Recently, fledgling ACOS have been hard hit by increasing demands coming from all sides: legislation targeting health care organizations have drawn attention to healthcare providers’ inefficiencies across the board—increased costs, reduced care, poor performance, inefficient communication between care team providers, billing issues—the list goes on.  On Monday, February 15, 2015, federal officials unveiled a plan to shift 50% of the spending not devoted to managed care – roughly $362 billion last year – into accountable care bundled payments and other contracts with the potential for rewards or penalties based on quality performance and better cost control.  “We believe these goals can drive transformative change, help us manage and track progress, and create accountability for measurable improvement,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.(1)

Creating those goals and measuring whether or not those goals are reached is the work of a robust population health management system that can not only organize EHR data effectively, but must  communicate that data efficiently, identify areas of weakness, recommend actions, and drive those actions through targeted, individualized plans that get to the right people. This solution exists: TopCare powered by Blender™ makes the integration of disparate data sources seamless, and, using smart technology, can drive the changes that ACOs need to see happen in order to demonstrate viability and improved care.
 
If an ACO is going to function successfully, there are a number of factors that must be in place:
• EHRs
• Health Information Exchange Capability
• Data Integration
• Clinical Decision Support
• Population Health Management Technology
 
EHRs are the software platform that manages the collection of crucial patient health information compiled electronically in order  to be accessible to different care providers at the same time. Health Information Exchange Capability is the electronic sharing of information from multiple sources, based on a set of nationally recognized standards. However, throughout the process of creating electronic patient records, it was discovered that the records are often only as useful as their accessibility.  In other words this critical patient information is only available in the platform where it was created.  This is why many difficulties have arisen—incompatibility between programs and trouble accessing important patient information can, and has, impeded patients’ care. Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified/standard view of the data.  This process becomes significant in developing a robust population health strategy. Data integration appears with increasing frequency as the volume and the need to share existing data explodes. Clinical Decision Support provides clinicians, staff, patients or caregivers with information, filtered and presented at the right times, to improve health and health care. And finally, Population Health Technology allows providers to identify populations with chronic or multiple conditions, separate those populations for specific treatment, and monitor the outcomes over time. It also can provide direct care tools like remote monitoring of patient status to identify potential pitfalls, such as a record of missed appointments, before they turn into costly ER visits or hospital stays, while mobile technologies provide automated reminders that move patients toward making better daily health choices.
 
In order for any ACO to function smoothly and increase the quality of care while also reducing costs, it must rely on data interoperability and collaboration between care team members, hospital administration, and the community, to make the patient  data matter. Bringing together disparate patient data, e.g., ADT, claims, PMS, EHR, pharmacy data, and providing users with a unified view of these data elements is a key in ACOs success. Many ACOs have purchased different tools to address these needs, creating a data silo approach, however, for many, interoperability has become an even bigger challenge. Ideally, there needs to be one integrated tool that is able to meet the needs of an ACO in order for that ACO to truly thrive, one that creates a bridge between current technology and that ACO’s needs. Technology solutions like TopCare powered by Blender™ do just that.
 
Making the leap to a secure, interoperable population management system, one that eradicates delays, focuses on patient needs and encourages collaborative, patient-centered care, is the missing link between EHRs and quality care for ACOs. The best care requires seamless data sharing between clinicians, care team providers,  physicians, pharmacies and patients. TopCare powered by Blender™ offers ACOs seamless care coordination, shared workspaces, actionable analytics, and interoperability. Increased efficiency equals increased cost-savings, creating a health community where an organization’s patient data sources  can be effectively integrated and used to improve health and increase savings while reducing cost.