Curation

A recent piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association discussed the current administration’s efforts to address clinician burnout and improve usability of and satisfaction with healthcare technology. While the article stresses three important areas of focus such as improved health IT system designs, enhanced system configuration decisions, and increased end user training during health IT implementation, it misses the mark on additional challenge areas – particularly as it relates to two significant shifts in how care is delivered.

As more providers and payers make the transition away from offices and hospitals to living rooms, they are increasingly looking to embrace new value-driven approaches to patient care.

The first shift is the move to home-based models of care and the second is the transition to value over volume – both go hand-in-hand to some degree. As more providers and payers make the transition away from offices and hospitals to living rooms , they are increasingly looking to embrace new value-driven approaches to patient care. These new approaches include, but are not limited to, longer visits that prioritize a holistic understanding of the patient while focusing on relationship building – and expanding the type of care team members in the patients’ home.

These changes and others associated with the move to home-based care models mean physicians and care teams need to fundamentally shift their practice of medicine – and in a good way. Still, change is never easy – especially amid a pandemic.

Healthcare organizations looking to adopt at-home, value-driven care models while supporting their clinical staff through this transition should carefully consider the appropriate role technology can play in simplifying these changes. More so, these organizations would be well-served to consider lessons learned from the widespread adoption of healthcare technology over the last decade and move to reduce, not increase, the administrative burden for providers.

If the end goal of value-based care is driving improved outcomes and reducing costs over time, we must “begin at the beginning” – with the doctor and the patient at the point of care.

As part of the strategy to streamline adoption of home-based, value-driven care, healthcare organizations should ensure clinicians have the tools and support to make these efforts successful. If the end goal of value-based care is driving improved outcomes and reducing costs over time, we must “begin at the beginning” – with the doctor and the patient at the point of care. Organizations that are adding new workflows, data and administrative duties to doctors are missing the point and are setting themselves up for failure. As one of my close physician friends recently shared, if it’s not in the current electronic health record workflow, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. Doctors simply don’t have additional time and mindshare to offer up to mediocre technology – even if it supports improved patient outcomes.

With much of the healthcare industry focused on bringing at-home models of care to market in support of the transition to value-based care, building on what we have learned from the pandemic, clinician experience matters more than ever. We need to collectively look to adopt technologies and best practices that are provider approved and focused on workflow. Doing so will allow clinicians and care teams to focus on making personalized, holistic, at-home patient care a reality – while reducing the mental drain associated with paperwork and technological challenges.

 

 

Curation Health helps providers and health plans navigate and scale from fee-for-service to value-based care. Our advanced clinical decision support platform for value-based care drives more accurate risk adjustment and quality program performance by curating and delivering relevant, real-time insights to the clinician and care team. For more information, visit www.curationhealth.com.