19 Nov Plotting the ACO Roadmap: Leveraging the Appropriate Technology

Source: Healthcare IT News

In part one of this series, we discussed thinking about becoming an ACO and the strategic foundation necessary to accomplish that. In part two, we discussed how patient engagement is another important element of successful ACOs. In this third installment, we’ll look at ACOs from a technology perspective.

Launching and sustaining an accountable care organization (ACO) without robust technology is like building a house without power tools. It can be done, but it will take a lot of time and resources to accomplish. Furthermore, the final product may not be as good–or sophisticated–as it could be.

Technology, including electronic health records; data acquisition, aggregation, and normalization; financial and clinical analytics; patient engagement applications; and care management software (collectively called population health management solutions), can help ACOs efficiently identify at-risk patients and proactively transition them into cost-effective care–activities that are essential to any well-performing operation. These solutions can also enable more accurate and streamlined quality and cost reporting. Without such automated tools, an ACO may miss opportunities, overlooking potential risks and falling short in managing the health and care costs of a designated population.

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