Navigating clinical chart abstraction and participating in clinical registries is time-consuming and costly, but tech-enabled managed services (TEMS), an outsourcing model, can ease these burdens. Learn how.
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Most healthcare organizations participate in dozens of clinical registries to enhance their quality of care, improve clinical, financial, and operational outcomes, comply with regulatory and accreditation guidelines, and support research endeavors.
Meanwhile, registry standard setters and governing bodies provide complex and specific data collection guidelines that clinically oriented, highly trained abstractors must follow to meet submission requirements.
However, when you consider the associated labor and technology costs, and the burden of ongoing maintenance, registry participation comes with a hefty price tag that can strain even well-funded healthcare organizations. Competing priorities, resource constraints, and data availability make it challenging to act upon registry outputs to achieve measurable outcomes and maximize the value of their participation.
For this reason, today’s healthcare leaders are turning to innovative approaches to reduce costs, leverage technology, and enhance resource allocation to optimize the benefits of registry participation.
One such solution, tech-enabled managed services for clinical chart abstraction (TEMS), is a form of outsourcing that transfers ownership and ongoing responsibility for data abstraction and registry submissions to an outside partner.
The partnership incorporates data abstraction best practices, tools, and technology to enable more accurate and efficient data collection and submission.
Additionally, optimizing reporting and analytics and adopting proven improvement frameworks allow an increased focus on improving care, bolstering public performance ratings, and maximizing reimbursement.
Clinical registries are organized data collections that evaluate specific outcomes for a defined patient population. They aim to learn more about a disease or condition and monitor and improve the quality of care provided.
Subsequently, registry governing bodies publish detailed data collection specifications that chart abstractors must follow strictly to meet data quality standards. There are submission guidelines and certified registry submission tools that are used to populate registry databases.
In turn, registries provide process and outcome measure performance and benchmarks to inform clinical treatments, medical interventions, and care pathways. Also, registry participation may be required for accreditation and licensure to treat certain populations, and performance ratings may become publicly available.
Five common clinical registry focus areas include:
With the increasing, ongoing burden of registry participation, many U.S health systems have opted to outsource clinical chart abstraction functions to help them optimize their resource allocation and address key performance indicators such as:
Healthcare leaders remain focused on getting the most value from registry participation. While these registries play a critical role in improving patient outcomes, when organizations face prohibitive costs and workflow challenges, they may be limited in their ability to glean actionable insights and benefit significantly from their participation.
Reducing the financial burden of clinical registry participation opens avenues for increased collaboration among providers, researchers, and policymakers in service to their patient populations. Moreover, engaging in clinical registries provides organizations with greater credibility while positioning them as innovators in patient care practices; this competitive advantage empowers health systems to engage physicians and meet the diverse needs of patients.
TEMS for clinical chart abstraction increases the value of registry participation by lowering data abstraction labor costs and management, reducing technical burden, and increasing the return on EMR workflows to deliver reliable, high-quality data. This enables end users to shift their focus to improving care.
The tools and best practices developed and maintained by TEMS for clinical chart abstraction, including the use of generative AI, give health systems the ability to:
In conclusion, addressing the financial, resource, and technical burden associated with clinical registry participation is crucial for fostering broader engagement, supporting evidence-based practices, and achieving measurably improved outcomes.
By adopting a tech-enabled managed services approach, organizations can realize value quickly by lowering labor costs, maximizing the appropriate role of technology in data collection, leveraging expert clinical knowledge, and adopting proven improvement methodologies.
As registry and regulatory requirements increase and value-based payment models emerge, the need for efficient, scalable data collection and reporting tools and processes will become increasingly important. Still, many health systems face financial limitations and lack the dedicated staff to support their registry participation.
Therefore, health systems must continue prioritizing innovative approaches in healthcare, such as tech-enabled managed services for clinical chart abstraction, to overcome resource constraints and ensure they can maximize participation in clinical registries to benefit all stakeholders.
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