- Hello everyone.
This is Erica Spicer Mason with Becker's Healthcare.
Thank you so much for tuning into the Becker's
Healthcare podcast series.
Today I'm pleased to be joined by Brian Dros Deitz,
the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Acute
and Payer Markets at PointClickCare.
Today, we'll discuss interoperability models,
how they've evolved over time,
and the effect that they're having on the care
that patients receive.
With that, Brian, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
- Thanks for having me, Erica. Thrilled to be here today.
- Really happy to have you on.
And before we get into our discussion, would you like
to share just a little bit more about yourself, your role,
whatever you'd like to share with our listeners?
- Sure, sure. Happy to just set a little context.
So, uh, I, I oversee the hospital
and health plan business at PointClickCare.
Uh, that's a business
that PointClickCare has built up over time here.
Uh, essentially a nationwide care coordination network, uh,
that is entirely underpinned by interoperability.
Uh, so today we're connected
to more than 3,100 hospital systems.
Uh, we have roughly the same footprint in the ambulatory
space, uh,
and we're working with more than 200 different risk
risk-bearing providers.
Uh, on the health plan side, we're working
with every major plan, uh, across all their key markets, uh,
and again, really driven by interoperability.
- Fantastic. Thanks so much, Brian,
and really appreciate the overview of PointClick Care
and mentioning that it's essentially a nationwide
care coordination network.
It's hard to hear the term care coordination anymore without
talking about or hearing about interoperability.
So, um, to start off,
I was wondering if you could tell us just a little bit about
how initiatives to improve interoperability
across the healthcare industry.
How have they shifted over time?
- Yeah, so I'm, I've, uh, I've seen,
seen this movie a few times
and have been, been around the block having been in the,
the industry for 20 plus years.
And it's been amazing to see the progress over time.
You know, those that, uh, have not been around
as long would, would still probably lament with, uh,
with all the challenges that, that we see.
Um, you know, really interoperability has been a journey
for this industry as a whole.
Going way back, uh, to, you know, what, what were best
of breed EMRs.
Uh, there's been massive consolidation there.
There's been, uh, quite a bit of different policy that
that has been, uh, put in place as well.
Policy, I think, has really helped to raise the bar around
interoperability and data sharing.
And, you know, while, while that has been in the mix,
you know, call it the free market
and, um, uh, a whole variety of other different types
of data sharing programs have, have come up.
You know, when we think about interoperability today,
we typically see the, the HIE space as really one of the,
the key spaces, and that is one,
the health information exchange, uh, market.
That that is one that we participate in quite a bit,
and that is evolving.
It's, it's evolved tremendously over the past 10 years
and certainly has its, uh, its benefits and its challenges.
You know, as we look forward,
there are some new things happening as well with, uh,
new policy that's coming out as well.
So, uh, really interesting time where, uh, all
of these different interoperability
models continue to evolve.
- Thanks so much for the overview,
and it's interesting how you bring up
that piece about policy, kind of helping to raise the bar
or accelerate some of these efforts toward interoperability.
I think that's such an important, uh,
historical point to make.
And so considering the history
and kind of where we've, how far we've come
with interoperability, what new models can we expect
to see emerge in the near future?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
- Yeah, so, so centering back to that point
around health information exchange, there is a, a,
a new model, uh, that has come out, uh, policy driven, uh,
it's referred to as, uh, TECA, uh, which stands
for Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement.
This is really a new foundation in, in a version two
or a version three
of call it nationwide healthcare Interoperability, where
whereby the policy is putting a bunch
of foundational fundamental elements in place
that will allow for much broader, uh, inconsistent
and timely data exchange between, uh, payers and providers.
Um, you know, it's, it's interesting to watch as this has,
um, you know, it's still very early days
and it, it is expected that it, it'll be, um, you know,
a long on ramp till, till we get all
of the expected value out of this.
But in, in a lot of ways, uh, you know, it,
it may have been, may even be viewed as burdensome by a lot
of the, the folks that are operating, um,
and sharing data today
because there are new standards,
new standards are difficult to implement.
