On this episode Dr. K speaks with Dr. Helen Burstin, who emphasizes the ongoing need for significant change in healthcare, particularly regarding how equity is integrated into quality measurement. She expresses concern that, while there has been incremental progress, the industry requires a stronger focus on embedding equity into quality assessments. Dr. Burstin advocates for improved data systems to analyze and understand disparities arising from structural racism and other social determinants.
Quality in healthcare, according to Dr. Burstin, involves ensuring that every patient receives the right care at the right time. She highlights that quality metrics should lead to tangible improvements in patient care rather than serving as mere checklists for physicians. A case she shares demonstrates the importance of aligning quality measures with meaningful patient interactions, as seen in the revision of a referral measure to reflect actual patient outcomes.
Key challenges in developing meaningful quality measures arise from the current measures often failing to add value, leading to clinician burnout. Dr. Burstin stresses the need to eliminate ineffective measures and proposes leveraging existing successful measures in developing new ones. She suggests that integrating measure development into clinical guideline updates would result in more relevant and impactful quality metrics.
Furthermore, Dr. Burstin highlights the success of registries created by clinicians for clinicians, which can yield real-time data to facilitate quality improvement. She advocates for collaboration across primary and specialty care sectors to define measures that genuinely enhance patient outcomes and experiences.
Takeaways
- Equity in Quality Measurement: Dr. Burstin calls for a stronger integration of equity into healthcare quality measures, addressing disparities rooted in social determinants and structural racism.
- Value-Driven Metrics: Quality metrics should focus on meaningful patient interactions and outcomes rather than mere compliance, reducing the burden of ineffective measures on healthcare professionals.
- Collaborative Approach: A unified effort between primary care and specialty care sectors is essential to develop relevant measures that improve patient care and experience, leveraging existing successful metrics and real-time data from clinician-led registries.
This article was originally published on the SonarMD website and is republished here with permission.
About the Show
An inside look at value-based care in GI
Listen in as Dr. K brings patients, providers and payers together to reimagine GI care in America. He and his guests will discuss emerging trends, research, care and payment models, technologies, regulatory pressures, policies and more. It’s time for a gut check on how GI can help meet the quadruple aim in healthcare: an improved patient experience, better health of the overall population, lower costs and happier providers.
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About Dr. K
Dr. Lawrence Kosinski (@lrkosinski) is the Founder and Chief Medical Officer of SonarMD – a care coordination and drug optimization solution for gut health. After spending 30+ years of his career as a leading clinician and researcher in gastroenterology, Dr. K is now 100% dedicated to bringing patients, providers and payers together to advance value-based care. Dr. K is routinely tapped to present at leading GI and payer conferences, including DDW, GI Outlook, AHIP and others. He has published numerous research projects and previously served on the governing board of the American Gastroenterological Association.
Read Dr. K’s full bio and learn more about the SonarMD team.