Transforming Value-Based Care through Cloud-Based Innovation

Americans often grapple with the poor state of public healthcare: a target of European criticism while being the third-highest priority for registered voters. The concern heightens when vulnerable groups are considered––especially the elderly. Long before Medicare, in the San Francisco of the1970s, the first steps towards the unification of medical care, social services, transportation, nutrition, physical therapy, and personal care were taken by a non-profit organization. An even longer road led to federal support and a partially successful national rollout of the model called the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE).

Senior citizens are forced to turn to nursing homes orcare facilities in times of need. PACE provides an alternative for citizens over the age of 55 by helping people meet their needs in their community . The support includes prescriptions drugs, Medicare-covered services, and any care necessary to maintain the patients’ health. The issue lies in the necessity and inefficiency of the program. PACE centers have limited resources, despite how heavily they are relied on by senior citizens across the country.

The average PACE center relies on manual entries for information capture. Even current systems and processes are typically spreadsheet based. These centers could transform through implementing cutting-edge technology but have been skeptical due to monetary or adoptions concerns. Restricted by a lack of data infrastructure or tools, audits squander valuable time and effort and as does coordinating services for patients/tracking their progress. All of these inefficiencies compound and draw resources that should be allocated to the primary function of PACE centers: patient care.

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XponentL understands how to help transform value-based teams and has helped a start-up health tech organization develop a tailored platform to support PACE centers in coordinating care and managing participants. XponentL’s primary aim for this project was to revolutionize care delivery models by developing a cutting-edge analytics tool. The objective was to empower healthcare leaders and Interdisciplinary Teams (IDTs) to deliver optimal care to individuals in their care, while optimizing service quality, compliance adherence, and cost-effectiveness efforts. Architecting a suitable (AWS vs. Azure) cloud environment that supports the migration of data (appeals, grievances, SDR metrics, financial information, etc.) from PACE centers was the first step. It was imperative for us to leverage native cloud services (like AWS’ DataSync, CloudWatch, AppFlow, etc.) for additional governance capabilities. Cloud-based platforms are designed with robust security measures, such as encryption and secure data backups. By every measure,

XponentL’s approach to the cloud mitigates the need for excessive manual effort while remaining cost-conscience. Tasks like auditing and compliance reporting (regulatory requirements of HIPAA, GDPR, etc.) can be largely automated. With our client’s solution, PACE centers can identify inefficiencies, assess staffing levels, reduce waste, and improve resource allocation.

PACE’s mission was to make healthcare affordable and, importantly, easy for the elderly by consolidating all health-related services into one service. Now, with the right data in hand, well-organized and accessible, the platform can improve coordination between primary care, specialists, nurses, and post-acute care by seamless cloud integration. This flow of information between different departments and care teams minimizes the chance of patients falling through the cracks during handoffs. A data-first platform enables healthcare providers to access a single, unified patient record from anywhere.

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From user-friendly patient portals and smarter telemedicine to predictive analytics for preventative care, developments that could alter the healthcare landscape would only be feasible for PACE centers by embracing high-quality data platforms––which not only address the problems of our time but prepare us for the future of innovation.We view a strong data backbone as the key to unlocking improved patient experience and better outcomes. The XponentL team is excited to be at the forefront of this transition.