Communities thrive and grow economically with healthy and productive citizens. When it comes to health and wellness, driving toward better outcomes at a lower cost continues to push our systems of care - hospitals, primary care, payers, social services, home health agencies, etc. - to the breaking point. From a consumer perspective, costs are up, quality is inadequate and outcomes are uncertain.
At the same time, private and public sector organizations involved in delivering healthcare and social services have access to unprecedented amounts of data, creating new opportunities to observe, analyze and coordinate the interconnections between social determinants, clinical factors and life choices.
Taking advantage of this opportunity requires a holistic focus on the individual - a new approach IBM calls Smarter Care. Smarter Care can be integral to a city's or community's economic vitality and a fundamental aspect of economic development. Smarter Care is integral to a city’s or community’s economic vitality and a fundamental aspect of economic development. Smarter Care unites healthcare providers, public and private payers, life sciences, and social programs/benefits providers to provide optimal care to citizens. It takes an ecosystem of organizations that must come together and collaborate to care for an individual or a family unit.
Creating integrated communities of care requires common goals - centered on the individual: to know the person's context and the populations they are a part of, and to deliver more individualized care that can help improve outcomes and lower costs.
Organizations are collaborating to drive new models for care delivery through:
- Intervention: Identify and influence populations, recognizing intervention opportunities
- Knowledge: Assess what works best to drive evidence-based and standardized care planning
- Collaboration: Engage individuals and stakeholders to drive positive health choices
- Coordination: Share care, knowledge, accountability and risk across clinical and social boundaries
- Learning: Analyze information and interactions to guide more informed decisions and to continually improve quality and outcomes
Take the case of Catalonia, Spain. Sixty percent of its population over 65 has chronic diseases and consumes 70 percent of the region's healthcare resources. Through a pilot program, the Catalan Institute of Health is working closely with the Catalonian government to tackle the problem through a more coordinated chronic disease management process. The organizations are pulling together information that previously resided in more than 20 databases and many custom and commercial applications to provide a holistic view of each patient.
In the Region of Southern Denmark (RSD), 22 percent of the citizens suffer from some form of a chronic illness, including about 70,000 who suffer from heart disease. To combat this problem, RSD is launching a pilot program with IBM to facilitate real-time communication among patients, physicians, pharmacists, mental health professionals and specialists so all parties have insight into patient care plans.
Smarter Care is a new way of thinking for private and public sector organizations. It delivers on the promise of holistic and individualized care, focusing on people, not programs.
For further information, please visit:
http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_care/overview/
Related news articles:
- IBM Healthcare's Profile