The CRIMSON Initiative, a six-year-old physician performance data management platform, has incorporated more than 200 hospitals into its user base.
Baptist Health South Florida, a Coral Gables, Fla.-based multi-hospital heath system, was the most recent health system to begin using the Web-based physician profiling platform. Since employing the data platform, the health system has made online physician performance data management available to its hospitals.
The CRIMSON Initiative was founded in 2003 by Austin, Texas-based CRIMSON Software, Inc. and acquired by the Washington, D.C.-based Advisory Board Company in 2008. It's designed to help members increase ROI and support clinical integration in hospitals. Through the initiative's collaboration with hospitals during the early stages of development, officials were able to refine the online tool to appeal directly to physicians, helping them to improve performance by automating the compilation and presentation of performance data.
"One of the most powerful and important capabilities of the CRIMSON software is its ability to drill down within seconds to data at the individual patient level. We have been using it in one-on-one physician reviews and we've had a tremendous impact on our utilization," said James Heisler, medical director at the Houston-based Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, one of the initial collaborators.
Memorial Hermann officials say their health system has saved approximately $3.7 million, or $358 per admission, within 18 months of using CRIMSON.
"There's a tremendous need for hospitals to work more closely with their physicians to reduce practice variability and ensure adherence with care standards," said Robert Musslewhite, CEO of the Advisory Board Company. "Yet while information about hospital costs and quality is increasingly transparent, until CRIMSON individual physician performance has largely been a black box."
The initiative's platform now supports more than 200 hospitals and includes data on some 25,000 physicians.
At the center of the program is an online technology platform that collects clinical data of physician performance from data storage sites throughout the facility. Data collected includes patient billing, cost accounting, clinical information systems, data reporting software and care management databases. Once the information is compiled, officials said, the platform organizes it into an online dashboard.
Other users of the CRIMSON Initiative include the Baylor Health Care System, Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain Health Care, the OSF Healthcare System and the Robert Wood Johnson Health System.
