Deloitte: Evaluate physicians in clusters, get them involved in analytics
Healthcare is practiced in teams, with population-level quality outcomes driven by a group effort to keep patients healthy.
Physicians need to have and share analytical information to deliver quality care that drives down costs. But too often valuable findings aren't making it to the right people, according to Deloitte's Dorrie Guest.
"My mantra has always been, we can use advanced analytics and do predictive modeling, but you have to pair analytics with action," she said. "That's the crux of the matter."
Guest is a director at Deloitte Consulting and national lead for physician enterprise and ambulatory services.
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Deloitte proposes moving away from evaluating physicians independently to a methodology in which physicians are evaluated in clusters. Healthcare is practiced in teams, with population-level quality outcomes driven by a cohesive group effort to keep patients healthy.
Putting this into practice requires more than e-mailed mandates.
The first step for a clinically integrated system is to look at what motivates physicians, she said.
"Physician behavior is highly influenced by other physicians they respect," Guest said.
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Also important to the physician is the credibility of data focusing on patient outcomes, she said. And simple networking allows physicians to know who is in their health network, which is currently a challenge.
"What are the quality and outcomes of fellow physicians that are part of that network? They have to meet each other," Guest said.
Unless providers are looking at care patterns, especially with complex cases, they won't be able to see quality and outcomes of cost. But what Deloitte found was that costs go up when no one is managing the transition and care coordination of both an individual patient and the population as a whole. And that requires tracking care from the primary care doctor to cardiologist or other specialist to surgeon, Guest said, because doctors may not be communicating with each other.
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"Take a deep dive into the same health system," she said. "Are they sharing information back and forth? In the area of population health, when they agree to share clinical information and follow consistent protocols and collectively manage the health, then you have better outcomes."
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
