More than 100 attendees joined the first of a series of Health Catalyst virtual client huddles designed to support client partners and aid collaboration and direct client connections in this time of unprecedented change.
According to an April 2020 survey of Health Catalyst clients, 72.6 percent said they had a strong interest in examples, guidance, and tools from other health systems. In the client-only session, insights shared included the most common COVID-19 analytic projects and one health system’s elective surgery plan.
The health system shared the challenges they faced in understanding the financial impact of halting elective surgeries as well as creating a plan for working through their backlog. They also shared the tools and strategies they are using to aid their financial recovery.
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On May 6, 2020, more than 100 attendees from 46 healthcare organizations joined the first of a series of Health Catalyst® virtual client huddles designed to support client partners and aid collaboration and direct client connections in this time of unprecedented change. According to an April 2020 survey of Health Catalyst clients, 72 percent showed interest in attending a regular client forum and 72.6 percent said they had a strong interest in examples, guidance, and tools from both other health systems and Health Catalyst.
Mike Doyle, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Professional Services, and Russ Staheli, Chief Client Officer at Health Catalyst, facilitated the session. They shared initial high-level observations about COVID-19 analytics projects at client organizations, including the most common:
While most clients who responded to the survey shared that they had many of the tools and services needed to handle these challenges, many expressed a keen interest to focus on recovery efforts, including elective surgery operations and recovery planning, revenue cycle management, and incorporating telemedicine into planning data. In fact, 82 percent of respondents said that learning about what others are doing to aid their COVID-19 financial recovery would provide the most helpful support (figure 1).
Following the introductions, two presenters from the surgical and procedures department of a top health system shared how they are using analytics to restart elective surgeries and their elective surgery financial plan. Like many healthcare organizations, the health system suspended elective surgeries in late March following an executive order from the state’s governor. The health system pivoted to prepare for a surge of COVID-19 patients and away from elective procedures, but quickly realized they needed to understand the revenue impacts and create a plan to deal with the surgery backlog. While they had a tremendous amount of data, much of it resided in the EMR and was difficult to access. They lacked an easy way to create an integrated view of clinical, financial, and operational data necessary to effectively plan the organization’s elective surgery financial recovery.
Clinical leaders partnered with Health Catalyst to leverage the Data Operating System (DOS™) to integrate clinical, financial, and operational data. They also used the Department Explorer: Surgical Services analytics accelerator and a COVID-19 Elective Surgery Impact Analysis application to visualize the impact of canceled surgeries on revenue and develop the organization’s recovery plan.
Leveraging the right tools gave leaders the ability to quickly and effectively understand canceled cases, surgery backlog, and the revenue impact by facility and surgery type. In just two weeks, the team deployed the COVID-19 Elective Surgery Impact Analysis application and created a data-driven recovery plan based on comprehensive clinical, financial, and operational data. They also saved hundreds of hours of manual data aggregation and reporting.
Following the presentation, participants had the opportunity to ask questions and share feedback, including the agreed to request to share the dashboard (using de-identified patient data) with attendees. The next client huddle will take place on Thursday, May 21, at 9 am EDT and will continue on a biweekly basis to help support Health Catalyst partners and encourage continued collaboration.
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