A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a common term used in most industries, especially the healthcare industry. In healthcare, KPIs help us measure and track the performance and value of healthcare. Having strong KPIs is not only important for tracking the financial performance of an organization but also to track the quality of care provided to patients. With the shift to value-based care in healthcare, organizations may find themselves wondering how to adapt to the change and ensure they have strong KPIs in place. 

This guide will walk you through different steps you can take to ensure your healthcare organization has stronger KPIs to track performance. These steps include:

1. Determine what KPIs to Measure
2. Tracking those KPIs
3. Measuring KPIs on different levels 
4. Setting KPI goals for your staff, departments or overall organization 
5. Streamlining your KPIs

Even if you already have strong KPIs in place, we hope this guide will help you better understand the importance of continuously tracking and improving your healthcare organizations KPIs.

Determine what KPIs to Measure

The first steps to ensure you have strong or adapt stronger KPIs is to determine what KPIs to track. Choosing the right KPIs is an essential part of having stronger KPIs. Things to consider when choosing the KPIs to track:

• KPIs that impact or contribute your organization’s goals
• KPIs that impact your organization financial performance
• KPIs that promote better patient care
• KPIs that track employee performance

Depending on your organization’s goals whether financially or clinically, KPI metrics will continue to evolve towards those directly related to value-based care and away from volume-based benefits. 

Tracking KPIs

Once your organization has established what KPIs to measure, tracking those KPIs overtime is essential. Tracking KPI performance allows you to measure trends, performance and plan for the future. Depending on the KPI you may want to track KPIs on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Tracking your KPIs can be a tedious task no matter the time period selected and often increases administrative burden for your organization. Organizations can avoid this burden by tracking KPI with the right technology tool in place that empowers the organization further. 

It is important to have a process and technology in place that allows you to automate track of your KPIs and customize tracking those KPIs for the time period your organization needs. 

Measure on Different Levels

Being able to track your organization’s KPIs not only on the organizational level but on the provider, payer, location and patient level is another essential part of having stronger KPIs. Many organizations may just track KPIs on a company level but it is important to drill down deeper into KPI data to identify where KPI trends are coming from. Utilizing technology that allows you to track your KPIs on different levels ensures your organization’s operational and financial tracking is accurate. 

Set KPI Goals 

What goals do you have for your healthcare organizations KPIs? Are the goals monthly, quarterly or annual goals? Can your organization actively update what these goals are to meet the changing demand of the healthcare industry? These are all important questions an organization must ask themselves to successfully set KPI goals. 

Setting goals for your KPIs is just as important as selecting your KPIs to begin with. Setting goals allows you to track performance overtime while indicating room for improvement. 

Streamline Your KPIs

Having the right system to allow you to Set, Track, Measure on Different Levels and Set Goals is essential. Primavera Health’s Performance Dashboard provides you that and more! With our Analytic technology we empower healthcare organizations to have stronger KPIs through: 

• Tracking 50+ KPIs on a Monthly Basis
• Set Goals for your organization monthly, quarterly or annually
• View KPIs by a specific date range
• Group KPIs by Primary Provider, Insurance PCP, Locations, Payors or Financial Class 
• Easily export all data that contributed to your KPIs

Reach out to us today to learn how we can support your organization to have stronger KPIs! 

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HRSA just recently announced it is making $90 million available to federally qualified health centers to assist them as they transition to new reporting requirements that have been redesigned to collect more and better data on social determinants of health. The modernization effort aims  to increase the granularity of the data being collected by leveraging advances in health information technology and aligning with other interoperability standards and reporting requirements in other federally funded health care programs.

Why shift to patient-level data?

HRSA believes this will help to better evaluate the Health Center Program, provide targeted training and technical assistance, and advance quality improvement research. Such research may lead to improvements inequitable access to high-quality, cost-effective care, including addressing the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and supporting responses to future public health emergencies

For health centers, standardization of patient-level health data will enable the identification of populations most at risk for health disparities and will provide data to inform potential clinical interventions.

What can the funds be used to do?

Funding will support improvements in infrastructure, such as health information technology, and enhanced data collection and reporting through FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources).  The funds will support patient-level reporting and enable them to better identify, measure, and investigate disparities in health care use and health outcomes by race, ethnicity, age, and other important demographic factors, and to more precisely target their resources accordingly. Furthermore, the ability to collect, house, and report standardized patient-level health data will support health centers’ participation in critical population health surveillance activities during public health emergencies. Big takeaway here… this will help position the organization to be eligible for future funding opportunities.

Some award specifics:

This is a time-sensitive opportunity. Applications are due May 23, 2022 by 5pm ET. HRSA anticipates that awards will be made on or around August 1, 2022.

