As far back as the year 1900, a Boston medical doctor was promoting the concept of “measuring outcomes” within hospitals and other medical healthcare systems. Dr. Ernest Amory Codman was a pioneering surgeon who also made significant advancements in anesthesiology and radiology.
But Dr. Codman was decades ahead of his times. The idea of measuring outcomes only became a key focus during recent years in an American health care system that has expanded to encompass an astronomical $3.5 trillion annually.
With huge amount of money like that circulating through an enormously complex system, measuring outcomes has become a critical area for managing resources, finding cost savings, increasing profits and for providing better care for patients.
A primary area of focus is a detailed analysis of the healthcare providing process itself. Knowledge is power. Other key data collection points involve patient experience, success in treating patients, measure of infrastructures and more.
Industry observers say it is vital for health care professionals to identify treatments that are most effective, cost-effective and which provide the greatest desirable outcomes for each and every patient.
The pursuit of excellence in outcome measure in healthcare has become intensely focused on solutions driven by high-tech software applications. Providers are keenly interested in obtaining software management systems that can streamline and handle electronic health care record keeping, revenue cycles, outreach, medication management, billing, admissions and more.
Software apps have already transformed the medical industry through offering simplicity and automation. Cost reductions leveraged via powerful software management tools are absolutely enormous. Furthermore, the ever-growing bureaucratic complexity of today’s multi-trillion medical system – loaded down with paperwork and documentation requirements – can only be handled with software-enabled platforms.
The concept of outcome measure in healthcare became even more critical after 2010. That was the year congress passed the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA). It resulted in some 32 million new people coming into the healthcare system.
