Electronic Health Reporter

Guest post by Mark Ott, vice president of product, RoundingWell.

As 2016 unfolds, the move from fee-for-service to value-based care is entering a more advanced stage. As the process evolves, priorities for healthcare providers of resources, teams and tools becomes more convoluted. To keep on track, both for healthcare organizations and CMS changes, providers should keep in mind the following:

The care management/coordination record rises in importance, especially as team-based care models expand

Some call it a care management medical record and others call it a care coordination record. Regardless of the term, the concept is essentially the same. EHRs are basically encounter management systems, but as care expands beyond the in-person encounter, capturing and tracking what happens between patient visits will be of utmost importance. In addition, enabling care teams to stay on the same page about a patient’s care plan, track action steps, and reduce the friction of working together will be crucial to succeeding in a value-based world. Expect to see the Care Management Record concept start catching fire in 2016.

Demand will increase for consumer-grade user experiences in healthcare enterprise software

For so long, clinicians on the frontlines of care delivery have had to struggle with software that’s hard to use, difficult and downright frustrating. The biggest culprit for poor user experiences in healthcare software has to do with the enterprise purchasing process. Vendors build for buyers, like the C-suite, who aren’t also the end users. If the end user and the buyer were the same, you’d see healthcare software vendors value user experience like what we see in other B2B industries, not to mention B2C industries. Regardless, in 2016 we will see more buyers value products with consumer-grade user experiences. Much of this has to do with end users’ reluctance and sometimes outright resistance to adopting technology in their worklife. Clinicians often get a bad wrap for being technology averse. But in reality, it’s not that they’re averse to technology; it’s that they’re averse to bad technology.

Integrating wearables and their data into care delivery processes will remain a niche activity

The enthusiasm around wearables, trackers and remote monitoring is exciting and there is enormous potential for device data to impact the delivery of care in ways that benefit both patient and provider. But the technology hasn’t caught up with the promise of what they can be, and that won’t change in 2016. Not only is the technology not yet able to deliver, but the incentives and processes to support wide-scale deployment are not in place yet. Though all signs point to wearables becoming an integral part of delivery of care, this won’t happen next year.

The terms “care coordination” and “patient engagement” will continue being abused, misused, and watered down

These terms by themselves have become almost meaningless. There are countless healthcare vendors claiming to deliver on one or both of these capabilities. Seemingly, most companies use these terms “in name only” in an attempt to capture market interest. The onus is on every product company to be very clear just how it enables patient engagement or care coordination. In 2016, the market will start weeding out those products that are patient engagement and care coordination in name only, while rewarding those companies that are actually able to deliver clear value.

The value-based train picks up steam, especially for those organizations that have been slow to embrace alternate payment models.
We all know the official timeline CMS laid out in early 2015 that 90 percent of payments would shift from fee-for-service to value-based payments by 2018. Despite the clear, unambiguous move to value, some in the industry have still been slow to transition their organization. However in 2016, expect to see those organizations that have been reluctant to make the shift finally make clear moves to alternative payment models. The significance of this should not be understated, especially as it pertains to technology adoption.