I recently had the pleasure of providing the closing remarks at the event “Closing the Gaps: Benefits of HIE for Care Coordination”- jointly hosted by Healthix, the largest public HIE in the US and IBM. The topic focused on the need for richer, real-time, actionable data to support care coordination and analytics, with Laurel Pickering, President and CEO of Northeast Business Group on Health starting the conversation with an update on the New York State Innovation Model (SIM) Grant Program and its impact on public and private payers and health plans.
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It was a pleasure listening to the panelists at the event – Tony Trenkle, Chief Health Information Officer for IBM Global Healthcare, Dr. Kevin Carr, Partner for Population Health and Value Lead at Price Waterhouse Management Consultants, Dr. Deborah Hammond, Vice President and Medical Director from Health First, and Tom Check, the Healthix President and CEO. The health information exchange function, and particularly health information exchange organizations like Healthix, are the information highway on the journey to value-based payments and population health programs and initiatives. Breaking down the historical silos of data and care delivery sites (with their expansive data) is essential to engaging consumers in their health care, and guiding their path to wellness.
As the panelists discussed the challenges facing data exchange, analytics, and population health, particularly from a payer/health plan perspective, I was struck by the recurring conversation on the topic of building and demonstrating trust from a consumer and provider perspective. I had anticipated some element of this discussion, but not to the degree articulated. Based on what I heard from the panelists, I could identify four key pathways for building trust:
- Transparency: In most instances, transparency is tantamount to building trust, and must be exhibited across all stakeholders. The roadmap should include transparency from a financial, clinical and risk perspective. With transparency – suspicion, misunderstanding and doubt diminishes, consumer engagement should increase, and the goals of improving quality while managing or decreasing costs should be achieved.
- Data Exchange: Essential to building trust in data is the need to share data across borders, whether they are geographic, institutional, regulatory or political. Tom Check shared the Healthix experience in working as a partner in the NYC-Clinical Data Network (CDRN) PCORI funded research program, and described how seven competing research organizations are sharing data while protecting privacy and advancing clinical research.
- Decision Support: The “super highway” of data, including claims provided by health plans, medications, lab results, encounter and care delivery must be integrated to serve both payers and consumers as they travel the highway together to achieve common goals. Integrating trusted data in a real-time basis to support care delivery, as well as warehouse or data lakes to support analytics and research, must be a priority for all constituents.
- Consent: Building trust through consumer engagement, and securing and using appropriate/required consents, is essential. This is not easy, particularly in NY State with a myriad of consent regulations that guide data sharing for minors, special conditions, treatment and operations, as well as federal requirements. Nevertheless, it must be addressed early to ensure consumers understand and allow their data to follow their treatment plans and sites.
I closed the program sharing the heightened need to build trust through effective, timely matching of patient and provider data. The market demand for better matching of patient and provider data has reached an even higher pitch as data is used in all facets of care delivery, care coordination, and analytics. IBM is proud to have assisted Healthix in this quest.
Watch this video to see how IBM’s Master Data Management solutions helps provide a trusted 360-degree view of your patient and provider data leading to increased efficiency and savings. Visit IBM’s Master Data Management page to achieve this trusted view.
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