Three Strategies to Deliver Patient-Centered Care in the Next Normal

Three Strategies to
Deliver Patient-Centered
Care in the Next Normal
HEALTH CATALYST EDITORS

© 2021 Health Catalyst
Proprietary. Feel free to share but we would appreciate a Health Catalyst citation.
Delivering Patient-Centered Care
In the COVID-19 era, decision makers face
a variety of new priorities, including scaling
virtual care solutions overnight, recovering
billions of dollars in lost revenue, over-
coming overcrowded ICUs, and managing
personnel safety with insufficient personal
protective equipment.

With so many pressing issues vying for
leadership’s attention, patient-centered care
can seem like a low-level priority.
However, treating a complex virus like
COVID-19 underscores the necessity to
keep patients at the center of care delivery.

Patient-centered care—personalized
medicine that includes the patient as part of
the care team and tailors care to unique
needs, values, and preferences—can be
challenging in healthcare’s new normal.
The pandemic has made delivering
patient-centered care even more
difficult with halted routine care
and a change from traditional
in-person visits to virtual.

However, patient-centered care has never
been more critical; it requires providers and
care teams to adapt care plans and
interventions to the pandemic’s impact on
individual patients, especially those at
higher risk due to age or chronic diseases.

Three Strategies to Deliver
Patient-Centered Care
In spite of what has felt like overnight changes
to healthcare delivery with the onset of COVID-
19, hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare
organizations can focus patient-centered care
by applying three strategies:
1. Improve the Patient Experience
2. Implement the Meaningful Measures Initiative
3. Transition In-Person Visits to Virtual

#1: Improve the Patient Experience
Health systems recognize the increasing
importance of patient satisfaction as patients
become more involved in their care.
Health systems and other healthcare
organizations use patient satisfaction
scores as an indicator of the patient
experience and quality of care.

While the patient experience is important for
CMS reimbursements, it is also critical to
patient-centered care because the level of
satisfaction reveals a patient’s expectations
of care, how well the health system meets
those expectations, and the patient’s level
of engagement in their care.

Understanding patient satisfaction scores
(typically survey-based) provides visibility into
the healthcare experience from the patient’s
viewpoint, including the communication
between the care team, effectiveness of
care interventions, and how the provider
treated the patient.

This information helps health systems target
and improve areas in which patients feel
less satisfied with their care, resulting in
elevated patient-centered care and higher
patient satisfaction scores that, in turn,
increase reimbursements.

#2: Implement the Meaningful Measures Initiative
To ensure that patients remain at the center
of care throughout the shift to value-based
care from fee for service, CMS enacted
clinical quality measures.
The CMS Meaningful Measures Initiative
(and Meaningful Measures 2.0 aimed at
focusing the entire healthcare ecosystem
around patients even more) serves as a
barometer for improving care delivery and
prioritizing patients throughout the entire
care process.

The CMS Meaningful Measures framework
puts patients at the center of CMS strategic
goals (a requirement for all health systems to
qualify for reimbursement) and identifies high-
priority, high-impact areas for improvement.

The Meaningful Measures Initiative further
keeps patients at the center of care by
decreasing the reporting burden on providers.
By streamlining the approach to regulatory
reporting and eliminating duplicate measures,
providers spend less time in the EHR and
more time with patients.
Patient data, combined with analytics tools,
also play a role in easing the reporting burden
so that providers can focus on patient needs.

With effective data mechanisms, care teams
can more easily identify gaps in care and
track trends instead of manually sifting
through data to find variations in care
delivery or patient outcomes.
This data not only keeps patients at the
center of care, but it allows providers to
better understand their performance around
the Meaningful Measures Initiative aimed
at prioritizing patients in every aspect of
care delivery.

#3: Transition In-Person Visits to Virtual
Patient-centered care means taking care to
patients, even if it means virtual care delivery.
Health systems can leverage technology to
ensure patient access, even when hospitals
close all non-essential surgeries and regular
checkups.
Virtual care solutions are a win-win for health
systems and patients; patients can access care
from anywhere and health systems can still
monitor patients—especially those vulnerable
to COVID-19 due to age or comorbidities.

#3: Transition In-Person Visits to Virtual
With the right tools, health systems can scale
virtual solutions in such a small window to
meet patients where they are, a critical aspect
of patient-centered care.
The Financial Impact Recovery Tool and
Patient Stratification Tool, for example, enable
healthcare organizations to overcome
obstacles to delivering telehealth (e.g.,
infrastructure, licensing, and provider buy-in),
a practical solution when routine care—a
principle of patient-centered care—is on hold.

Patient-Centered Care Is Possible in Any Setting
Health systems can deliver patient-centered
care in any landscape—from a pandemic to
value-based care—with effective patient-
focused strategies.
Delivering patient-centered care is paramount
during a pandemic when routine healthcare
looks different than ever before and nobody
knows what the next normal will look like.

Patient-Centered Care Is Possible in Any Setting
Identifying patient-centered tactics—improving
patient satisfaction, meeting CMS measures,
and delivering virtual care—health systems
can avoid becoming all-consumed with
competing priorities and keep patients at the
center of care.
Proactively prioritizing patients allows health
systems to tackle health problems before it’s
too late, ensuring every patient reaches, and
maintains, optimum health.

For more information:
“This book is a fantastic piece of work”
– Robert Lindeman MD, FAAP, Chief Physician Quality Officer

More about this topic
Link to original article for a more in-depth discussion.
Three Strategies to Deliver Patient-Centered Care in the Next Normal
Three Analytics Strategies to Drive Patient-Centered Care
Health Catalyst Editors
Shifting to Virtual Care in the COVID-19 Era: Analytics for Financial Success and an Optimized
Patient Experience - Health Catalyst Editors
Effective Patient Stratification: Four Solutions to Common Hurdles
Amy Flaster, MD, MBA, Senior VP, Population Health Management and Care Management
Six Ways Health Systems Use Analytics to Improve Patient Safety
Health Catalyst Editors
How to Scale Telehealth Solutions to Increase Patient Access During COVID-19
Ed Corbett, MD, Medical Officer

Other Clinical Quality Improvement Resources
Click to read additional information at www.healthcatalyst.com
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