With the right tools at hand, data has become more than just numbers and charts.
They are now indispensable assets, especially in the healthcare landscape — where they continually inform decision making and help map unexplored terrains in patient care.
Our recent webinar gathered healthcare experts to explore the transformative power of patient data in driving better outcomes. Here’s what they had to say.
Panel:
- Mark Attanasi, MBA, Executive Director at International Certification & Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC)
- Pete Nielsen, President and CEO at CCAPP
- Jeffrey Quamme, MS, AADC, CCS, Executive Director at Connecticut Certification Board
- Brianna Rhue, OD, FAAO, FSLS, Optometrist, Co-Founder: Dr. Contact Lens, Co-Founder: TechifEYE
- (Host) Nikhil Parwal, Business Head – Healthcare, LeadSquared
Key Points of Discussion:
- Simplifying data collection process
- Importance of automation in patient care
- Translating data to improve outcomes
- Optimizing operational efficiency with data
- Use of tech in generating and analyzing data
Types of Patient Data Collected by Practitioners
Question 1: What kind of data are you capturing?
Brianna: We gather patient demographic information and having cell phone numbers are crucial for follow-ups. While email addresses are also important to us, cell phone numbers are key for staying in touch with patients. We also collect data on:
- Medications
- Smoking habits
- Diabetes status
- Other relevant health information.
During eye exams, we also collect info on prescription details, whether patients wear contacts, or if they have diseases like glaucoma and so on. All this information is aggregated in an electronic medical record (EMR).
Question 2: What challenges do you face while collecting or organizing patient data?
Brianna: Despite the adoption of EMRs (Electronic Medical Record), there is still a lack of proper data aggregation. For instance, data from dermatologists, eye doctors, and diabetic doctors often don’t communicate with each other, making it difficult to get comprehensive reports. This is where EMRs have failed to realize their vision of integrating health information effectively.
EMRs also tend to lock down their software, making it hard for practices to use the data effectively. While you can extract some information, it’s often limited and not very actionable. For instance, with our company, Dr. Contact Lens, we aim to provide simple reminders for appointments or contact lens orders. However, EMRs often hold patients and doctors hostage to their software, with no vision for integrating with external companies.
EMRs need to adopt a more open model, like Salesforce or Apple, where systems are open for third-party development. As doctors, we house the information, but the patient is the rightful owner. It’s interesting how EMRs view ownership of this data.
“The EMR seems designed to protect information rather than share what can be shared to increase sales or attract new patients.”
– Jeff Quamme, Executive Director, Connecticut Certification Board
Pete: We collect a lot of data but often fail to use it effectively. For instance, it’s crucial to ensure that certified practitioners reflect the diverse demographics of the patients they serve. Representation matters, as patients benefit from seeing practitioners who share their cultural, ethnic, or gender background. Using data effectively can help improve workforce diversity and better match practitioners to the communities they serve.
My current passion project focuses on improving addiction treatment outcomes. But there’s no single reliable scale to measure patient progress, so I’m working on refining data collection methods. The issue has been less about the tools and more about reaching a consensus on what data to collect. I’ve decided to use “recovery capital” as the primary measure instead of “quality of life,” which can be too broad and inconsistent. Also, abstinence data alone is inadequate, as it doesn’t capture the full picture of recovery. Improving data collection in this area is a major priority for me.
“Even if two organizations perform the same tasks, they might not agree on which data to collect, especially in Behavioral Health. And even with agreement, quantifying the data is challenging due to a lack of standard measures…”
– Jeff Quamme, Executive Director, Connecticut Certification Board
Use of Patient Data Across Various Practices
Question 3: How does data inform the decisions you make?
Brianna: At our practice, we analyze data to identify trends. For example, we know that myopia, or nearsightedness, is increasing among children. So, we use this information to target marketing efforts toward mothers aged 30 to 45, who are likely to have young children. This proactive approach helps us focus on preventative care, which is often lacking in the healthcare space where the emphasis is more on treating illness.
When it comes to purchasing new equipment, we use data to determine whether the investment will benefit our patient demographics. For instance, we ask whether a new piece of equipment will serve the needs of our patients effectively or if it’s just a desired addition.
“Looking ahead, I envision a future where health records are easily accessible on smartphones. This would eliminate the need to carry physical documents and ensure that patient information is available wherever needed.”
– Brianna Rhue, Optometrist, Co-Founder – Dr. Contact Lens, Co-Founder – TechifEYE
Also, patients often have to fill out the same forms multiple times at different stages of their visit. This redundancy wastes time and can be frustrating for both patients and staff. Ideally, patient information should flow seamlessly through the practice, from initial forms to the electronic medical record, reducing the need for repetitive data entry.
Pete: It’s interesting that while many people collect data, they often use very little of it for decision making. For example, I used to rely on experience alone, but data sometimes changed my approach.
