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Health care systems remain under pressure to reduce readmissions. One way to do that is to analyze lab data from across the system to identify room for improvement.
Using technology solutions enables health systems to get it right the first time and address systemic inefficiencies and preventable errors. Better intelligence promotes quality of care, reducing the chances that patients need to return to the hospital for additional tests.
With comprehensive data and precision-based health care, we can help foster direct communication among all health care entities, select the right test the first time and ensure patients are on the optimal path to recovery. A few ways to provide better patient care:
Eliminate silos. “Health care silos” cause division among providers and patients, which ultimately hinders communication regarding patient information. One way to help close this information gap is to gain meaningful insights in a timely manner by bringing together patient data that is currently siloed across information systems.
Tools are available to retrieve data across hospital systems and organize it in a single repository. This enables providers to see trending information like lab results, medications, lifestyle, alcohol consumption and smoking status, as well as insight into patients’ home life that might reveal if they are considered a fall risk or if they live alone. All of this affects a patient’s chances of being readmitted to a hospital after discharge.
Detect to prevent. Every 80 seconds, a hospital in the U.S. delivers a low-value test or procedure to an older adult. While this is a staggering statistic, harnessing the right test to tell the whole patient story would likely flag the problem sooner and help eliminate readmissions.
Lab testing is currently the single-highest-volume medical activity within a health system, yet 21% of diagnostic tests are overused and nearly 45% are overlooked. We must pay closer attention to patient-centric lab testing and work to better understand which tests are being ordered and why.
While data shows redundancy in testing, it is also vital to recognize the value in ordering the appropriate test at the appropriate time to detect chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension that make patients more susceptible to a broad range of illnesses that can lead to hospitalization and readmission.
Deep knowledge leads to better outcomes. With a rich data source, we can provide clinical value when assessing tests rather than treating every patient the same and falling into the pattern of blindly ordering routine tests without supportive evidence. Taking a proactive approach is crucial in the field of health care, but with thousands of tests to choose from, identifying the ideal test for the patient requires a view of the patient’s entire story.
By doing enough, early enough, and making decisions based on a patient’s collective data, we can execute the right type of testing, which will lead to quality care outcomes. Genetic tests are valuable, but can be difficult to interpret, and therefore cannot be used independently when creating a treatment plan. Additional pathologist and genetic counselor input is needed to ensure the patient receives the best outcome.
Ultimately, our collective mission should be to find the right balance, integrating laboratory data with the full spectrum of medical information in a timely manner and analyzing system-wide data to optimize the process of diagnosis and treatment, which, in the long run, will lead to lower readmission rates.•
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Janowiak is senior director of client solutions at hc1, an Indianapolis-based health data firm.
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