Navmed and Healthcare Analyzer
An integrated health delivery organization provides better care with a targeted analytic application
For health care providers, rapid and accurate analysis of patient-care and financial indicators is key to providing the best possible service in an environment of skyrocketing costs.
Navmed of California offers managed care administration services for health care providers, Independent Physicians’ Associations (IPAs) and Physicians’ Services Organizations (PSOs). It provides information systems, decision support and claims administration for 110,000 members in six counties, six IPAs and numerous hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. Navmed is the parent company of Priority Health Services, with St. Agnes Medical Center and the Matrix IPA as its centerpieces.
The application provides fast, efficient access to critical indicators, enhancing the quality of data gathered by Information Services. It’s all part their commitment to first-rate patient care through the best use of resources. "Healthcare Analyzer has already helped us spot trends and make changes because of the fast, accurate information we get on the briefing boards," says Christopher Roggenstein, Chief Information Officer at Navmed.
"Healthcare Analyzer was the most cost-effective choice for us, not only in terms of the license price but also because it would not require a lot of staff training or the hiring of specialists to maintain it."
"As the project expands, we’ll be able to redesign the information to help support health programs and encourage preventive medicine." Navmed looked hard for a system to replace the monthly, manual collation of inches-thick paper reports, often as difficult to read and interpret as they were to prepare. "We knew we needed to provide the tools and the information to raise health care quality and keep costs down," recalls Mr. Roggenstein. After a competitive evaluation, Healthcare Analyzer was chosen for its cost-effectiveness, ease of use and speed of development.
Available in both Windows client/server and Web configurations, Healthcare Analyzer gives non-technical users graphical briefing boards that show data extracted from corporate databases. Metrics can be compared or analyzed geographically or over time. Trends or unexpected situations are highlighted and a drill-down feature helps uncover the reasons. The briefing board displays many topic areas simultaneously, and can be changed as the scope or focus of a project changes.
"Having information easily at hand can help assure that appropriate care is provided in the appropriate setting."
Christopher Roggenstein
Chief Information Officer, Navmed
In just a few weeks, Navmed had an operational model analyzing paid vs. eligible membership; fee for service vs. capitation payments for doctors; hospital use in terms of admissions, diagnoses, treatments and bed days per thousand population; plus e-mail links. Each topic chart can be drilled down by region, by hospital, by IPA or by individual doctor, depending on the subject area. Managers see at a glance not only bed occupancy, but also reasons for admissions and average length of stay, trends in emergency vs. prearranged admissions, as well as rates of specialist referral by various centers.
The first 10 people to use the briefing boards were so impressed that plans began almost immediately to involve more users. The next phase will also refine the information with more data from doctors’ offices to complement hospital data. Speedware’s Esperant will be introduced for ad hoc questions on relational databases.
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