Approximately $88.4 million in supplemental funding is available in FY 2022 to support additional allowable ARP activities, including UDS+ activities, through the end of your ARP period of performance (March 31, 2023 for HRSA-funded health centers and June 30, 2023 for look-alikes).

HRSA anticipates awarding approximately $60,000 per awardee through one-time supplemental funding. Depending on the number of approvable applications, HRSA may adjust award amounts consistent with funds available for this supplemental funding opportunity at the time award decisions are made.

HRSA expects to release funding on or around August 1, 2022, for use throughout the remainder of your American Rescue Plan Act (H8F or L2C) award’s period of performance (until March 31, 2023 for HRSA-funded health centers and June 30, 2023 for look-alikes),

Partner with Primavera Health 

Primavera Health provides a customizable ecosystem of tools that allow providers to capture the required data by a FQHC when you need it most. We were founded and built with a brain for business and a heart for patients providing a data analytics solution that is centered around real-world applications in the healthcare sector. Primavera’s Core Values are Actionable Intelligence, Ease-of-use and Performance that not only meet but exceed your reporting requirements.

Providing technology that was designed by a team of healthcare professionals and industry experts to serve healthcare professionals through a complex IT architecture and relationship database systems – we are here to help your FQHC succeed. Having in-depth experience building out government funding reporting systems for our clients, we are positioned to partner with FQHCs to succeed. For example, we recently completed reporting interface that tracks key patients services being provided through the Volunteer Health Services Program in Florida.

To learn how Primavera can directly support you to meeting HRSA application deadline while improve required reporting across your organization, Reach out to us today or sign up to schedule a demo with Primavera in the below form!

Medical Teams have been in a love/hate relationship with their technology applications for decades. Constantly asking if new technical solutions will help them grow, see more patients and provide better care. We’ve asked this question too. In fact, Primavera was built by industry professionals with that very question in mind.

Whether tech can help provide better care is not the only question on the provider’s minds. In an industry that is constantly expanding care curriculums, and redefining health – what are the most important tech features?

All-in-One

An all-in-one platform means a centralized solution. A hub that manages everything from organizing patient records to analyzing data, to securing your information. Gone are the days when you need to rely on multiple legacy software programs to handle your data entry and streamline your infrastructure. 

There are three main targets for an all-in-one solution:

Analytics

“Analytics” has become a buzzword and for good reason. Every business wants to see an analysis of their key metrics and data points and activate solutions. Why? Because analysis shows trends, helps you prioritize decisions, and casts a spotlight on any weaknesses that you can strengthen.

In telehealth, analytics bring an understanding to cost projections, current spending, care populations, and care continuums by using real-time data to highlight metrics like:

• Medical loss ratio (MLR)
• Market research analysis
• Medical claims
• Capitation

Once your data points are generated, analytics helps you auto sort, compare, review, and convey information through accurate reporting by patient, payor, location or provider -making it easy to drill down into individual facets of your business to uncover gaps or red flags that may be hindering you.

Case Management

As with analytics, case management benefits from the real-time touch a health tech solution can provide. Get live feeds from hospitals and use the platforms organizational system to recall, manage, and track patients with the enhancement of real-time updates that:

• Inform tasks
• Trigger notifications and alerts

The goal is to make it easy for you to preempt unnecessary costs and proactively provide care.

Member Records

When it comes to storing and utilizing records, nothing is more important than security. Multiple access points means multiple devices; desktops, laptops, personal computers, and phones for multiple users. A centralized platform solution provides the security you need through user permission management, 2-factor authentication, and standard industry compliances.

In terms of record intake, features like dictation make for a hands free experience that expedites your paperwork as it allows you to build rapport and give more focus to your patients. It’s also easy to enact surveys and other data collection tools to evaluate your care approach and target improvements. 

Your member records should fuel a 360º vision of your patients, a holistic view that is also easy to navigate. We like to say “focus on the solution, not the search”.

Ease-of-Use

Improved communication between care teams is just the first benefit of any easy to use telehealth platform. Live updates, customizable settings, team management, and seamless integrations check all of your communication boxes. Bonus, the platform also facilitates communications with patients, and vendors (like transportation providers) to fully sync your care provisions.

Ease-of-use also means ease of training – no complicated manuals are required to teach onboarding employees how to interact with a platform that has a clear, intuitive user interface and can be accessed with the touch of a button. 

This goes for your patients too – your practitioners, case workers, and general staff will all need to use the app – but so will those you care for. For patient populations who live remotely or have mobility issues – or who just aren’t that tech savvy – a one touch solution increases accessibility.

Actionable Intelligence

Here’s another area where ease-of-use plays a role. Actionable intelligence rings back to data analytics, and while smart data and data implementation are definitely a part of actionable intelligence, this is also about presenting those data sets in a user-friendly way.

