Surgical Services

Low back pain (LBP) is a common and expensive problem. The annual cost to patients, employers, and insurers collectively exceeds $100 billion in the U.S. alone. Additionally, LBP care treatment variations, impact outcomes. In 2011, Allina Health created the Spine Institute to deliver care that supports the IHI Triple Aim in the treatment of spine disorders and LBP. All clinical disciplines involved in spine care are part of the program, and care providers follow standard spine care and management evidence-based models. Access to quality data enables Allina to measure performance across providers. With this successful spine care coordination program and advanced clinical analytics, Allina has reduced length of stay by 16 percent and post-op complications by 3.6 percent, while projecting $2.7 million in savings.

Mission Health in North Carolina has always been dedicated to expanding access to care. To preserve this commitment in an era of declining reimbursement rates, Mission needed better access to data for quick and flexible decision-making. As at most hospitals, operating rooms are Mission’s biggest revenue generator, but they also represent a significant cost center. So, leveraging their new analytics capabilities to drive operational improvements across their system of operating rooms was a strategic opportunity. Mission now has improved ability to drive care and operational improvements with integrated data and analytic tools like their OR Dashboard—resulting in dramatic improvements including a 20% increase in first-case on-time surgical starts.

Spinal problems are a common issue with a profound impact on healthcare costs. Faced with the high cost of surgical spine care in an industry transitioning to value-based payments, health systems need analytic solutions to evaluate the effectiveness of surgical interventions. Read how this medical center: 1) built a Spine Registry, 2) drove patient engagement through patient portal usage, 3) integrated data from a multitude of quality of life surveys, and 4) developed a healthcare analytics platform to measure spinal surgery outcomes.