Hello, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with
the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Today, we'll discuss strategies and best practices for
leveraging health care data effectively.
And joining us for this conversation
are doctor Carl Sarrau, the chief medical officer
at Driscoll Health Plan, and doctor Katherine Schneider,
the chief medical officer at Meddecision.
Doctor Serrau and doctor Schneider, welcome to the
podcast. Thank you so much for joining us
today.
Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Erica.
Well, thrilled to have you both with us.
And really quickly, before we get into our
questions, wanted to know if you'd both like
to share just a little bit about yourselves
and your background, your role, whatever you think
would be helpful for listeners to know.
And doctor Serraum, perhaps you could get us
started.
Sure. Hi.
So, Erica, I'm a I'm a pediatrician and
a pediatric
ICU doc
by training.
But I've been working in
the Medicaid peer space,
for probably the last 8 years and a
big emphasis
of what I've been doing has been on
on population health.
Fantastic.
Well, really excited to get your insights there
on population health.
Doctor. Schneider, tell us a little bit about
yourself first.
Yeah. Sure. I am a family physician. I
serve as chief medical officer for Meddecision, which
is a population health management software platform, which
includes
a data platform,
layered on with clinical intelligence
rules and a great deal of workflow and
care management, utilization management,
analytics, and patient engagement. And I,
I really come out of, 2 decades of
work in, value based care and the accountable
care organization world in particular.
So thrilled to be here.
Wonderful. It's great to have you both
here with us and just this topic of
population health and, of course, how we'll integrate
the data component.
So top of mind for leaders right now.
So excited to get your perspectives.
And I wanted to start a little bit
more high level and get your perspective as
clinicians. I know you're both physicians
and,
would love to know about your perspective on
the drivers of health on a practical
day to day level. And how has that
really
changed in the last 10 years?
Doctor. Schneider, maybe you could get us started
with this one. Oh, sure. I'd love to.
I mean, as a family physician who trained,
so I'm afraid to say, like, 3 more
than 3 decades ago, you know, community oriented
primary care,
has been around for a long time.
But what has, I think, changed in the
last decade or so is, you know, certainly
much more,
broad awareness
of particularly
social determinants of health and
health equity as an outcome, which
we can measure and we should be striving
towards.
Certainly there's,
much more,
data capture around drivers of health.
And I think, you know, when I think
about just from a practical
perspective, the number of consumer
tools for people to engage in their own
health and be aware of their own drivers,
whether that's,
you know, your iPhone measuring your activity through
the day or your sleep quality or all
the things on your watch or even, you
know, websites
that can connect you to,
air quality indicators,
you know, the non health care types of
things.
That is just part of our day to
day existence now.
Earl, what do you think?
No, absolutely.
Again, you know, I've been I've been in
healthcare
for almost the same length of time as
Doctor. Schneider.
And,
and, you know, I could tell you in
the last 10 years, I would say it's
even changed even within a shorter span than
that. It's actually probably changed within the last
3 to 4 years.
You know, I think we've went we've gone
from talking about social determinants of of how
to actually more drivers of health.
I think we you know, everybody here is
about, hey, this,
you know, these factors are, you know, are
responsible for 60 or 80% of health care
costs or or determinants of of wellness.
But I think we're now starting to
use data to kind of help us identify,
you know, where do we get the the
biggest impacts, or how are these actually affecting,
patients or or or folks,
can get, access to to health care? That
that talks to health equity and disparity.
How, you know, how much is this affecting
overall wellness, susceptibility, quality, you know, to subject
to illness, quality of life? So
I think we're asking
not just to increase awareness, like Doctor. Schneider
also mentioned,
but also
about
before it was it was very,
amorphous. Now we're asking, you know, much more
specific and and targeted questions and looking for
more and more outcomes. And and so as
it becomes part of our daily lives, I
think the the questions that are coming up
now is, okay, it's part of our daily
lives, but, you know, what what really matters
the most? Or how can I actually change
something that can make a a really meaningful
impact both as an individual level as well
as, hey, you know, overall as a society
or as a community?
Appreciate those overviews
so much, and it really aligns with what
we're seeing. I know just from Becker's perspective
and what we see in our coverage and
what leaders are telling
us, the social determinants, health equity, the social
drivers of health, these are key parts of
overarching business strategies today. And I think to
your point, doctor Serrau,
we're seeing this being implemented a bit more
aggressively and and leaders really seeking more granular
answers, and and data is a huge part
of that. So
I'd also like to know and maybe doctor
Serau, we can start with you on this
one, while we have you. Can you talk
a bit about the relevance of data being
available in real time? And how does that
help you as both a provider as well
as a managed care organization?
