If you wait for lagging outcomes, such as readmissions, it may be months before you realize if the initiative is working or not, explained Susan Mani, MD, vice president of Clinical Transformation and Ambulatory Quality at LifeBridge Health.
If you wait for lagging outcomes, such as readmissions, it may be months before you realize if the initiative is working or not, explained Susan Mani, MD, vice president of Clinical Transformation and Ambulatory Quality at LifeBridge Health.
Transcript
Why is it important to not just look at endgame outcomes but also process outcomes when determining the value of initiatives addressing social determinants of health?
That is critical to success. If you wait and look for what I call a lagging outcome, like readmissions, you may go months before realizing the initiative of programs you have in place really are not moving the needle. What we had to do operationally was break it down into specific behaviors, which led to some process measures our team could follow. If we know that we had issues around access, then how well are we doing with our access? Is every patient getting a follow-up appointment within the specified time period, and not only are they getting they appointment on discharge, are they actually getting to that appointment? That really tells us if we’re getting successful with our measures. Same thing when we were talking about transportation. Which of our patients really had an assessment done to see whether they had transportation issues, and did we actually supply them with their transportation needs?
Medication is another perfect example. So, in all of those, it really led down to what are the specific behaviors that our physicians needed to do, and how well are we doing it, what are the specific things our care management teams needed to do and our nurses needed to do, and also for our patients and their families, they’re very integral to their own care plan; so, how well are we doing at engaging our patients and their families? By looking at those things month to month, we know well ahead of the time of our readmissions how well we are going to do.
The Importance of Examining and Preventing Atrial Fibrillation
August 29th 2023At this year’s American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention, Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, delivered the Honorary Fellow Award Lecture, “The Imperative to Focus on the Prevention of Atrial Fibrillation,” as the recipient of this year’s Honorary Fellow of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology award.
Listen
Navigating Medicare's Part D Subsidy Program to Achieve Value-Based Care
May 26th 2023On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with the lead researcher from a study published in the May 2023 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about the impact of low-income subsidies on the uptake and equitable use of expensive orally administered antimyeloma therapy.
Listen
What Mass General Brigham Is Doing to Combat Prostate Cancer Disparities Among Men of Color
May 5th 2024Quoc-Dien Trinh, MD, MBA, chief of urology at Brigham & Women's Faulkner Hospital, highlighted successful efforts to improve prostate cancer care access for underserved communities in Massachusetts.
Read More