2022 Technology Revolution: Using Innovation to Drive Quality in Value-Based Care Organizations

Technology has been part of healthcare for years so it comes as no surprise that it continues to drive more efficient patient care. The types of technology being implemented are changing how healthcare is delivered and whether you’re the patient or the provider, you’ve seen the technology shift over the years. 

Most healthcare organizations would likely argue the path they envisioned for 2020 – 2021 changed through the COVID-19 pandemic so what does that mean for 2022? The Proficient Health team had the opportunity to talk 1:1 with Dr. Rodger Israel, Chief Medical Officer at WakeMed Key Community Care in Raleigh, N.C. to discuss current and future trends of technology and quality. 

Check out some of the questions we asked Dr. Israel:   

How can technology help improve quality?

“Technology is the heart of how we figure out how we’re doing in terms of quality.” Dr. Israel discusses the importance of having access to quality measures in real-time and implementing an informatics system to read EMR data daily. 

How do you drive technology adoption?

Dr. Israel tells us that technology is not the forefront of mind for most providers as they are focused on diagnosis and treatment. This makes it important to have champions who see the benefit of the technology. It’s also important to show how technology is improving and impacting patient care – WKCC does this through quarterly newsletters to providers where they highlight a specific patient who has avoided an admission or ED visit, helped to get their medications funded or participated in their ride share program. 

What process is used when selecting new technology?

At WKCC, it often starts at the board level where a sub-committee looks at what their organization needs and would like to accomplish with new technology. Dr. Israel discusses spending time carefully deciding on a solution that meets the needs of the organization and getting the buy-in to make it a successful implementation. 

How does your organization leverage data and analytics when making decisions?

Dr. Israel gives us an example of how data and analytics helped determine where a number of practices had fallen behind with patient diabetes management and what they are doing to improve. 

What trends do you think will be most prevalent in 2022?

Dr. Israel talks about wearable devices and how impactful and helpful they will be in getting a full picture of a patient’s life and health in 2022. 

You can watch the full webinar recording here as we dive deeper into these questions and more!