Several health organizations partnered with Health Catalyst during the COVID-19 pandemic for data-driven support. Their meaningful achievements included enhanced capacity planning and risk prediction using data analytics.
Their efforts revealed a few key themes worth sharing on the heels of National Immunization Awareness Month, including the need to leverage community health data intelligently and strategically, the fact that health systems need timely and organized data for effective decision-making and that a focus on continuous learning from COVID-19 can improve chronic disease management and public health strategies.
Holly Rimmasch, Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Health Catalyst, recently discussed the lessons learned with Health Catalyst Editors. The following is an edited excerpt of the conversation.
One especially meaningful achievement seen through this work was how data and analytics could assist with capacity planning. This was a major issue right away because it was such a contagious disease that capacity was blown out of the water. As patients were coming in for care, healthcare workers were impacted by COVID-19, causing a reduction in staff while they were experiencing such a dramatic increase in demand.
Data is critical to understanding capacity planning and risk prediction. We were able to assist with capacity planning because we had access to the necessary data. AI was also critical in identifying variation, and it helped us learn faster. Alone, none of these organizations could do that in short order, but they could use our software and team to help them understand their potential needs.
In addition, we learned how vital community data can be. Community data was important as we tried to track and trace. We were able to identify and notify those with positive lab results faster as a result. Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) were key in bringing the data together, allowing healthcare professionals and patients to appropriately access and securely share patients’ medical information electronically. This proved vital during our clients’ COVID-19 response.
Our ability to pull in data from multiple sources was key in helping healthcare systems understand how to respond. For example, we were able to pull in inventory data, allowing providers the ability to manage scarce supplies.
Data helped us understand how to target the best care. With Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, the care team was able to utilize the data to quickly identify people who were at greater risk and treat them first.
Following the National Health Service (NHS) guidelines and defined priorities, Guy’s and St Thomas’ began COVID-19 vaccination efforts by calling patients over the age of 80 who had an upcoming outpatient appointment. The data platform and analytics applications enabled the organization to implement a solution quickly.
In just two days, Guy’s and St. Thomas improved and streamlined COVID-19 vaccination patient identification and prioritization and call center workflow, increasing the number of patients scheduled for vaccination. The organization had more than 30,000 patients identified for ranked priority calling, had call outcomes stored in a single location, and enabled systematic reporting.
From a clinician’s perspective, it was amazing that they used that data to intervene faster.
Another key learning through this work is that you need data fast; you need to organize it meaningfully so you can understand what is happening, and as you make decisions, you are able to evaluate the impact and make changes as needed.
Overall, we walked away with a better understanding of the significance of identifying risk, combining critical data with community information, utilizing AI, identifying variation, tracking interventions, and monitoring outcomes.
Capacity planning is something you could use every day at every organization. In the United States, we have a longstanding shortage of primary care providers and nurses, and these kinds of tools can be extremely useful for health systems facing these issues.
Post-COVID syndrome lives on, and we continue to learn from it. As we know with any value-based care program, risk prediction or identification is critical. The practice of combining acute data with community data is part of what you need for a general and chronic care management program. In other words, you need these components to be successful in value-based care.
As exemplified during COVID-19, we can use data to understand how to be the most effective with limited resources needing wide distribution. How do we support health? We do that by using a comprehensive data set with tools that help us understand, intervene, and improve, helping us provide better care faster.
To help high-risk community members, MemorialCare utilized our data platform to create a COVID-19 Risk of Mortality model, accurately identifying high-risk patients. This led to a 20% reduction in mortality rates and more efficient resource allocation.
For example, MemorialCare stratified the following three distinct subcategories to help identify the patient groups that would benefit from increased communication because complex health problems place them at an even higher risk of severe illness.
Risk stratification helped identify those who should get the vaccine first. They used data to identify, stratify, and communicate with those individuals.
Outside of COVID-19, these same tactics can be used to assist in identifying those who are at high risk based on age, comorbidities, or social determinants of health. Our goals are the same, focusing on not only closing care gaps, but focusing on keeping people well.
One specific tool I would call out here is Pop Analyzer™: Stratify. This application enables anyone within an organization to efficiently and accurately identify patient groups based on pre-defined—yet easy-to-customize—populations and risk algorithms.
Members of the care team have complete transparency into the algorithm behind population definitions—and they can easily adjust those definitions on the fly.
The application provides the architecture and toolkit to integrate the stratified populations into daily practice and care. Stratify provides predictive capabilities and risk assessments to help prioritize patient interventions—improving patient health and financial outcomes.
Our clients’ efforts during COVID-19 emphasized the need to have the data ready and accessible. Today, with Health Catalyst Ignite, we can do that even better, bringing in larger sets of data and the ability to compute faster.
Health Catalyst Ignite enables data sharing where it resides rather than creating duplicate copies. Ignite quickly ingests data, centralizing data governance, democratizing analytics and insights, and significantly reducing storage and management costs while providing widespread access to refined healthcare data.
This all leads to making data more affordable and accessible and, more importantly leading to better decisions.
COVID-19 taught us that we need data not only from the acute side, but we need to integrate community data. We have always understood that we need access to clinical, financial, and operational data, but, now we better understand that we need community and social determinants of health data to help not only providers but also individuals navigate the continuum of care to achieve the highest quality of care.
Ignite is a tool that can assist with access. Ignite can overcome the most challenging barriers to accessing purpose-fit data, including comprehensive rapid integration with most existing vendor environments and tools.
In addition to access, COVID-19 highlighted that patient engagement is crucial. Our Twistle Patient Engagement by Health Catalyst™ application can provide needed assistance here. Twistle delivers personalized, step-by-step guidance to the patient’s mobile phone to keep them on track with their medical plan of care. It uses secure, patient-centric communication to deliver personalized, step-by-step guidance to the patient’s mobile phone to drive care plan and protocol adherence, which improves outcomes, lowers costs, and generates clinical, financial, and operational value.
In conclusion, the partnerships between Carle Health, Allina Health, ChristianaCare, Guy’s, and St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust with Health Catalyst during the pandemic have showcased the transformative power of data and analytics in public health. The key lessons learned emphasized the need for timely access to organized data, which is essential for making informed decisions in crisis situations. As we reflect on these meaningful achievements, it is essential for healthcare organizations and providers to continue exploring innovative tools such as Health Catalyst Ignite Data and Analytics and Twistle to enhance patient engagement and care coordination to build a more resilient healthcare system.
Having access to information is important, but in the end, the most meaningful aspect is that using this information leads to meaningful interventions, education, coordination, and better health for our communities.
