Richard L. Gilbert, MD, an anesthesiologist and the CMO of MEDNAX, outlined five ways using big data can change how clinicians practice medicine and drive value in healthcare at the Becker’s Hospital Review 6th Annual Meeting on May 7.
MEDNAX is a national medical group specializing in neonatal, anesthesia, maternal-fetal, pediatric cardiology and other pediatric subspecialty services.
“In order to be successful in this new paradigm of value-based care, we need to put into place systems that allow us to measure and manage our results as providers, as well as establish a culture of data-driven quality,” said Dr. Gilbert
MEDNAX uses the Quantum Clinical Navigation System — which was recently approved by Medicare as a Quality Clinical Data Registry — as its clinical perioperative data collection tool and reporting system. The system collects more than 75 perioperative metrics including patient risk factors and demographic information, clinician compliance with evidence-based medicine, quality outcomes, individual practitioner performance statistics, efficiency measures, post-operative complications and patient experience results.
“The system collects data that really covers the entire gamut of care and has a robust reporting system process and clinician audit process that helps drive change,” said Dr. Gilbert.
Highlighted below are five ways big data can drive quality in clinician performance.
1. Drive systematic changes. Using big data and process engineering, providers can decrease clinical variability which, in turn, lowers costly errors.
2. Identify systems opportunities. Evaluating data to identify opportunities for improvement can help providers chose evidence-based initiatives to implement in the care setting.
3. Make results attributable and actionable. Collecting data allows executives to give individual physicians and clinicians real-time feedback on their outcomes that can be tracked over time.
4. Establish benchmarks. Once an organization knows what its baseline is regarding outcomes, it can set benchmarks that encourage physicians, who are naturally competitive, to improve. The Quantum system can also send automatic alerts to individual clinicians and the management team when set benchmarks aren’t being met so improvements can be made.
5. Customize process improvements. The areas of care in which physicians and clinicians excel and struggle differ. Using data to identify these areas can help managers customize process improvement strategies to the individual physician.
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