3M Health Information Systems plans to unveil the latest module in its 360 Encompass Health Analytics Suite early next week at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas.
Physician Compare integrates with the company’s Potentially Preventable Readmissions and Potentially Preventable Complications grouping software, according to materials Healthcare IT News obtained ahead of the launch.
Taken together, the risk analysis methodologies enable hospitals to audit doctors to identify avoidable events, notably admissions, emergency room visits, hospital-acquired complications and preventable readmissions.
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Physician compare brings reports for gauging physicians’ efficiency and performance compared to peers, measuring which resources they use and how those impact outcomes – as well as enabling users to identify tactics for improving physician performance.
Another pre-packaged report focuses on what the company called “patient acuity” through avoidable care, admissions and healthcare costs.
Released in the summer of 2015, the 3M Encompass Health Analytics Suite also includes State Compare and Patient Compare modules for benchmarking hospital quality performance and patients’ perspective on costs, performance and length of stay.
The former is why University Health System in San Antonio, Texas reached out to 3M. Well, that and a little philosophy called the Triple Aim, said Camerino Salazar, senior director of health analytics at UHS.
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“We initially used 3M software to help with reporting for the 1115 state Medicaid waiver,” Salazar explained. “Now that we’ve been operationalizing the analytics dashboard it’s a way to monitor performance and identify the areas where we need to improve quality.”
Salazar’s colleague Heidy Colon-Lugo, a senior quality data analyst in the UHS health analytics unit, added that UHS has the Physician Compare module and “physicians can use it to track their own progress,” though the hospital has not yet put it into production at an enterprise level.
“We see it as a tool that could be very beneficial on inpatient reporting. It’s on the to-do list – and it’s a gauge for population health management,” Salazar explained because it helps UHS track performance and quality. “If we’re doing a good job of care management and providing timely preventable care, that’s an avenue of keeping people healthy. We’re the downstream so if things are operating well we should see those changes to readmissions, costs, the Triple Aim.”
Twitter: @SullyHIT
This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.
