From Lehigh Valley Business: Presidents’ Forecast Message 2016
The year 2003 was a tipping point in mobile connectivity for the masses. Nokia’s model 1100 cell phone sold an astounding 250 million units worldwide. To see how far technology has evolved since, look only as far as your own smartphone.
Another innovative model was showcased in 2003. On December 4th, The Morning Call published an opinion feature issued in my role at that time as executive director of the Lehigh Valley Physician Hospital Organization, Inc. (LVPHO). The headline: “Lehigh Valley has model for better cost control.”
It told of an LVPHO-developed disease management program which (A.) targeted factors driving higher health costs, and (B.) engaged doctors with the clinical tools to contain them. It ended with the prescient conclusion: “The bottom line: data collected from our disease management program is proving to be an excellent ‘real world’ demonstration to both insurance companies and employers that this is a proven way to lower long-term health care costs through improved employee health.”
Forward to 2016: America’s health care delivery system is evolving as exponentially as that now-neanderthal Nokia 1100 morphed into today’s smartphone. A data-driven discipline called “Population Health Management” is how progressive health care networks, insurers and employers are now reining in health care costs and improving patient health. Locally, an entirely new population health management and analytics services company—Populytics—is showing employers how to achieve unprecedented levels of health plan care quality and cost-efficiency.
Those early fundamentals remain immutable: find health problems as early as possible and address them to prevent higher costs later. But today’s game-changers are current analytics technology and care coordination tactics. In terms of clinical and economic performance, we are worlds ahead of where we were even just a few years ago.
Populytics’ analytics are derived from two sources: health insurance claims (from large insurers, company health plans, etc.) and clinical data (from medical sources—physician/hospital electronic records, pharmaceutical histories, health registries, etc.)
Advanced technology enables us to transform raw data into an analytical picture of each population’s health. Individuals that may benefit from preventive care can be identified through risk stratification and predictive modeling. Our analytics also identify opportunities to enhance care coordination and help avert costly care gaps.
Populytics’ analytics also provide actionable information for the second stage of population health management success: care management. Equipped with analytics identifying high-risk patients, clinical care coordination teams working with the patient’s primary care physician have proven highly effective in achieving better health outcomes and reducing avoidable costs for high-risk patients.
Headquartered in Allentown, Populytics provides employers, brokers, hospitals and health systems, Accountable Care Organizations, providers and other health-related organizations with any or all of these core service offerings:
-Population Health Analytics
-Health Benefits Administration & Consulting
-Clinical Care Coordination
-BeneFIT Corporate WellnessSM Services
