Elevating Patient Outcomes Through Interoperability
By Ashay Thakur, VP of Data Strategy, Cedar Gate Technologies
LinkedIn: Ashay Thakur
LinkedIn: Cedar Gate Technologies
Data interoperability remains one of the biggest hurdles to efficient, cost-effective, and high-quality healthcare. That is especially true for long-term care (LTC) facilities, where patients often reside for extended periods—sometimes for the remainder of their lives or until they transition to hospice care. However, many LTC facilities still face challenges that complicate their ability to enhance care quality while lowering costs, which are key goals of value-based care (VBC) programs.
LTC providers find themselves trapped by the necessity of bringing together data from disparate sources, while often constrained by legacy systems and limited resources. This hinders their ability to align clinical, operational, and financial goals under a VBC framework. When these facilities cannot integrate data effectively, it obstructs a clinical team’s ability to offer optimal care, limits revenue opportunities from new VBC initiatives, and cause significant disruptions to patient care and administration.
Key data challenges in LTC settings include:
- Integrating Disparate Data Sources: LTC patients often have conditions that require continuous monitoring and frequent communication with external providers. Many of these patients receive care from multiple specialists, undergo procedures in hospitals, or take medications prescribed by primary care physicians (PCPs). The need for seamless data sharing across various sources is critical, yet much of this data exists in different systems or formats, complicating its use.
LTCs need advanced enterprise data management (EDM) systems to create a single, unified source of truth. When information in an LTC’s database is standardized and unified, care providers can feel confident they have the most accurate and up-to-date information available for every patient.
- Patient-Centric Data Integration: Many LTC residents have long and complex medical histories, so maintaining comprehensive, longitudinal data throughout their care journey is essential. An integrated dataset that includes historical and current medical information on treatment protocols provides the most accurate view of each patient’s needs when they enter the LTC facility. EDM tools that enrich data and stitch it to each member can provide better-quality information, so it follows them throughout their care journey. This ensures high-quality care, eliminates errors, and improves outcomes.
- Ensuring Continuity of Care: True data interoperability requires that information be available in actionable formats usable across various analytical, care management, and payment systems. Data stored in non-searchable formats limits care providers’ ability to access the full scope of information on a patient and can undermine continuity of care. Effective data management systems must convert and deliver data in actionable formats, ensuring seamless care transitions.
The Impact of Enterprise Data Management Systems in Long-Term Care
To address these challenges, LTC facilities should be embracing sophisticated EDM systems that serve as the backbone of data alignment across the healthcare continuum. These systems offer several key benefits, including:
- Creating a unified data ecosystem
- Providing a comprehensive and enriched dataset
- Consolidating information from various sources, including electronic health records (EHRs), claims data, and social determinants of health
When long-term care facilities have a more universal view of patient history and needs, they can also use the information to improve care. Analytics data – including machine learning and AI tools – pulled from a unified enterprise data management platform can provide predictive analytics and clinical decision support for LTC providers. Additionally, a comprehensive and advanced EDM facilitates seamless data exchange with external care providers to share relevant information on a patient’s care journey. This enhanced communication fosters improved care coordination and outcomes.
Finally, safeguarding patient privacy is paramount in LTC settings where data sharing across multiple settings is required. Robust security measures within EDM systems ensure that patient information remains protected while allowing the necessary flow of data across care providers and facilities.
Elevating Long-Term Care: VBC’s Impact on Patient Outcomes
Addressing data interoperability challenges is the key to unlocking VBC’s full potential in long-term care settings. Technological alignment is crucial to ensuring LTC facilities can achieve their goals of lowering costs while improving care quality and enhancing care coordination. This approach helps LTC facilities meet their mission of providing high-quality care for residents who are unable to live independently, through the end of their life. With access to real-time, actionable data, these facilities can proactively manage care transitions, improve patient outcomes, and strengthen their role in the broader healthcare continuum.