Becker's Hospital Review

83 Executive Roundtable Sponsored by: A s healthcare providers work to improve patient outcomes under growing cost pressure, keeping patients out of hospitals and managing their long-term care in lower cost settings is imperative. However, many post- acute care providers are trying to manage care transitions, avoid duplicative testing and procedures and adjust care plans without a full, longitudinal view of the patient's medical records. The more post-acute providers begin to see data as an asset and work with other stakeholders across the care continuum, the better the entire system will be able to control costs and outcomes, which ultimately optimizes the patient experience. The following executives from Option Care, the nation's largest provider of home and alternative treatment site infusion, gave their perspective on using data from across the care continuum to drive superior outcomes in the post-acute setting: • John Rademacher, CEO • Brenda Wright, Senior Vice President, Clinical Services • Matt Deans, Vice President, Business Development Editor's note: Responses have been edited for length and style. Question: What are some macro and micro ways data is being used to drive value for patients? John Rademacher: As Option Care continues to push forward and look at data as an asset — both as an organization and in healthcare more broadly — there are a lot of indicators that allow us to drive better care and outcomes through the capture and analysis of data. On a macro level, it's looking for pattern recognition in like groups of patients to align care paths more appropriately. At the micro level, we are looking at additional factors that may influence outcomes for a patient — such as socioeconomic factors or comorbidities that may affect their ability to recover — so we can customize their care. Brenda Wright: In our technology platform, we can develop personalized care plans for each patient centered on clinical evidence-based protocols. We capture results and use that information to improve their plan as care progresses. Through this process, we will create reportable and repeatable outcomes, utilizing that information to continue to refine our care pathways. Matt Deans: A lot of what we do on the front end is identify trends in patient care and outcomes on a macro level. It could be looking at the impact of the amount of hydration support for a patient with short bowel syndrome, examining innovative therapies to reduce dependence on that support or studying historical utilization and then measuring the impact of our interventions on those individual patients. For example, when we introduced a breakthrough therapy called Gattex®, how well did those patients do weaning off parenteral hydration or nutrition? Q: What do you see as the greatest untapped opportunity when it comes to using patient data to drive better outcomes? JR: The greatest untapped opportunity is using data to its fullest. Historically, healthcare — and even within our company and the industry — we've sat on terabytes of data and didn't really make actionable information out of it. We're data rich and information poor in healthcare. Our ability to use pattern recognition and anticipate care trends by looking at data and interrogating it in different ways is going to be where the power is. BW: The biggest opportunity I see is using those reportable and repeatable outcomes in predictive modeling as we embrace AI. Perhaps, even identifying patients that may require additional monitoring and support, utilizing that information to continue improving our care paths. MD: With the goal of expanding the use of precision medicine in patient care, we want to understand what therapeutic intervention would be the most appropriate for a patient based on a comprehensive clinical assessment. Unfortunately, we don't always get all of the clinical information we need at admission to use predictive analytical models. For example, today, we are doing routine lab work after initiation of therapy to modify antibiotic dosing for patients— quasi-precision medicine — but it can go beyond anti-infective therapy to other disease states, helping us understand what patients and therapies might be most effective for them in the home or alternate site setting. Q: What are the biggest barriers to using data to its full potential in patient care, and how can providers begin to work around these challenges? JR: The biggest barrier is interoperability. A lot of our patients come from an inpatient setting to the outpatient setting. There is a lot of information in their personal health record about the care delivered in the acute setting. The ability to share data and follow that patient on a longitudinal path is a barrier today and also an opportunity. The walls are starting to come down Why hospitals need to focus on their post-acute data strategy

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