ACO Systemness and Integration

As Accountable Care Organizations take on risk contracts which align incentives to create continuous wellness rather than treat episodic sickness, there is a drive to create “systemness” by moving from acquisitions of practices and hospitals to integration.   There are many ways to accomplish this such as moving to a single EHR with a single database for all sites, by enhancing interoperability of existing software, and by building care management databases that incorporate data from every care location.  Developing a strategy requires a multi-factorial analysis - requirements, cost, competing priorities, regulatory imperatives, and cultural barriers to change.      From March to July, Beth Israel Deaconess will be working on an integration plan for its acquired and affiliated clinical sites.   From an IT perspective, I’ll create a task force that will design an analytic framework for decision making and then develop a prioritized list of projects.Here’s the early thinking.A analytic framework might include:*Impact factor (number of providers, staff, patients)*Workflow implications*Degree of implementation difficulty*Cost/return on investment*Benefit (safety/quality, security/compliance, efficiency)*Cultural/Behavioral factors (i.e. politics that can be an enabler or barrier)Projects could include*Hospital Information System consolidation (fewer silos than we have today)*Ambulatory EHR consolidation (less heterogeneity than we have today)...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs