Helping ACO Reach the Highest Quality Scores with ACO Analytics Software

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) provide healthcare assistance to thousands of patients. Some of the providers utilize ACO analytics which allow them to report high performance results. For example, they mention increased numbers of patients who receive cancer screenings. Such performance indicators take ACOs to the highest positions in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) score and result in millions saved for Medicare. In this post, healthcare software development company Belitsoft shares its views about implementing ACO analytics and using it for sustainable improvements.

Accountable care organizations pass the annual assessment, where their performance is evaluated in thirty-four categories. If, according to their scores, they manage to demonstrate high service quality and reduce costs, they receive a share of the generated Medicare savings. However, without relevant tools, healthcare providers fail to estimate their progress and instantly react if certain optimization is required. ACO analytics and proper organizational measures bring medical institutions visible success.

What Are the Challenges of the ACOs?

The ACO annual performance assessment demands higher results every year. ACOs usually unite multiple healthcare providers. To perform well at the assessment, it is important to easily and seamlessly share data among the providers, so they can see the benchmarks and possibilities to achieve them. On the way to perfect performance, ACOs stumble upon the following difficulties:

• Untimely data distribution complicates engaging patients
• Providers cannot examine individual data from monthly aggregated reports regarding all the ACO participants
• Allowing only one person in the clinic to utilize the data hampers the possibility of improving the outcomes
• Restricting access rights slows down the sharing process and insights application
• Limited access to analytics causes doubtful data quality
• Absence of information about peer success blocks mutual mentoring and makes aims seem impossible
• Stakeholders are unable to track the performance on different levels
• Providers have no motivation tools to stimulate sustainable results.

How Does ACO Analytics Help to Address the Challenges?

To show high results in the assessment, members of the ACO should have access to their performance data at any time and be able to change procedures to improve the indicators. For that process to run smoothly, all the stakeholders, including healthcare leaders, managers, physicians, and nurses, should have an opportunity to do the following:

• Determine the measures that have to be performed for each patient
• Assess both individual performance and overall provider’s indicators
• Study the analytics data in advance before interacting with a patient to be able to choose the measure that has not yet been used
• Access the measures data and optimize the performance if required before the deadlines of the reports
• Analyze the reports and generate insights on how to improve the performance and assist all the patients who need care and at the same time be able to contact top performers and ask for expert advice.

Healthtech software product companies develop and customize solutions for ACOs that bring performance improvements and contribute to sustainable results. The strategy might also include reaching the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to receive clear measure demands, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and indicators for each measure.

How to Make the ACO Analytics Implementation Run Smoothly?

To make any analytics tools generate valuable insights and bring improved results to organizations, it is critical to arrange some organizational measures. Such measures influence the processes and allow for the smooth adoption of new applications.

• It is recommended for providers to comply with general standards and guarantee consistency with medical documentation within the EMR.
• Healthcare executives should organize training for all the stakeholders. They should learn how to use filters, create bookmarks, analyze the data in the dashboards, compare the performance of the providers, and apply data-driven insights in their routine.
• It is important to conduct weekly meetings for the providers to demonstrate to them relevant reports and visualization dashboards. In such meetings, providers can see their progress, compare with previous results, validate the data, and apply necessary changes before compiling internal or external reports.

What Are the Benefits of ACO Analytics Application?

The organizations that have already managed to implement analytics report the following improvements in their workflows:

• Careful documenting of the prescribed medications has become a standard.
• The figures for population immunization have risen, such as influenza and pneumonia
• Increased numbers of patients have taken body mass screenings
• More patients struggling with clinical depression have received follow-up plans
• Blood pressure checks have been conducted with more people
• Patients suffering from ischemic vascular disease have been prescribed antithrombotic drugs, such as aspirin
• The monitoring of diabetes patients has improved, including more frequent eye exams

Similar to the above-mentioned results can make national ACOs the top performers.

ACO Analytics Best Practices

Utilizing analytics platforms allows medical experts to timely identify metrics that demonstrate lower figures than it is expected. For example, there might be an insufficient number of performed breast cancer screenings. Physicians and other experts will contact patients and explain the necessity of passing such tests on time. Besides, during the visits, doctors may immediately schedule mammograms for the same day. Therefore, patients will save precious time for the required treatment if the disease is detected at an early stage.

There might be a situation when the measure was performed successfully, however, it was not documented properly. Analytics software helps to identify documentation gaps and highlight them for the providers. As a result, practitioners have an opportunity to check and complete all the necessary data before the assessment deadlines.

ACO analytics brings the best results not only for those organizations which have to report on their ACO measures to receive Medicare savings. The software is also useful for other providers who wish to bring their patients better outcomes. For instance, the analytics may determine the patients who need better blood pressure control. Such best practices of preventative measures lead to general customer satisfaction and health enhancement.

How Can a Healthcare Software Development Company Be Helpful?

Healthcare software development outsourcing companies like Belitsoft can assist top healthcare data analytics companies in building robust data operating systems.

For integrated data platforms developed to collect, store, process, and analyze large volumes of data from various sources (Electronic Medical Records, clinic management systems, laboratory systems, financial systems, etc.), healthcare software development companies:

• Automate data processing workflows (cleansing, standardization, and normalization)
• Configure scalable data warehouses
• Set up and implement analytical tools for creating dashboards, reports, and data visualizations
• Ensure a high level of data security and compliance with healthcare regulations such as HIPAA
• Integrate machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) into analytics.

They also help build specialized analytical applications like ACO Analytics for:

• Monitoring 34 quality measures that cover such domains as patient experience, care coordination, preventive health, and management of at-risk patient populations.
• Comparing performance metrics against industry standards and best practices, identifying areas for improvement, and tracking progress over time.
• Understanding complex data and quickly identifying trends and anomalies with interactive dashboards and visualizations.
• Preparing reports for submission to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) by automating data collection and generating necessary documents.

If you are looking for expertise in data platforms, data analytics, data infrastructure, workflow engineering, HL7 interfaces, and development within cloud (Azure, AWS, Google Cloud),  on-premises, or hybrid environments, a healthcare software development company like Belitsoft also can serve these needs.