Uh, they're timely or, uh, costly, timely, uh,
and, uh, resource intensive.
But really this, uh, this new framework should set the stage
with time for, um, a much more open market where,
where data is far more available, timely
and higher quality, uh, to those that are, uh, paying
for care and, uh, ultimately administering the care.
So early days for, for this framework, you know, we are, uh,
we're, we're, we're tracking it closely, uh,
and really interested to see
how this will actually impact some of the major challenges
that we see out in the market today.
Uh, certainly early days right now.
So I think, you know, some of those proof points are,
are early stage, but, uh, we'll be very interesting to see
how that, how that evolves.
- Definitely exciting to consider
how this could really change payer
and provider collaboration, care delivery quality.
You know, so many things come to mind.
Sounds like we're in that growing pain stage,
as you mentioned, but, um, in time it'll be fascinating
to see how this all develops.
So appreciate you highlighting all of that.
So kind of bringing this back to, well,
I know I said earlier, care coordination, it's hard
to talk about that without talking about interoperability,
and it's hard to talk about care coordination also without
talking about value-based care nowadays, which is something
that we know a lot of payer organizations
and provider organizations are
really shooting for right now.
So how can everything
that we've discussed really impact the ability
to advance value-based care?
- Yeah, it's, it's been a fascinating journey to see
how value-based care has evolved
and how the availability of data has in a lot of cases
made or broken ultimately success in those,
in those value-based care, uh, arrangements.
So, uh, again, dating myself a little bit,
but the early stage shared savings ACOs that go back 10,
12 plus years back,
they were hugely challenged in getting data
to make the right decision
for the right patient at the right time.
Uh, because a lot
of these different interoperability standards weren't in
place, uh, you know, certain vendors weren't open
to sharing data.
Formats of data were, were, um, you know, difficult to map
and to normalize.
Uh, so, you know, what,
what would show up in one system would show, uh,
in the format which it showed up would be entirely different
in a, uh, in a different system.
Um, all of these different, uh, you know, policy changes
that have pushed towards, you know, greater standards and,
and more interoperability, uh, between, uh, vendors and,
and different constituents in the, uh,
in the value stream here, uh, ha have, have,
have really pushed to, to open the doors.
You know, again, dating myself a bit, the, the, the ACOs 10
or 12 years ago had a really difficult time getting their
hands on understanding anything that happened
with the patient outside of the walls of their facility, uh,
or, uh, if they're fortunate enough to be in a, a,
a larger sort of regional system, what happened
outside of that regional system.
But when you think about, uh, having to see specialists
or seeing perhaps, uh, uh,
a physician while you're on vacation outta state visibility
into all of, all of the care that put
and should happen was, was, was not possible.
With the advent of these programs,
we've certainly seen greater incentives for organizations
to share, and now it's, it's really table stakes.
Um, as I mentioned, we're, we're working
with more than 200 different ACOs today,
ultimately facilitating that data share what, what that,
what that allows is really to make the right decision
for the patient at that point in time.
Um, and once that care is given, also ensuring
that the right next thing happens, uh, and
because we are facilitating that, that data share, we're,
we're able to then sort of check the box
that the right thing did happen, um, which all maps back
to quality measures, which are, uh, just a huge underpinning
of any value-based care program.
So, um, you know, in short,
the data sharing interoperability
and uh, really having that full visibility
of patients across the entirety of the spectrum of all,
all healthcare services is absolutely necessary
for success in a value-based care arrangement.
- Yeah. Thanks so much, Brian.
Appreciate that explanation
and also how you highlighted the importance of serving
patients at a point in time delivering,
I think it was delivering the right care at the right point
in time, uh, paraphrasing,
but it's incredible to think about the possibilities
that could come from that being the standard
or, um, the norm across healthcare.
So really appreciate all of the insights
and historical context and framing for interoperability.
Um, Brian, thanks again for giving us your time today.
- Happy, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
- We'd also like to thank our podcast sponsor
for today's episode point, click Care.
You can tune into more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare
by visiting our podcast page at becker's hospital
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