Healthcare software and healthcare reporting tools have taken off in recent years out of necessity for decision makers of practices and hospitals. As hospitals, medical practices, and healthcare organizations have begun collecting increased performance metrics, financial and clinical data, and additional healthcare-related information to drive decisions and improve performance in value-based healthcare.
But the diverse types of medical data available to collect – not to mention the wide range of management software programs available to do so – can be overwhelming. Which healthcare metrics should your organization report, with what software tools? What workflows should be put in place to gather and report data effectively, and what should be done with the data once it is collected?
To assist with these questions and more, Medical Advantage’s practice consultants and healthcare IT experts have compiled their 5 best practices for healthcare reporting.
5 Healthcare Reporting Tools
1. Use Financial Dashboards to Consider Clinical, Financial, and Operational Metrics
Healthcare reporting means something a little different to everyone. Some may hear this term and think of tracking outcomes of a specific procedure over time. Others may connect healthcare reporting with revenue, overhead costs, and expense tracking across various practices. Often, facilities are paying their providers based on RVUs or other productivity metrics. How does one bring all the data together to make an informed decision?
When planning best practices for your reporting framework, the most sensible place to start is to ensure that you consider the clinical, financial, and operational metrics to get a comprehensive view of your performance.
2. Identify the Most Important KPIs for Your Healthcare Organization
Consider this; what will you use the data for? Will it be to measure productivity, help leadership decide if they can purchase additional equipment, or keep track of your organization’s financial health? Perhaps it is all of those things?
KPIs or Key Performance Indicators is a standard measurement by which to identify performance and measure it. KPI (Key Performance Indicators) methodology helps aid in the accomplishment of business objectives.
By identifying the KPIs of most interest to your practice, you will be one step closer to developing a healthcare reporting system more tailored to your needs, as well as filtering out the overwhelming amount of other data that may not be necessary.
For example, if your organization is concerned with increasing efficiency in healthcare business operations, ensure that KPIs like waiting room time, patient retention rates, and more are included.
Suppose your organization wants to improve upon care management targets such as the percentage of patients screened for a specific condition. In that case, you can set up care management KPIs to track those patients.
3. Optimize Your EHR and Medical Practice Management Software
Many medical practices understand their EHR (Electronic Health Record) can run canned reports and gap reports. As such, making sure that your EHR is running as optimized and efficiently as possible is crucial.
Revisiting and refining workflows, policies, and best practices to ensure your healthcare organization’s EHR is optimized is a good first step. EHRs are a large piece of the healthcare reporting puzzle – so ensuring your organization is getting the most out of its electronic records system is an important start.
4. Leverage Dashboards to Consolidate Data Sourcing
In the past, healthcare reporting was often anything but intuitive, as it required the gathering of numerous fragmented reports from scattered places like EHRs, Human Resources reporting systems, and payroll and financial sources, then manually consolidating those into one central report.
Today, some organizations continue to use these frustrating and labor-intensive methods, despite healthcare dashboards’ availability. Dashboards are a software solution which aggregate and pull data from multiple reports to present it in one centralized location – or “dashboard” – automatically. Consider using one of these software solutions in your organization to save time and money in your healthcare reporting process.
5. Enhance Population Health and Care Management Outcomes
Financial and operational metrics aside, one of the most compelling applications for effective healthcare reporting frameworks is their potential for improving patient outcomes. Effective reporting empowers organizations to track certain at-risk patient groups’ conditions and implement population health solutions to improve their outcomes.
Population health and care management solutions are one of the most powerful uses for healthcare reporting – with the proper setup, it can help you deliver your patients the best care possible.
Medical Advantage Can Help
Healthcare is complicated, but your reporting doesn’t have to be. Medical Advantage’s data analysts and report writers bring a blend of IT, health informatics, data science experience, and a proven record of accomplishment of working within organizations to build robust healthcare reporting tools that drive change and improve ROI. To discuss your organization’s reporting needs, talk to one of our consultants today.