We received complaints about long wait times, and I initially addressed these based on anecdotal evidence. However, by analyzing actual data, I discovered our wait times met industry standards and were within acceptable limits. The issue was a few dissatisfied customers spreading concerns, not our processes. So, data helped me manage the situation and prevent a potential PR issue.
Also, when managing treatment facilities, I found that while a lot of data was collected—like information on patients’ origin, language, and cultural background—it was rarely used effectively.
The key question is whether the captured data informs your patient care and marketing strategies. For instance, many facilities used AdWords just because their competitors did, without evaluating the ROI, resulting in minimal returns. Effective data use requires analyzing it to enhance care and marketing, not just following trends blindly.
Using Data to Improve Patient Outcomes in Healthcare
Question 4: How do you use data to improve patient outcomes?
Brianna: It really comes down to ensuring patient compliance with their doctor’s recommendations. Often, patients will come to my office, I’ll instruct them on what needs to be done, and then a year later, there’s no follow-up. This issue partly falls on me if ongoing contact isn’t maintained. Moving forward, we must focus on improving follow-ups to prevent serious problems, such as diabetes-related blindness, which can result from missed annual exams.
So, if a patient misses an appointment, we should follow up automatically rather than relying on personal reminders. Also, scaling a practice requires automation, not just adding more staff. We’re at capacity and need to see more patients than ever to maintain the same revenue as last year. By using data to ensure better outcomes and treatments, we can enhance healthcare quality and reduce overall costs.
More importantly, if patients are seeing multiple practitioners and undergoing the same tests repeatedly, the payer ends up paying for those tests multiple times. Currently, there’s no system in place that allows this information to travel with the patient. By improving how we manage and share data, we can make healthcare more affordable.
Pete: One challenge with data is that we often overlook or discard it if we believe it doesn’t meet a certain sample size or seems incomplete. I’ve been working on identifying what data I might be dismissing and questioning whether I’m overlooking something crucial.
For instance, in addressing health disparities, it’s important to understand what data we’re not capturing. We need to recognize the gaps in our information, much like missing puzzle pieces. So, by identifying and addressing the missing data, we can complete the picture and make more informed decisions.
Currently, I’m focused on finding out what data might be missing and using that insight to fill in the gaps and enhance our overall understanding.
Use of Technology in Leveraging Data
Question 5- How do you use technology to help collect and utilize your data?
Pete: I used to be in a private practice and was seeing a lot of different clients. It started dawning on me that I was seeing some similarities in different client groups. Had I been tracking the data using technology, I probably would have come to the conclusion sooner. Once I figured out the picture that was being painted for me, I started changing my marketing practices.
There were two groups I was attracting, and I didn’t know how or why. When I dug into the data, I realized it could have been faster with technology because tech could have pointed out the patterns in days, whereas it took me months.
One group I was attracting was family businesses. Often, the heir apparent to the family fortune had an addiction problem, and the family was worried about leaving the business to someone with such issues. The other group was atheists. All of a sudden, I found 50 percent of my practice had become comprised of atheists, and I had no clue why.
Once I found out that data, I started changing how I marketed, advertised, and set up my practice.
How do you use technology to become patient-centric?
Brianna: We have what I call “leaky buckets” through which practices lose their patients. Using technology to seal these leaky buckets is critical as it leads to better patient retention, better outcomes, and creates efficiencies within a practice.
Across the U.S., practices are operating at over a hundred percent capacity with only 70 percent of their staff, which is a huge issue right now. When you’re trying to scale a business or a small practice, you need to integrate technology within your EMR and add-on services. It’s about being patient-centric. We’re doing all of this to create an integrated experience that makes it both efficient and convenient for patients to get the help and treatment they need to live their best lives.
Often, when technology or data points are introduced, they start with the doctor in mind, but we need to start with the patient in mind and consider how they will go through the process. It’s necessary to keep patients engaged and keep healthcare moving forward.
“The focus always has to start and end with the client. The data has to help them by either making things more convenient or achieving the outcomes they want. We can gather a lot of data for marketing purposes, but we must remember that it begins and ends with the people we serve.”
– Jeff Quamme, Executive Director, Connecticut Certification Board
Significance of Data in Certifying Professionals
What forms of data do you collect from medical practitioners?
Mark: We collect a significant amount of data. Our exams are managed with the help of psychometricians and testing companies to ensure they are accurate and reliable. We gather data for various purposes including:
- Diversity of Professionals: We use subject matter experts to write and review our exam questions, ensuring they are relevant and up-to-date with current practices. This helps us maintain a diverse pool of professionals and ensure that our questions are appropriate for different experience levels.
- Geographic Location: We track where professionals are based, whether they are in the U.S. or one of the 11 other countries where we operate. This helps us understand regional differences and needs.
- Experience and Competency: We differentiate between professionals based on their years in the field. For example, someone with 20 years of experience will have a different level of knowledge compared to someone with just one year. We ensure that our exam questions are suitable for the competency level of the test takers.
