to prepare for MACRA now.

Continue reading…

Is Big Data a Big Deal…or Not?

Dale SandersThe term “Big Data” emerged from Silicon Valley in 2003 to describe the unprecedented volume and velocity of data that was being collected and analyzed by Yahoo, Google, eBay, and others. They had reached an affordability, scalability and performance ceiling with traditional relational database technology that required the development of a new solution, not being met by the relational data base vendors.

Through the Apache Open Source consortium, Hadoop was that new solution. Since then, Hadoop has become the most powerful and popular technology platform for data analysis in the world. But, healthcare being the information technology culture that it is, Hadoop’s adoption in healthcare operations has been slow.

Date: Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Time: 1:00–2:30 PM ET 

In this webinar, Dale Sanders, Executive Vice President of Product Development at HealthCatalyst will explore several questions:

  • What makes Hadoop so attractive and rapidly adopted in other industries but not in healthcare?

This webinar is intended to be valuable to both technical and non-technical audiences, as we explore the convergence of Big Data technology and Healthcare’s Age of Analytics.

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