Recently, I had the pleasure of participating in the NCQA Academy. The National Committee for Quality Assurance hosted a series of Digital Curriculum workshops led by Vanessa Guzman, expert thought leader on quality in healthcare and CEO of SmartRise Health. The program focused on strategies to leverage digital technology to advance value-based health care, equitable care and improve digital health literacy. Attendees, predominantly representing payers, heard recommendations on establishing a design framework that prioritizes consideration such as literacy and value, implementing strategies such as a population health strategy, understanding barriers and mitigating risks, with access to best practices for effective implementation, adoption and sustainability of digital health initiatives.
I was able to speak to the group about planning for digital health integration in value-based care.
During the discussion, we focused on the top three goals in healthcare that we think can be aided by digital health:
- Improving the patient experience
Digital can play an important role in supporting and improving the patient journey. Consider the three pillars that impact the patient experience:
Equity—building trust is essential to delivering equity in healthcare. A Salesforce Consumer Healthcare report found that consumers who trust medical technology companies are more interested in using their services. Patients will be more willing to share their data when they trust the technology. And because digital allows for scaling, it can enable helping more patients across geographies, economic status, disease states and patient populations.
Safety—Patients want to know that their data is secure. By building digital health solutions on a secure platform, like the BrightInsight® Platform, security, privacy and regulatory compliance is ensured with our quality management system.
Patient Centricity—When building digital health solutions—drug companion apps, SaMD, connected combination products, algorithms—you want to tailor it to the patients’ needs. Design a solution that solves the patient’s pain points, test it, gather additional patient feedback and iterate from there. - Improving population health at scale
The impact of digital interventions grows over time as it scales across populations, regions and use cases. BrightInsight’s cloud-based digital platform allows life science companies to scale across populations. Our global compliance allows them to expand across regions while ensuring privacy and security. And BrightInsight’s built-in regulatory compliance allows life science companies to develop impactful digital interventions for many of the most regulated use cases. - Reducing cost and increasing quality of care
Digital helps to drive quality, cost effective care. Digital tools can boost Patient Support Programs to simplify and accelerate the process of securing pre-authorization, getting patients on therapies faster. Drug companion apps provide education, tracking and reminders that keep patients compliant. Connected devices ensure patients and HCPs have continuous visibility into a patient’s health status.
About the NCQA
NCQA is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA Accredits and Certifies a wide range of healthcare organizations. It also Recognizes clinicians and practices in key areas of performance. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA’s website contains information to help consumers, employers and others make informed health care choices. NCQA can also be found on Twitter @ncqa, on Facebook and on LinkedIn.