By removing irrelevant data and prioritizing action items, you automatically provide better care. Risk assessment and real-time updates are a huge benefit to any healthcare team but only if the updates are easy to access, and the prioritization is easy to validate and understand.

Actionable data is applicable data, and that’s what makes it intelligent. Data you can actually use and understand vs a mass collection of data that spits out complicated charts and graphs. All data has its place, but the data on your healthcare software- the data you need to provide quality healthcare – should be simply useful.

Solution-Oriented

Primavera’s Core Values are Actionable Intelligence, Ease-of-use and Performance. Our healthcare software solution including telehealth is centered around real-world applications in the healthcare sector. 

Our tried and tested features are designed to amplify usability and prioritize risk. 

Schedule a demo today and see what a health tech solution can do for you.

Selecting a Practice Management Software platform to partner with can be a daunting task. A lot of that has to do with the mammoth task of integrating a solution, training employees, updating vendors, and converting your existing infrastructure. 

To make the process easier, we’ve compiled a short list of 4 questions you should be asking when choosing a practice management software.

1. Is the Software Easy to Use?

The power of the platform doesn’t matter if you can’t easily use it. When it comes to any software implementation, the UI is a critical element to explore. Are the features easy to access? Is data organized and easy to understand? Would using this platform be easy in terms of training your employees and integrating with your existing infrastructure?

What’s the other half of the usability equation? Easy to use and organized is great – as long as the elements and features show the information you need them to. There’s also a usability consideration in terms of migrating your existing data with your new software. So ask your providers how they support you in this process. 

What We Offer

Primavera offers an intuitive UI that presents information clearly and simply to provide an effortless user experience supported by:

• Speed: Launch in days, not weeks 
• Simplistic setup
• A supportive team that’s ready to help

2. How Will My Patients Use the Platform?

There are two main user profiles to consider, practitioners and patients. Choosing a software with powerful data processing is key, but inputting that data needs to be easy for all. If you need convincing, you don’t need to look any further than 1 patient population.

Currently, 81% of hospital admissions, 91% of prescriptions filled, 76% of health-provider visits and 75% of home healthcare visits are for Medicare patients living with chronic conditions.

Technology may not be as big of an issue for the Medicare populations of the future – but it is still a major consideration for the population today. Ease of use – in healthcare – is an accessibility issue.

There are many populations and accessibility/mobility issues to consider when choosing a software since it won’t just be accessed from the practitioner/operational side. 

Questions to ask:

• What does the patient login process look like?
• Do patients have to have a smart device or download an app?
• Is the patient portal designed for ease of use for all populations?

What We Offer

The most important thing for patients is convenience when it comes to interacting with a technical platform – especially for less tech savvy populations, or those with restricted mobility or cognitive issues. Primavera provides access to patients with one single click – no downloads or technical know-how required.

3. Is it Powerful Enough to Manage all my Data

We’ve mentioned data quite a few times so far, and that’s because data is king. Whether you’re compiling data for analysis to apply to projections and show patterns, or just looking to get real-time communication updates, how your data is used (and the accuracy) matters. 

Questions to ask:

• Does the software support real-time updates and how are you alerted to those updates?
• Is data analyzed and applied to risk-assessment and prioritizing patient care?
• Are metrics easy to manage and report on?

What We Offer

We focus on removing the barriers between you and your data. Data powers functions like connectivity, communication, risk-assessment, and applying your patient information to further inform the running of your practice. Your data should help you react quickly and build a proactive practice. We make that possible with features like:

•  Real-time data auto-populated where you need it
•  Informed risk stratification
•  Outlier detection by high risk and high utilizers
•  Pharmacy tracking by usage, brand, patient, and provider
•  Managed data metrics

4. Does the Software Support All Aspects of My Practice?

There is more to your practice than data management and ease of use. Having a platform that integrates with your providers, vendors, payors, and patient needs is critical. You’ll also want to make sure your software partnership supports the specific needs of your practice as non-profit needs will vary from general practitioners or plastic surgeons.

Questions to ask:

• Does the software provide the tools to manage your unique patient populations?
• Would it be easy to schedule transportation and manage billing?
• How was the software designed and how does the structure support healthcare requirements?

What We Offer

Primavera was designed by a team of healthcare professionals and industry experts to serve healthcare professionals through a complex IT architecture and relationship database systems. By maximizing visibility with a health-centric approach, our solution helps streamline your practice performance management and growth. 

At Primavera, we create intuitive healthcare technology to maximize the benefits for healthcare providers, care managers, caregivers, and, ultimately, the patients. Schedule a demo with us today to learn more!