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Improving Patient Safety and Quality through Culture, Clinical Analytics, Evidence-Based Practices, and Adoption I recently attended the “Best Practices in a Culture of Safety” conference. The conference emphasized that patient safety and quality is an “and” science that centers on culture (organization, processes, etc.), healthcare (clinical) analytics, content (evidence-based practices), and frontline adoption of best practices. A clinician at the conference shared an interesting example: the clinician’s health system’s electronic medical record (EMR) data showed ASA utilization at 20 percent. These statistics highlight the fact that a culture of patient safety and quality, in conjunction with clinical analytics, evidence-based practices, and adoption of these practices are essential to achieving healthcare transformation in our country.

In addition to highlighting what I think are the top seven financial healthcare trends in 2016, I’ve also included action-oriented strategies that will help healthcare financial leaders stay ahead of the curve. Fort HealthCare’s Senior Director of IT effectively summarized the increasing prioritization of population health: “population health is 100 times bigger and the road isn’t yet paved; it isn’t just about the data or the tools used by clinicians, it really is about changing the way healthcare organizations think about practicing medicine. : The Year of the Consumer 2016 might just be the year of the consumer, with everyone’s attention on patient engagement and the consumer experience. But with increased healthcare spending, the continued shift from volume-based care to value-based-care, and a rise in alternative delivery models, healthcare financial leaders need to proactively manage a variety of high-level priorities in the coming year.

CMS claimed the public reporting of readmission metrics would increase the transparency of hospital care, help consumers choose a care venue, and provide a benchmark for hospitals in their quality improvement efforts. In 2012, CMS launched the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), which began to penalize hospitals with high rates of readmissions for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia. For example, clinical analytics and decision support applications permit clinical improvement teams to focus attention on specific clinical measures needed to manage baseline population health processes and outcomes. With the technology infrastructure in place, the team in charge of the initiative crafted a specific, measurable objective: to achieve by October 2014 a 30 percent reduction in the 30-day all-cause readmission rate and a 15 percent reduction in the 90-day all-cause readmission rate for patients with heart failure; also, to sustain the reductions through 2016.