Value-Based Care Transition Begins with Physician Engagement
By - Physician engagement is the key to improving how the American healthcare system performs in 2015 in regards to a smooth value-based care transition, according to The Advisory Board Company’s Annual Health Care CEO Survey.
Physician engagement ranked third as an area of newfangled interest for hospital and health executives in a survey last year.
This year, it ranked higher. According to new information, 90 percent of a total 157 C-suite executives surveyed expressed keen interest in engaging physicians in cost and quality enhancements.
The relationship between physician engagement and a solidly executed transition to value-based care models is close-knit.
“Our research underscores that physician engagement is imperative to an organization’s successful transition to value-based care models,” said Chas Roades, Chief Research Officer at The Advisory Board Company, in a public statement.
“Driving fundamental and sustainable changes to providers’ business model is impossible without buy-in from the clinicians on the frontlines of patient care,” he continued.
Four other primary opportunities reported
There are four other opportunities for performance improvement that providers should explore further, says the Advisory Board Company:
- Reformatting service portfolios for population health
- Reinforcing primary care physician alignment
- Developing direct-to-employer contracting
- Regulating avoidable utilization
Patient engagement hindrances need addressing
The Advisory Board Company’s conclusions are valuable in regards to other recent findings which determined patient engagement is still in development as a forefront focus.
A primarily hindrance for focus is the lack of technological adaption on a widespread scale, which is generally due to developing security concerns.
As HealthITAnalytics.com reported last month regarding a recent Chillmark Research report, the market is not yet fully able to deliver digital care that is essentially patient focused.
“It is clear that patient engagement is taking a backseat to other enterprise priorities, such as defining and integrating clinical networks, building analytics capabilities, mastering risk-based contracting, and making other preparations for effective population-based health management,” maintained Chillmark Research.
Additionally, as EHRIntelligence.com reported earlier this month, only half of executive leaders believe patient engagement will be closely connected to mHealth capabilities.
Consumer wariness about privacy violations and data privacy risks are thought to be the most prominent difficulty in ready adoption, reported John Carey in The Economist.
Other reported key barriers to strong physician engagement need further attention, said Carey.
Physicians may feel ill-equipped to implement change, according to a McKinsey & Company physician survey. Another obstacle may be present when a provider and payer focus on employment to drive physician alignment.
Additionally, excessive compensation efforts and an overall poor understanding of risk-based models combined with risk aversion keep physician engagement from being more of a needed backbone within the healthcare profession, the survey maintains.
If physicians can better comprehend how to strategically apply risk, physician engagement will become stronger, the survey said.
