Analytics Help Fill Gaps In Patient Engagement

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Using analytics drives the right information to the right people at the right time.

According to The Washington Post, a physician sees 19 patients and has 2,367 under their overall care and purview on an average day, and there is only so much traditional healthcare organizations — health plans and providers — can do to support them.

Since 99 percent of the work to become the healthiest version of ourselves (think behavior changes) happens outside of the parameters of the traditional healthcare system, having a 360-degree view of a patient based on data from inside and outside of the healthcare system is critical.

Combined with analytics, comprehensive data about an individual can fill up 20 to 30 percent of the gaps in program engagement, outreach costs, and medication adherence. This combination of consumer and traditional health data can help population health managers stratify patient populations, proactively identifying individuals’ needs; identify what those individuals will be most receptive to; and create the best and most feasible care path to achieve the desired outcomes.

According to Phil Fiero, SVP of Analytics at Welltok Analytics, “Analytics is a core component of any population health manager’s toolkit and ensures that the right individuals are targeted with the right information at the right time to drive true health impact. In order to facilitate true savings from population health programs, it is critical that population health managers need to know each individuals risk level, the key drivers of their risk, and propensity to change their behavior, if engaged.

“As population health needs expand, and resources become limited, analytics is even more critical to ensure that population health managers are spending their time wisely and productively. Analytics is key to optimizing population health programs resources by delivering a catered and highly personalized approach to and condition management program.”

In order to properly motivate healthcare consumers, healthcare providers should consider all types of patient-level data, including HRA, claims, demographics, clinical and activity data.

“Organizations often struggle to identify the most impactful programs and engagement channels for their at-risk populations, especially at the individual level,” said Fiero. “Through our unique predictive modeling capabilities, we generate meaningful and actionable insights that enable our customers to identify the real opportunities for quality improvement, compliance and cost savings through a highly optimized and efficient approach.”