Absolutely. I think
real time equals
actionable data.
Right? So, you know, I I'm coming from
the from the payer space and, you know,
you know, still all primary data sources claims,
but then everybody will tell you claims has
a lag. You know? It could be several
months. And and the longer you go from,
you know, from your from the the time
of when you could actually have done something,
the less meaningful that data becomes. So less
actionable that data becomes. So this becomes important
to the provider
where I can you can actually you've identified
that a patient has some social,
drivers or or needs, and you can act
upon it. Same thing from a payer standpoint.
You know, whether we're talking to care management
or case management or, you know, utilization management.
How can you affect
positive change in that person's,
overall health and wellness has to do with
how real time that data is coming in.
And so, you know, what we're seeing is
that real time data is extremely important.
Some of the
some of the areas where,
we still have lots of work to do,
and I think the future is gonna be
exciting,
is really about how do we now make
that real time data
actionable.
And so that talks about, you know, at
least from from the peer space and even
the the provider spaces,
what kind of workflows do you have in
place? You know? How have you, pre identified,
you know, resources that you can,
link,
people to? And how do you get feedback
on that impact and measure that impact? So
so so real time data is huge, and
and the next the next step is going
to be making that data actionable.
And I I mean, I echo everything,
that doctor Sarrau said,
but maybe could give a couple of examples,
where, you know, I've seen,
when you can incorporate real time data, it
just makes such a huge difference. For example,
trying to chase down patients for annual wellness
visits, which, particularly in the Medicare populations
are, are so key to,
the frontline primary care physicians being able to,
you know, stay sticky with the patients and
get all of the care gaps closed and
they're, and, risk stratified, etcetera, etcetera. But if
you're providing
that frontline
with,
lists of tasks to be done around care
gaps and annual wellness visits, and that data
is 4 months old, which is pretty typical
from, like, your usual claims,
type of lag. You know, it's completely stale
and they're wasting their time,
much of the time because the work may
have already been done or it's just not
relevant anymore. And likewise, from the from the
care management example, I mean, you think about,
like,
I'll go to doctor Sorrell's field of expertise,
like a child with a new diagnosis of
asthma coming out of the emergency department or
hospital for the first
time, you know,
now is the moment of opportunity
to educate that family and to make sure
that they have
everything that they need, and that their home
environment is has been assessed properly, etcetera, etcetera.
So coming, you know, coming at them a
month or 2 later to say, oh, I
wanna help you manage your asthma. Well, that
horse left the barn.
Right. And I'd add to that, and that
you make a really good point,
doctor Schneider.
I'd I'd give you an example of how
real time data becomes actionable data if you
provide the right resources.
So for instance, in several pediatric,
health homes that we have,
we actually provided,
they didn't want to to screen for,
SDOH
because they said, okay. If I screen, what
do I then do? So so even though
we could give them real data, they didn't
want the real data because they didn't feel
they could act on it.
And so what we did was we actually
created,
postcards with QR codes on it. We identified,
you know, immediate local resources.
And right away, we had adoption by providers
to actually start screening,
because then they could they could quickly
link those those folks to to to resources.
So real data real time data attached
to the ways to make it actionable
makes it meaningful data. And absolutely, I think
increasingly we're seeing technology, we're seeing workflows
as we're trying to do those things.
Yeah. Thanks for those add ons, doctor Sarrau.
I think you make a really great point
about
the data being meaningful. That means that it's
actionable. And also it's,
it sounds like it was important to this
in the example that you gave for those
staff members to have kind of recognizable local
resources to refer patients to. So we'd love
to get just just go a little deeper
on this question. You know, how do we
really ensure that available data is meaningful to
an organization
locally,
especially with this community based focus that we're
talking about?
Yeah. I mean, we are kind of you
know, you can have too much of a
good thing. Right? So you know, it used
to be like we need the data, we
need the data, and now we're almost overwhelmed
with sort of all the data that's streaming
at us. And, you know, a good example
of that,
that we're working with a couple of clients
on now is using ADT, real time emission
discharge transfer data. You know, many health plans
and, ACOs have actually purchased
that data, but then they get hit with
a fire hose. Right? You come in Monday
morning and there's like 700
ADTs that the care manager needs to try
to chase down. And so,
you know, you have to have the intelligence
and the rules engine that sits on top
of that
to try to help prioritize
this fire hose of data. And, I mean,
I like to say it's like turning the
fire hose into a soda fountain where, you
know, we really can,
you know, parse out, like, who needs intervention,
who doesn't at all, who's higher priority, what
kind of intervention do they need, and really
turn that into,
actionable workflow.
