New Year, New Data-Driven Healthcare Trends
By Betsy Jones, EBSCO Health
The physician-editors of our electronic clinical reference resource know a thing or two about data. They scour more than 27,000 articles in peer-reviewed journals each year, examine and weigh the strength of evidence each study offers, and translate it into more than 8,000 quick-to-digest summaries physicians and other practitioners can use at the point of care.
Following are five ways, based on the evidence, patient care will be affected by health IT, payer data mandates, and other tech trends disrupting clinical workflows in the coming year.
The Certified Medical Assistants Profession Will Expand
Only credentialed medical assistants may conduct order entry for electronic patient records, according to the Meaningful Use Stage 2 guidelines. CMAs will take a greater role in entering documentation and providing physicians with reference information to determine care plans. It’s more critical than ever that the industry include CMAs as part of the clinical team accessing clinical content and decision support data tools.
Clinical Content Is King – And Access Will Grow
New payment models are driving industry consolidation. Hospitals and health systems are buying up more privately owned practices than ever before in order to fulfill ACO participation goals. While some healthcare observers aren’t sure if this consolidation is positive, there is a silver lining: Physicians who work for new hospital employers typically gain access to more sophisticated EHRs that offer more data than they could afford on their own. These EHRs often include a subscription to integrated clinical content that enables more accurate, efficient patient care.
Patient Risk Assessment Will Factor More Into Physician Decisions
Accountable care now will include data-driven risk justifications. In order to reduce healthcare costs, physicians will consistently use overall risk prediction and absolute risk estimates for individual patients to guide decision making. They should forego the practice of chasing and treating for lab test values without considering the overall absolute risk to the patient.
Quality Standards Will Reflect Clinical Evidence More Than Ever
Healthcare providers must improve care for new payment models, which move away from fee-for-service and toward fee-for-wellness. Evidence-based quality measures will gain likely gain traction in the healthcare as payers and providers alike look for ways to improve the health of their patients, especially those with chronic diseases and standardize those improvements across healthcare organizations.
Patient Communication Will Evolve To Meet Engagement Requirements
Now more than ever, patients are expected to take on more responsibility for their care, both in co-pays and care decisions. To facilitate more patient engagement, providers will have to offer more data in the form of better-explained diagnoses — what they know and what they don’t — along with treatment options, to help patients participate in this shared decision-making process.
According to current statistics from the U.S. Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, EHR saturation crested the 75 percent mark among healthcare providers late last fall. These technology changes, along with the data-driven accountable care payment model set in motion by the Affordable Care Act and its private-payer cousins that include risk-sharing ideas that force physicians and patients to carry a stake in wellness and care quality, might be a little intimidating at first blush to patients and providers alike.
But the idea that we can improve healthcare through data and technology is not a new idea. It’s been the foundation of treatment research and discovery as well as device development for centuries. Data and content, like the stethoscope and MRI machine, are just the latest tool to gain better insights into a patient’s care — and healing.
About The Author
Betsy Jones is Vice President of Medical Product Management and Chief Content Officer, EBSCO Health.