On Thursday, November 7, Opala’s CEO Ken Chandler sat down with Semira Singh of Providence and Anna Taylor of MultiCare Connected Care for a webinar, hosted by Geekwire Studio. The webinar featured an in-depth conversation about how interoperability is integral to value-based care.
Here are a few highlights:
- Developing standards for data exchange is key: Both Anna and Semira emphasized the importance of creating standards and implementing the standards, even while they are still imperfect. Providence, MultiCare Connected Care, and Opala are all members of the Da Vinci Project, an HL7 accelerator dedicated to setting data exchange standards. The data exchanged between health plans and provider organizations isn’t just clinical data – it’s coverage information as well, so providers have a clear understanding of a patient’s benefits. Creating these standards ensures that everyone is sending information the same way and allows for efficiency and consistency across all patients.
- Value-based care is the future of health care, and it isn’t possible without investing in interoperability: Value-based care relies on access to up-to-date, accurate patient data at the point of care. It also needs to be readily accessible for physicians. Instead of each provider and health plan creating their own data pipes, investing in an interoperability solution allows for scaling – reducing cost and burden for providers and health plans. With interoperability solutions, such as those offered by Opala, relevant patient information is delivered straight into clinicians’ workflow, making the information easy for care providers to use in a care setting.
- Ultimately, interoperability and value-based care benefits patients: Value-based care moves health care from “sick care” to whole care. Instead of being burdened by administrative minutia, interoperability automates that information exchange necessary for value-based care, so doctors can focus exclusively on patient care. In the long-term, patients will have more access to their information, which empowers them to be in control and informed about their healthcare.
Watch the webinar and learn more about our partnership with MultiCare.