Analytics Enables Identification of Opportunities to Improve Value and Accountable Care Organization Performance

THE CHALLENGE

Carle Health and Health Alliance attempted to use its data to identify sources of cost and utilization variation, but burdensome manual data collection and reporting processes made it incredibly difficult to identify opportunities for improvement. Obtaining the necessary data was an iterative process that required business intelligence teams and operational leaders to meet multiple times over many weeks. It was not uncommon for it to take two to four months to obtain the data necessary to establish direction for improvement work. Carle needed better analytics that would support performance in population health management initiatives and value-based contracts.

THE PROJECT

Carle leveraged the Health Catalyst^® Data Operating System (DOS™) platform and the Health Catalyst^® Value Optimizer™ analytics application to gain insight into a multitude of cost, utilization, and performance metrics from across ten key population health areas, including inpatient (IP) and skilled nursing facility readmissions, IP discharge disposition, and emergency department (ED) utilization. Carle uses the analytics application to identify sources of cost and utilization variation. The organization can quickly look across service sites including ambulatory, ED, IP, and post-acute care and see variation at the provider, location, patient, or diagnosis level. Combined with patient-level benchmark comparison, Carle can surface impactable opportunities to improve care and address cost and utilization variance.

THE RESULT

Using DOS and Value Optimizer, Carle now has the integrated data and analytics required to understand and improve its risk-based contract performance. The organization can quickly and easily identify and prioritize cost and utilization variation sources and is able to drill into the data to identify actionable opportunities for improvement.

• $100K in manual labor costs avoided, the result of eliminating multiple iterations and meetings to obtain the necessary data and analyses.
• >$10M in cost and utilization opportunity identified.
• >90 percent improvement in analytics efficiency. Analyses that previously required months to complete are now completed in minutes.

“The Value Optimizer allows us to uncover opportunities quickly and easily without building a data set to see the likely impact. We can quickly drill down into the data and recommend potential interventions.”

– Rich Balbach, Director, Clinical and Business Intelligence, Health Alliance