Yeah. Thanks so much, doctor Schneider. And I
think that leads me really,
really well into the question that I wanted
to ask you both kind of to tie
all of this together.
You know, we're talking about a potentially overwhelming
amount of data that providers may now have
access to,
a lot of opportunities there. But how can
we bring disparate data sources together
and
facilitate that data sharing? And what will really
what will better serve community based organizations and
members here? Can you speak to the role
of technology?
So, I will I'm happy to to actually
get,
to get into that a little bit. So,
you know, so I think technology
today, you know, just like doctor Sharma mentioned,
you know, we're now getting
tremendous amount of data coming at us. And
it's not just data coming at us. It's
coming at us in multiple ways, multiple sources.
And just like doctor Scheinor mentioned, you know,
how do you change a fire hose into
a water fountain?
But the what's even tougher is that
even that fire hose of data is still
not complete,
meaning that, like, for instance, as a as
a Medicaid health plan,
you know, we are getting information, lots of
information about our
members, but we very much recognize that, you
know, all members do not live in isolation.
The, you know, our clients don't live in
isolation. Our patients don't live in isolation. They
live within a community.
And getting that additional information about, you know,
from from what's happening in our neighborhoods, in
our community,
and integrating that data,
with our own data
then makes it,
much more complete,
and also helps us to put the right
types of filters and lenses on.
But to kind of create that kind of
completeness, we we're we're gonna
enhance our predictive models, enhance our care management
models.
We're going to have to be able to
share data, And and that's and and I
think that's where we get
technology being a big part of that solution,
where
you having a technology where it's able to
to pull in data from those different, you
know, places, bring them bringing them together,
and make it and make it a much
more complete picture is gonna be extremely important.
And the other aspect of that is going
to be,
you know, so too often that we think
of ourselves as competitors
when we eventually as we start looking at
this, we're we're really should be, much doing
much more collaborative tech models,
and using technology to enhance that collaboration.
Yeah. And I mean, we all know healthcare
lives in a world of regulation,
that is you know, perhaps not unique among
industries, but is right up there with the
complexity and certainly around data sharing. This is
probably,
you know, and data use is probably one
of the areas where we are particularly,
highly regulated. And I think we're really just,
you know, we're at the beginning of
unlocking the potential here around,
bringing disparate data sources together. You know, certainly
interoperability
is, you know,
a word that's been around for a long
time, but I'm not sure we've
totally fulfilled the promise on that yet. There's
a long way to go.
And again, the role of technology
is, you know, I've really sort of expanded
my viewpoint on what is a true data
platform.
What does that mean in terms of how
data is ingested,
you know, disparate forms? What happens to it,
you know, inside the sausage making? And how
does it actually drive into,
you know, real workflow? And that's where technology
can help.
But technology is not the only answer here.
I mean, actually, our technology is pretty advanced.
Our
our, you know, now we're getting into like
regulatory
and change management
and actually changing the care model ultimately, which
is actually the hard part, that last
mile. But that's where we have so much
potential to, to unlock value.
Yeah. Erica, I agree with doctor Schner. I
think some of the I think the technology
is already here.
I think part of it is the it's
it's the it's a regulatory environment. It's also
looking
for ways to bring the different stakeholders together,
so that we can actually be
making it easier to share that data across
whatever platforms. Easy examples would be we have
multiple EMRs today, but yet still and they
were all came in with a promise of
interoperability.
But but still today, they, you know, critical
data sits within silos.
We've got community based organizations
yet,
within communities yet sometimes we don't know what
exists or who doesn't exist. So I think
technology is there. But to the degree of
doctor Steinbeck, within within the regulatory space
and as well within the,
the public health space,
The more we can create that those types
of collaboration and data sharing
technology will enhance,
what
what what those can do.
I really appreciate those extra points, doctor Saral.
It sounds like the regulatory environment is posing
a number of challenges,
and we're still in the early days of
realizing, you know, true interoperability.
But
sounds like advanced technology is offering a lot
of promise.
And I I appreciate both of your insights
so much today. Thanks for a wonderful discussion.
Thank you. Enjoyed the conversation.
Thank you. It was great.
Thank you both again. And we'd also like
to thank MedDCision for sponsoring today's episode.
You can tune into more podcasts from Becker's
Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com.