Patients operate under the assumption that healthcare providers will give them the best possible care available. However, requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are elevating expectations for better patient experiences as well. Under the ACA, healthcare providers are incentivized to move from a fee-for-service payment model to one based on outcomes and value in order to cut down on avoidable readmissions. Last year for example, nearly 18% (roughly 2 million patients) of all Medicare patients in the U.S. who had been hospitalized were readmitted within a month, costing Medicare $26 billion. Medicare officials estimate $17 billion of that comes from potentially avoidable readmissions. Providers that coordinate patient care and reduce unnecessary hospitalizations can earn shared savings under Medicare programs.
Recognizing an opportunity to improve patient health and the financial well-being of providers, Pharos Innovations, an Aspect customer, designed its patient engagement solution to allow healthcare providers to identify segments of the population that are at risk for being readmitted to the hospital and empower these patients to actively participate in their daily care through easy-to-use automated surveys. Data gathered through the Pharos system helps the care management team identify and head off issues before a patient’s health deteriorates. This ultimately leads to decreased hospital stays, patient behavioral change, and optimized care management models. The Pharos patient engagement solution is built on the Aspect® Customer Experience Platform (CXP), a comprehensive software platform designed for the creation, management, reporting and analysis of omni-channel self-service applications.
“What is unique about our patient engagement solution is that we have near-real time patient data from self-reporting. This allows our program to trigger early intervention and possibly prevent an unnecessary hospital visit. And Aspect’s CXP platform has not only provided a flexible, dynamic platform to build our solution on, it has also made it easier for patients to use the system, increasing our customers’ adoption rate,” said Ryan Royal, Chief Technology Officer of Pharos.
With the patient engagement solution rolled out, Pharos’ customers are seeing meaningful success for their patients enrolled in the program. One customer, Community Health Network (CHN), has been able to compare data from enrolled patients versus those who are not enrolled. The enrolled patient population experienced a 40+% reduction of all-cause hospital admissions thanks to the program.
CHN data revealed that patients who did not enroll in the patient engagement program experienced an 18% readmission rate, versus 6% for patients actively engaged in the Pharos program. CHN was very pleased that:
- 90% of patients would recommend the program to others.
- A year after implementing the Pharos program, CHN met their shared savings threshold, earning more than $2 million and experiencing a 5x return on investment.
- With the Pharos patient engagement solution, CHN is driving the best possible outcomes for patients and for the financial well-being of the organization.
![Pharos Metrics]()
To find out more details on how Pharos is using Aspect CXP to power their patient engagement program, read the full story: http://www.aspect.com/globalassets/pharos-cs.pdf.
The post Customer Case Study: Pharos Innovations Makes Inroads in Preventing Readmission appeared first on Aspect Blogs.