Why prioritizing reporting improves revenue and outcomes
Episode 6
Cathy Gorman-Klug is an RN, MSN, and the Director of the Quality Service Line at Nuance. She supervises the product roadmap and product management, while monitoring regulatory rules and identifying the current trends in healthcare that clients should be aware of. She shares how the reporting landscape has changed over the years, the impact from the COVID-19 Pandemic, and how your organization can optimize your reporting system for improved outcomes and revenue performance.
Episode summary
Reporting
Over the years, the reporting landscape has changed as technology and science have progressed. While this has had a powerful impact on quality healthcare and patient outcomes, it has also increased the regulatory and tracking burden on hospitals.
Now, it is not only required for hospitals to report their performance in order to get paid and be monitored, they are also required to report 630 key quality indicators. Organizations that supervise and collect this data include:
1. Joint Commission
2. CMS
3. Leapfrog (industry watchdog)
Insurance companies use this data to incentivize patients to go to the hospitals that have reported their data for review and have the best outcomes.
The local media also plays an important role in reporting on your hospital’s performance, often covering it on local radio or in papers. AARP is another watchdog organization that publishes healthcare quality, compliance, and outcomes. This kind of publicity highlights why it is so important to have comprehensive data and analytics about your hospital, so that you can spot where you need to improve, and build trust in your community.
9:15 “In the old days, in the 60s and 70s and maybe even to an extent in the 80s, people got their healthcare throughout their life and they even brought their families to the same physician, or if they needed to be admitted to a facility they tended to select facilities where they had had their babies, and that loyalty was there. That loyalty is not there anymore.”
Today, people are willing to travel even to other states for healthcare in order to get the best outcomes.
COVID
In the midst of COVID, the coding organizations came out with changes to ensure that there were codes to capture information related to the emerging pandemic. Through tracking and reporting, hospitals have started identifying that many COVID cases end up as sepsis cases, so organizations are working together to look at their data and try to understand which came first. This deep dive is important to our nation’s care and shows why analytics and trends are so important to study.
14:05 “The most important advice I would give is look at what you’re tracking, look at what you’re reporting overall in your organization, and if at all possible, try and decrease your regulatory tracking burden down to the most important. The ones that are publicly reported, the ones that you have a financial stake in the game for.”
Putting the public at ease will also help improve revenue and many hospitals have lost millions because there are no elective procedures. By being transparent with what you’re doing and how you’re doing, you will build trust with the community.
Success story
The success story is that when we follow the guidance set out by our leaders, we will flatten the curve, gain back the consumer population’s confidence, and accelerate financial recovery.