Over 50% of Leaders Underwhelmed by Population Health Management Tech

Fifty-six percent of healthcare leaders say their current population health management solution doesn’t meet their needs, according to a survey from Persivia and commissioned by Sage Growth Partners.

Just 38 percent of respondents rated their population health solution as eight, nine or ten on a scale of one to ten, while 24 percent rated it a seven and 37 percent judged their solution to be a six or less.

The survey of 224 healthcare leaders was conducted in April 2020. Researchers found that only 41 percent are using a population health management (PHM) solution or participating in value-based care at all. The 59 percent not using PHM platforms or participating in value-based care were screened out of the remaining survey questions.

The top reason organizations are looking to replace their PHM solution is lack of clinician engagement, at 62 percent. Forty-eight percent cited an inability to convert data to action as their top reason, and 43 percent said their main concern was the inability to perform sufficient analytics.

Eighty-two percent of leaders said analytics capabilities are the most important functions of a PHM solution, while 77 percent named care coordination as the most essential function. Sixty-five percent said care management is the top proficiency of a population health platform.

The discovery that many PHM solutions lack comprehensive analytics capabilities mirrors results from a separate 2019 HIMSS Analytics survey. Researchers on that study found that 90 percent of respondents are using analytics in clinical areas, but just 21 percent are specifically using analytics tools to manage population health at scale. The survey also showed that only ten percent are using data analytics to improve chronic disease management.

The results from Persivia and Sage Growth Partners indicate that although the PHM solution market is moving from the early adoption stage, these platforms still leave much to be desired.

"Most respondents are relying on their EHR rather than purpose-built PHM solutions, which is a problem. These survey findings reveal clear failures on the part of current PHM solutions to deliver on core needs necessary for care improvement – engaging clinicians and patients, creating actionable data, and impacting care coordination and management,” said Mansoor Khan, Persivia's CEO.

“It's imperative that healthcare providers get better data integration and liquidity to ensure they are truly managing the longitudinal health of their populations, something even more critical now, in a world that has been changed by COVID-19."

The survey also revealed that some organizations still struggle with a lack of data trust. While 79 percent of leaders said their care teams trust their PHM data, just 65 percent said their physicians trust it.

Sixty-five percent of respondents said that having to leave the workflow is a top reason why physicians don’t trust the data, and 61 percent reported that a lack of risk adjustment is physicians’ main concern. Unclean data was also a top reported reason at 48 percent, as well as data inaccuracy at 39 percent.

About three-quarters of respondents somewhat or strongly agree that they can follow a patient along their longitudinal journey with proper data and insights across multiple sites of care. However, leaders also said that in the home, post-acute, and ambulatory settings, there are still significant issues with data accuracy, completeness, and accountability.

Although data trust issues among healthcare leaders are nothing new, these results suggest that the industry still has a long way to go before organizations can confidently use PHM platforms to make data-driven decisions.

Just 53 percent of leaders believe their PHM system can configure rules and pathways for clinical actions based on clinical needs, while 85 percent said it’s critical for their solution to know how to do this.

Additionally, although 94 percent expect their PHM platform to identify care gaps, just 69 percent reported that their system can do so. Data actionability is also still a challenge for many organizations: Only 56 percent of respondents receive guidance on the appropriate course of actions to take once a care gap is detected.

The survey’s findings reveal that the PHM market has yet to produce solutions that address core needs, and still have room for significant improvement.

“Care in the future will almost certainly be less centered around a brick and mortar strategy—making it imperative to get better data and do a better job of coordinating care beyond the hospital. Hospitals and health systems can only buy so many physician practices or post-acute facilities,” the survey concluded.

“What they really need is integration and data liquidity to truly manage population health. And playing a bigger role in managing costs as well as care and quality is likely to be another future requirement of PHM solutions, as more VBC contracts require downside risk.”