Photo: Lee Health
Lee Health, based in Fort Myers, Florida, engages hospitalists with transparent, trusted data on practice patterns delivered directly to physicians. It uses precise attribution of clinical activities and influence to gain physician trust.
Feedback on practice patterns is sent via text message and a mobile web app that allows physicians to explore recent case examples and view peer comparisons. Lee Health has realized more than 70% monthly average usership, decreases in opioid prescription rates and prescription dosages, improvements in handoff efficiency and discharge order timing, and overall decreases in length of stay in cases managed by hospitalists.
Improved care and created savings
Providing this data to physicians improved patient care, decreased burden on both administrators and physicians, and resulted in cost savings, Lee Health reported.
“Practice change for providers is becoming increasingly difficult,” said Dr. William Carracino, vice president and chief medical information officer at Lee Health. He leads the medical informatics team and the Epic training team. He has built Lee Health’s telemedicine platform and developed the health system’s digital front door strategy.
“It is expected that there will be advancements in treatments for patients, but we are riding a logarithmic rise in options,” he noted. “The genomic component of medication choice, as well as new discoveries surrounding disease processes, are coming at rapid rates. Couple this with the increasing complexity of the electronic health record, new regulation requirements and an explosion in artificial intelligence, and that creates a tidal wave of change.”
Physician engagement tactics
Carracino is familiar with effective tactics for physician engagement, and offers this advice for his peers at other health systems.
“There are many strategies for physician engagement, and many of them focus on making it meaningful to the physicians,” he explained. “Data presented needs to be useful in physicians’ daily care of patients. The changes discussed during these engagements need to either help patients achieve better outcomes and/or make it easier for the providers to get their daily work done.
“Developing a respectful relationship with providers is a pillar for effective engagement,” he added. “This starts with knowledge of their jobs and respect for their plight and ends with the development of trust. Trust in what you promise to deliver gets delivered.”
Transparent data is key
Data transparency is important to physician engagement. Carracino lays out some guiding principles for data transparency initiatives at healthcare provider organizations.
“Do not be punitive. This data is to help all get better at caring for patients,” he advised. “Make certain the data is relevant. Make certain the data is clean and actually representative of the providers’ work. It also is best when the data can be changed by specific actions from the provider.
“Physicians are naturally competitive. Show them their data and where they fall on the spectrum with their colleagues,” he concluded. “This was suspected to be the most powerful change tool, but we needed an easy way to compile the data and display the data. When this was done well, the providers initiated the change themselves.”
Carracino will offer more detail during his HIMSS21 session, “Transforming Clinical Practice with Data Transparency.” It’s scheduled for August 13, from 12 to 1 p.m., in Venetian Murano 3204.
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
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