Population health management (PHM) software seeks to grab healthcare patient data from a variety of sources and make it available to practitioners in central locations. It may gather clinical information, such as that from test, or financial information, like a patient’s monthly bill and move that and all else it collects to a database that practitioners can access from their desktop computers or mobile devices.
In all cases, the producers of such software remain on a mission to improve patient care outcomes in hospitals and clinical settings. Tribridge, a software developer in that camp, recently announced that it has partnered with Microsoft to link its Health360 PHM with the Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management Online software, which runs in the cloud. Health360’s four modules that focus on care coordination, consumer engagement, consumer experiences, and hospitality network management will then have the opportunity to focus most on patient needs.
Damon Auer, the vice president of health and life sciences at Tribridge, spoke about the switch to the value-based healthcare model.
“Together with Microsoft, we believe the next wave of healthcare innovation will combine the customer-centric discipline of CRM with clinical content and consumer data that enables proactive and collaborative health management,” Auer said. “The transition from volume to value-based healthcare is a big challenge, but it will finally enable healthcare providers -– entire care teams -– to do what they want to do most: help patients get and stay well.”
What is value-based healthcare? Like Auer mentioned, it replaces the idea that healthcare must come from seeing more patients or performing more tests to financially keep care centers afloat. It instead focuses on trying to give patients exactly what they need – the correct number of tests or an exact number of medications – and changing the structure of other parts of business to remain financially viable.
Health360’s modules can assess the treatment that a patient may need and inform doctors about those situations. For instance, it may notice that a cancer patient has only been attending follow-up visits every six months when he should be completing twice that many. The doctor can absorb those analytics which Health360 has pointed out and then inform the patient about the need for more frequent visits. To ease the burden on both the patient and practitioner, the patient may also find the opportunity to complete e-visits through his own smartphone or home computer.
Together, Tribridge and Microsoft want to make it easier for care centers to reach their patients and deliver timely information. It is clear that they believe this partnership will lead them in that direction and will lead their patients toward better care.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi
