Outcomes Managment

Traditionally, providers have measured outcomes based on the results of various classes of medical interventions or the results of treatment for patient disease conditions.  Most provider operations are run as chains of activities which take place while dealing with the patient condition, versus an integrated set of medical, administrative and financial systems and practices in which the total patient experience can be tracked and improved.  This produces a confusion of unrelated experiences of cause and effects for both the patient and the provider organization.

This approach may have been appropriate in the past.  However, today’s healthcare  environment demands a much broader view of outcomes which include metrics on the Patient Experience, disease occurrence and  prevention in the patient community, patient/family participation in follow-on care, and coordination among internal and external clinicians in the Provider Value Chain. Expansion of outcome metrics in this manner has been shown to significantly improve both medical and financial outcomes for provider organizations

Current healthcare practices typically do not provide a broad enough perspective to understand the consequences (outcomes) of the day-to-day provider operations. This is because successful heatlhcare delivery includes more than just medical practices and protocols.  For example, when handoffs occur between clinicians within the provider practice or with external providers, be they clinics, hospitals, laboratories, or individual practitioners, they are usually not well coordinated and followed through.