Tag Archives: patient-centric

MACRA: The Yardstick for Quality that Health Systems Need

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yard stickThe number of quality initiatives is rapidly rising in the healthcare industry as stakeholders shift their focus toward the value of patient care. In addition, with the recent implementation of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), the rules surrounding healthcare reimbursement are being rewritten, incentivizing healthcare providers to prioritize the quality of patient visits over the quantity.

Historically, it has been difficult to achieve consensus on defining quality; therefore, it was not consistently measured. MACRA provides tools to assess quality of care, and lays the foundation for a future in which payers and providers must collaborate in new ways driven by patient data.

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Patient-centric Approaches to Data are Great…Except When They’re Not

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infrastructureIn a variety of recent private and panel discussions with health and policy leaders, I’ve heard encouraging talk around interoperability through open and available application programming interfaces (APIs). Public comments by Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt indicate there is sincere commitment to making this a reality.

While this momentum seems promising, when Meaningful Use Stage 3 is mentioned – particularly its requirements for making data available to patient facing applications – I see the potential for unintended and terrible consequences for clinician workflows.

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Bringing Mobile Capabilities to the…Desktop?

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ImageThe demand for patient-centric tools to mobilize EMR and medical device data in a single viewer is obvious. All the major providers I talk to, including Dignity Health and Ardent Health, already have a plan to go mobile. But now it’s time to put practical plans in place to implement the strategy.

The best way to go mobile is to support all form factors. In parallel with mHealth implementation, providers should bring the look and feel (i.e. touchscreens) of mobile technologies to physicians’ desktops and laptops. After all, that’s what they are still primarily using when they are not on the go.

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