UPMC Analytics Now For Sale
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is now selling analytics which aim to help doctors deliver procedures at low costs.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has announced plans to sell its analytics software. According to Becker’s Hospital Review, the software is designed to help physicians choose the most cost effective treatments for the best patient outcomes.
“The implications for patients, clinicians, and UPMC are sweeping — from better understanding of where and why variations in patient care are occurring to figuring out where best to invest limited capital. Until now, these decisions were based on industry-wide cost estimates that often bore little resemblance to reality,” said UPMC in a press release.
“Health care is moving from volume-based to value-based models of care. To adapt to these sweeping changes, it’s imperative that we understand and measure not only the quality and outcomes of the care that we are delivering, but the true costs of that care across the patient’s entire experience at UPMC,” says UPMC Chief Financial Officer Robert DeMichiei.
“Bringing together activity-based cost and quality measurement is a game changer in health care,” said DeMichiei. “It will allow us to consistently maximize outcomes for our patients while using precious health care resources most effectively.”
Fierce Health IT reports that the software was built by UPMC with in-house physicians in mind. Starting with a baseline of the best health outcomes to be achieved, the program then measures costs including equipment used, patient length of stay, and physician time in the operating room.
“We will always do what’s right for our patients — but now we have a better way of figuring out what is right in terms of producing the highest-quality, most cost-effective care,” says Steven Shapiro, M.D., chief medical and scientific officer. “The health of our patients — and, indeed, the economic health of our country — are at stake.”
“UPMC’s physicians are on the cutting-edge of research and medicine. Now we are playing a leading role in shaping the way that big data, including cost data, will drive evidence-based medicine,” said Shapiro.