To move away from "sick care" and into preventive care, healthcare industry stakeholders must apply insights from demographic and lifestyle data, Welltok Chairman and CEO Jeff Margolis wrote in a March 13 op-ed for Harvard Business Review.
In recent years, the healthcare industry has successfully applied clinical and claims data to improve patients' quality of care and payment accuracy. However, to predict a patient's future health behaviors, integrating EHR and claims data with appropriate consumer data will becoming increasingly important, Mr. Margolis noted.
Welltok, a consumer health software-as-a-service company, created a database representing more than 275 million consumers nationwide, including demographic and lifestyle information such as income, home ownership, voting history, transportation choices and physical activity, among other metrics.
Welltok's goal for the database, which also includes clinical and claims data, is to "understand the relationship between consumers' demographic data, daily-living choices, health and interactions with the healthcare system," according to Mr. Margolis.
By analyzing information in the database, Welltok has generated predictive models to help healthcare organizations identify appropriate interventions.
As an example, Mr. Margolis shared how the company determined the likelihood of an eligible consumer not recertifying for a Medicaid program. After identifying the top 25 percent of those most likely not to recertify, the company determined the optimal engagement method, such as automated voice or live agent calls. The outreach effort led to a 39 percent decrease in recertification failure rate, according to Mr. Margolis.
"Clinical data and expertise are vital, but the only way the healthcare industry will fundamentally improve care is to understand consumers at an individual level — by leveraging information about every aspect of their lives — to create personalized interventions that ultimately drive behavior change and improve outcomes," he wrote.
To access Mr. Margolis' op-ed, click here.