Ochsner's Standardized Risk Stratification, Care Coordination Protocols Boost Outcomes across Continuum

Ochsner Moves the Metrics with Risk Stratification, Care Coordination Protocols

Ochsner's Standardized Risk Stratification, Care Coordination Protocols Boost Outcomes across Continuum

Ochsner Health System's scaling of a successful transitional care model across one region not only reduced duplication of calls to recently discharged patients but also quadrupled its connect rate ? from about 20 percent to nearly 98 percent of discharged patients ? and decreased rehospitalizations by about 15 percent.

All while remaining salary-neutral.

Moving the Metrics: Financial and Quality Returns from System-wide Care Coordination and Risk Stratification, an October 2014 webinar available for replay.

In case you missed this webinar, you still have a chance to watch this highly-rated program.

Register to view the conference today or order your training DVD or CD:
http://store.hin.com/product.asp?itemid=4956

To replicate these achievements, the nine-hospital system looks up and down its continuum for opportunities to collaborate in care coordination and has elevated its approach to risk stratification. This culture shift is a prerequisite for success in today's value-based climate, Green estimates.

"A really critical step to understand is managing not only your 'rising risk' but also your 'falling risk' patient population," he said, categorizing 'falling risk' as those whose conditions are under control and who can be handed off to a lower risk medical home or chronic disease management environment.

Healthcare doesn't currently do a good job of moving 'falling risk' patients down the stratification model, he said, which leaves little room for newly diagnosed 'rising risk' ? an out of control CHF patient, for example.

Risk stratification is scalable, Green emphasized, from single providers without an electronic medical record to a large health system or accountable care organization. As a nine-hospital system, Ochsner's risk segmentation approach relies heavily on automation and data analytics. For example, every Ochsner hospital patient is assigned a severity of illness (SOI) level that helps to guide individuals to the appropriate level of care. For example, all level 3 patients are automatically referred to complex case management.

During the webinar, Green shared several of Ochsner's collaborations in risk stratification and care coordination, including an automated post-discharge telephonic follow-up for emergency department patients that replaced its siloed approach and has reduced avoidable ER use in the range of 13 to 15 percent depending on the payor and the location.

"We are very cognizant of and careful that we're not driving too much business away from our emergency room if it's appropriate. We're just letting [staff] manage a higher risk population within their emergency room and giving them time to spend more of it with the patients."

You can "attend" this program right in your office and learn: how to manage multiple patient groups; levels of risk stratification programs and capabilities; models for post hospital and emergency department discharge; managing the continuum of care across post discharge programs; disease management by acuity; resource management of healthcare segmentation programs; and the future of risk segmentation.

It's so convenient! Invite your staff members to watch the conference. We will send you a DVD or CD-ROM of the conference proceedings or a link to our web site with a username and password. You can log in and view the program right from your computer ? any time of the day or night, whenever convenient for you and your colleagues ? and benefit from the archived recording of the conference, including the Q&A period.

You'll get to listen to the question and answer session to hear details on what metrics to use to determine "falling risk" patients and follow-up do strategies to manage these patients; metrics on reduced avoidable ER visits from the automated approach and how the nurse triage line impacts daytime and after hours emergency room visits; how to stratify newly diagnosed CHF patients; and how to take a wholistic approach to manage patients with multiple chronic conditions.

To register for the on-demand re-broadcast, download an .MP3 file or order the training DVD or CD-ROM of Moving the Metrics: Financial and Quality Returns from System-wide Care Coordination and Risk Stratification, please visit:
http://store.hin.com/product.asp?itemid=4956

I hope you find it useful.

Cordially,

Melanie Matthews
Executive Vice President
The Healthcare Intelligence Network

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