Danger, selecting the wrong population health vendor can spell disaster. After trying to secure a population health solution for a client, it became very clear that even the very large vendors in this space did not have a real end to end solution. Besides your electronic medical records or your electronic health records vendor (ideally it should be the same, but not necessary) you should only have one additional vendor, that vendor should provide all of your population health needs, reporting and administrative dashboards and provide it all in a friendly interoperable enterprise setting.

Even though there's been a lot of progress in the evolution of population health software, you really need to know what you're looking for. By that I mean, there has to be a clear vision of what you want the software to do. Is it to be competitive in MACRA and MIPS, will the software do all your reporting on meaningful use and other federal and state requirements, can it provide case management, care coordination and referral management, can it be used for managed-care, as well as  APM’s (alternative payment models). This is only the beginning there are so many other variables to consider when making your choice in your technology partner, it will be one of the most important decisions.

One of the challenges posed are of data that is unstructured or structured but is not interoperable from within your software. Transferring health information encounters and other pertinent demographic and billing information from across the continuum of care into a single digital file, can be daunting and at times seem impossible to achieve. What I can tell you is be prepared; going into this without having a comprehensive plan in place can be very expensive but more importantly it can render your initiative a failure.

Mega and Tag words (population health, MACRA and MIPS, APM's, interoperable, technology partner)

By Mario Espino