More than half of healthcare leaders say their PHM solution doesn’t meet their needs; Lack of clinician engagement is the top reason to replace a PHM solution!

MARLBOROUGH, Mass., June 23, 2020 – Persivia, a provider of real-time value-based care, population health, Medicare Advantage, ACO, and quality management solutions, today shared findings from a new survey of healthcare leaders on their adoption and use of population health management (PHM) solutions. Commissioned from healthcare consultancy Sage Growth Partners, the survey found that PHM solutions are falling short, and the market has yet to produce PHM solutions that address core needs.

The survey of 244 healthcare leaders was conducted in April 2020, and found that only 41% are using a PHM solution or participating in value-based care (VBC) at all; the 59% not using PHM or participating in VBC were screened out of the remaining survey questions.*

Download the full report here.

Key findings include:

PHM solutions fall short; lack of clinician engagement and inability to convert data into action are top reasons to switch vendors!

1. More than half (56%) say their current population health management (PHM) solution doesn’t meet their needs; 44% say it does.
2. Almost two-thirds (62%) say a lack of clinician engagement is the top reason they’re looking to replace their PHM solution. This was followed by the inability to convert data to action (48%), and the inability to engage patients (43%) or perform sufficient analytics (43%) tied for third.
3. Analytics (82%), care coordination (77%), and care management (65%) are considered the most important functions of a PHM solution. Downside risk management was the least desired function (34%), perhaps because most respondents are not participating in these types of arrangements.

While most trust their PHM data, significant issues remain!

1. The large majority (79%) say their care team trusts their PHM data, but fewer (65%) say their physicians trust it.
2. The top reasons physicians don’t trust the data are having to leave the workflow (65%), lack of risk adjustment (61%); and data not being clean (48%), usable (43%), or accurate (39%).
3. Only about half of respondents (59%) strongly or somewhat agree that their PHM solution can manage multiple VBC programs at the point of care.

Operationalizing VBC is still challenging; identifying care gaps and actionable steps to close gaps are a pain point!

1. While nearly all leaders (94%) expect their PHM solution to identify care gaps, only 69% say their PHM solution enables them to do so.
2. Only 56% say they receive guidance on the appropriate course of action once a care gap is identified.
3. The large majority (85%) say it’s very to extremely important for their PHM system to configure rules and pathways for clinical actions based on clinical needs, however only 53% believe their PHM system can do this.

“Most respondents are relying on their EHR rather than purpose-built PHM solutions, which is a problem,” said Mansoor Khan, Persivia’s CEO. “These survey findings reveal clear failures on the part of current PHM solutions to deliver on core needs necessary for care improvement – engaging clinicians and patients, creating actionable data, and impacting care coordination and management. It’s imperative that healthcare providers get better data integration and liquidity to ensure they are truly managing the longitudinal health of their populations, something even more critical now, in a world that has been changed by COVID-19.”

Methodology

Persivia commissioned healthcare consultancy Sage Growth Partners to conduct this survey of 244 healthcare leaders in April 2020. To qualify, respondents had to participate in a value-based program and use a PHM solution. Based on this criteria, 100 respondents met the criteria while 144 were screened out. Respondent titles included CFO (27%), CEO (11%), CMO (10%), COO (10%), CMIO (8%), chief quality officer (2%), and other (32%). Organizations represented included acute care hospitals (59%), health systems (17%), critical access hospitals (16%) and specialty hospitals (8%). Almost half (47%) represented hospitals with less than 150 beds, 25% hospitals with 150-400 beds, and 28% hospitals with more than 400 beds.