Are Your Hospital Clients Lagging Behind Using Patient-Generated Data

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

A recent survey reveals the majority of hospitals are not using patient-reported outcomes.

If decision-makers at your client organizations are at all concerned about MiPS, they’ll want to pay attention to the results of this survey.

As much as incentive programs around the use of patient-generated data have been touted, a Health Catalyst survey revealed they might not be as effective as expected. They survey found less than 20 percent of hospitals regularly used patient-reported outcomes, and about the same number are operating without the technology needed to capture the data in the first place.

They survey involved 100 clinical and administrative executives and revealed other statistics that point to opportunity for VARs.

Only 18 percent of responding hospitals used patient-reported outcomes as a significant factor in informing clinical decision-making. Fortunately, 72 percent indicated they had plans to incorporate measures around patient-reported outcomes within the next one to three years.

Why This Matters For MiPS
CMS has been paying more attention to how patients view their own care. This began as an effort to lower the cost of hip and knee replacements, but has expanded to the proposed Merit-based Incentive Payment System. Self-reported measures would be an influential component of the new payment system.

CMS-incentivized or not, patient-reported outcomes can’t be ignored. According to Paul Horstmeier, Senior Vice President of Health Catalyst, “Patient-reported outcomes are critical to enabling healthcare's evolution away from focusing on the volume of services delivered to the value created for patients. Their use promises seismic changes not only in the way providers are paid, but how they measure success, how patients choose their doctors, and most importantly how clinical outcomes are improved. Yet with few exceptions our nation's hospitals are unprepared for the shift and need help managing this new priority within the ever-shifting field of time-intensive regulatory requirements.”

Understanding Standards
Patient-reported outcomes include any measure of patient symptoms along with physical, cognitive, emotional, and social functioning, as well as general, health-related quality of life. This is a departure from traditional evidence-based guidelines, but an important turn in an industry focused on value based care.

Any VAR interested in working with their clients in implementing patient-reported outcome solutions will benefit from understanding the need to navigate the most common objections — time and/or money, an issue indicated by 36 percent of respondents. Just behind that was the issue of fitting the outcomes in clinician workflow.

Be prepared to discuss these challenges and help your clients navigate them in the long term.