Longitudinal Patient Record Needed To Advance Care?

In most day to day settings, a clinician only needs a small (if precisely focused) amount of data to make clinical decisions. Both in ambulatory and acute settings, they rely on immediate and near-term information, some collected during the visit, and a handful of historical factors likely to influence or even govern what plan of care is appropriate.

That may be changing, though, according to Cheryl McKay of Orion Health. In a recent blog item, McKay argues that as the industry shifts from fee-for-service payment models to value-based reimbursement, we’ll need new types of medical records to support this model. Today, the longitudinal patient record and community care plan are emerging as substitutes to old EMR models, McKay says. These new entities will be built from varied data sources including payer claims, provider EMRs, patient health devices and the patients themselves.

As these new forms of patient medical record emerge, effective population health management is becoming more feasible, she argues. Longitudinal patient records and community care plans are “essential as we steer away from FFS…The way records are delivered to healthcare providers– with an utter lack of visibility and a lot of noise from various data sources– creates unnecessary risks for everyone involved.”

She contends that putting these types of documentation in place, which summarize patient-based clinical experiences versus episodic clinical experiences, close big gaps in patient history which would otherwise generate mistakes. Longitudinal record-keeping also makes it easier for physicians to aggragate information, do predictive modeling and intervene proactively in patient care at both the patient and population level.

She also predicts that with both a longitudinal patient record and community care plan in place, getting from the providers of all stripes a “panoramic” look at patients, costs will fall as providers stop performing needless tests and procedures. Not only that, these new entities would ideally offer real-time information as well, including event notifications, keeping all the providers involved in sync in providing the patient’s care.

To be sure, this blog item is a pitch for Orion’s technology. While the notion of a community-care plan isn’t owned by anyone in particular, Orion is pitching a specific model which rides upon its population health technology. That being said, I’m betting most of us would agree that the idea (regardless of which vendor you work with) of establishing a community-wide care plan does make sense. And certainly, putting a rich longitudinal patient record in place could be valuable too.

However, given the sad state of interoperability today, I doubt it’s possible to build this model today unless you choose a single vendor-centric solution. At present think it’s more of a dream than a reality for most of us.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

1 Comment

  • Thank you, Anne, for the thoughtful coverage of my recent blog post. I’d like to supplement it with a quick note: what I’m describing isn’t a dream—it’s already here! It is possible to build this model today without a single vendor-centric solution. The connections, the interfacing, and the interoperability are already happening, and there are many organizations out there who are already doing it. Is it as easy as it should be? Not yet! It still takes work on the vendor’s end, but that work is being done, and it’s being done successfully. With the right momentum, the healthcare industry can move forward more quickly than anticipated.

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