- Demographic Data: We collect information on race, ethnicity, gender identity, and other relevant demographics to ensure a comprehensive understanding of our exam candidates.
- Education and Licenses: We also track the types of licenses and educational backgrounds of our professionals to ensure that our exams are aligned with varying standards and scopes of practice.
We also track exam results to ensure they remain competency-based. If we find, for example, that professionals in California are struggling with the exams while those in Connecticut are not, we investigate and address the issues. Managing this data is essential to maintaining the effectiveness and relevance of our exams.
How do you use data to improve certification exams for providers?
Mark: Our data needs to reflect a good overall picture of what’s happening across different states and countries. This is essential for our exams to be applicable in various regions. So, one of our challenges is dealing with international clients that use our exams.
For instance, we once converted an exam to Spanish on data suggesting it would help Spanish-speaking candidates. However, we found that since these candidates were taught and studied in English, the Spanish exam posed problems due to dialect differences. So, we collect data that can help us improve the quality and accessibility of our exams.
At IC&RC, we analyze data to observe trends in exam popularity over time. For instance, our prevention exam, which had been gaining traction, has seen a decline over the past three years.
We now need to investigate why interest in this exam is decreasing. By examining pass and fail rates and comparing the number of exam takers year over year, we can identify potential issues. Changes in laws and policies might be affecting participation, but we don’t want to wait until the number of exam takers drops significantly before addressing the problem.
For example, if we had a thousand people take the exam this year and only 800 the next, and so on, it’s crucial to understand why this decline is happening before it spirals out of control. If the trend continues, the exam might become obsolete, and something new may take its place.
Therefore, we continuously monitor retention and investigate what drives individuals to take our exams. This ongoing data collection helps us stay current and ensure our exams remain relevant and useful in the field.
We also focus on pass and fail rates for exams. This data helps us ensure exams are balanced—neither too easy nor too hard—accurately assessing competency.
However, when we dive deeper, we need to look at data from individual states and countries. For example, why does one state have a 33% pass rate while another has 65%? This requires us to explore further and gather additional data to understand the reasons behind these variations. It could be related to the exam itself, the study materials, or the quality of education. So, there are many factors to consider and different areas to investigate.
“Our data collection must be meticulous to capture diversity accurately. Because there are biases in data collection, and it’s possible to skew results in a way that isn’t true to reality.”
– Mark Attanasi, Executive Director, IC&RC
How do you make use of technology in the certification process?
Mark: We send out surveys to our clients frequently. Technology is really good as far as we can get people engaged. For example, we need to conduct a survey and gather input from subject matter experts about five or six different times throughout the entire process to create an exam. So, it’s crucial to get people to participate where they feel comfortable.
Any kind of data that can be collected electronically saves a lot of time and effort. For instance, QR codes are big now. We used to have surveys at conferences asking the audience how they liked the speaker and the venue. Now, you use a QR code, and it tallies everything for you.
“In my experience at treatment facilities, I would go through the patient experience myself, often finding the repetitive form-filling frustrating. This has provided me valuable insights into whether your data collection process is cumbersome for the people filling out the forms and thus making desirable changes.”
– Mark Attanasi, Executive Director, IC&RC
Question from the audience: How Do You Ensure Patients are On-track with the Treatment?
Violetta: My parents need a dedicated caretaker or personal assistant to keep up with all the exams recommended by their PCP (Primary Care Provider). What would you recommend to specialists like cardiologists to ensure patients stay on track? My dad has missed his eye doctor appointment for six months.
Brianna: From my own experience, I think it comes down to patient reminders and pre-setting appointments, then following up if they miss one. When I was pregnant and had to visit multiple doctors, what kept me on track were the reminders I received. We all get busy and might miss or forget to schedule an appointment. The reminders sent about two hours before the appointment were crucial. They gave me time to adjust my schedule if I forgot to put it on my calendar, allowing me to attend the appointment.
It’s critical that doctors remind their patients. Missed appointments cost the healthcare system over $150 billion a year. Having a full appointment book is essential, but ensuring patients actually come to those appointments is even more important. I highly recommend implementing automated appointment reminders.
Final Thoughts
Nikhil Parwal: That’s a great lead-in for me to add my thoughts. At LeadSquared, we’ve noticed that automation can be incredibly beneficial, especially when talking to practitioners and clinic owners. Many small clinics struggle with patient no-shows because their schedules are already packed, and they simply don’t have the time to follow up with reminders or phone calls.
This is where LeadSquared can make a difference. Our platform helps automate reminders by sending notifications to patients one day before, two hours before, or even one hour before their appointments. We also provide options for patients to reschedule the date if needed, which helps manage their busy schedules better.
So, wrapping up, I want to thank everyone on the panel for joining us and sharing their valuable insights. And if you’re interested in learning more about how LeadSquared can help you manage data across different platforms and technologies, and how we integrate data from your EMR, we’d be happy to discuss that with you.
