Healthcare Executive Conference Draws Payers and Providers to SAS

Key players in the healthcare industry came to SAS world headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, on May 25 to learn how SAS solutions could help their organizations.

Throughout the conference, more than 90 attendees heard how SAS solutions could take data from various systems and use it to improve patient safety, quality of care, operational efficiencies, financial performance and other strategic objectives.

Analyze differently, act differently, achieve differently
In his opening remarks, Kurt Kaliebe, General Manager at SAS, urged attendees to think differently. “Today you’ll hear how people took different approaches to their problems, how they used SAS to solve business and technological inefficiencies,” he said. “The people standing before you today have improved quality of care, while reducing their costs. And they did it by using analytics.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Gail Wilensky, Economist and Senior Fellow at Project HOPE, followed Kaliebe’s remarks. Wilensky spoke on “Quality Improvement through Information Sharing.”

“There are three challenges for healthcare today,” she said. “Those include healthcare spending, the quality and safety of healthcare and how to handle the uninsured.”

“Spending is on the rise,” noted Wilensky. “But if we use information systems effectively, we might be able to curtail it a bit.”

Collaboration in the healthcare market
Wilensky then joined Dr. Michael Apkon, Vice President, Performance Management at Yale New Haven Health System; Richard Sorian, Vice President for Public Policy and External Relations at the National Committee for Quality Assurance; and Tina Brown-Stevenson, President and Head of Aetna Integrated Informatics, for a discussion on collaboration in the healthcare market. The panelists discussed how various groups within healthcare can and should work together to achieve better patient outcomes.

“Unfortunately collaboration is the exception, not the rule,” Sorian said. He pointed out several barriers to collaboration. “It’s tough to collaborate when all parties involved think they know best,” he said. Trust and competition were two additional barriers. “But,” he said, “If we collaborate, we multiply our impact.”

Moderator Fawn Lopez, Publisher of Modern Healthcare, asked the panelists for their recommendations to foster sustainable collaboration, which included:

• Figure out how to match behaviors with motivators.
• Align payment structures with performance.
• Realize that IT is not the answer but is the pathway to the answer.
• Get all of the right people in the room together, and leave your prejudices at the door.
• Adopt a sense of urgency.

Fitzpatrick referred to the presentation by Tommy Thompson, former head of Health and Human Services, at the 2005 conference. “Last year, Tommy Thompson revealed a startling fact,” she said. “He said that the healthcare industry lags behind the coal industry in information technology adoption.”

“I found this unsettling because I know that those of us in the healthcare industry have a passion for data and outcomes,” said Fitzpatrick.

Collins encouraged attendees to participate in BI competency centers. “It isn’t even necessarily about the technology,” he said. “It’s about where you are on the path. Companies that invest in competency centers leverage the skills already in place.”

Afternoon session focuses on providers
Attendees had the chance to break out into focused sessions during the afternoon. Those attending the Healthcare Provider Theater Track heard from leaders from Yale New Haven Health System, Baylor Health Care System and Maine Medical Center.

Michael Apkon, M.D., Ph.D., Vice President of Performance Management at Yale New Haven Health System, described his organization’s implementation of electronic balanced scorecards to facilitate apples-to-apples comparisons of clinical, operational and financial performance across a three-hospital health care delivery system.

Baylor Health Care System has been actively measuring and improving the quality of care it provides since 1999. “This effort has included developing measurement systems to collect data on processes and outcomes of healthcare delivery; designing and implementing rapid cycle clinical process improvement projects; evaluating the effectiveness of the improvement initiatives; and providing feedback for further improvement and/or decision making,” said Neil Fleming, Ph.D., Vice President of Health Care Research at Baylor Health Care System.

“SAS tools have been important in collecting and reporting clinical preventive services performance data and core measure improvements,” he continued.

Maine Medical Center implemented the SAS Strategic Performance Management for Healthcare solution to deliver key performance indicators via a balanced scorecard framework. “Since 2003, over 50 scorecards have been developed for a variety of clinical and operational departments and programs,” noted George Higgins, M.D., FACEP, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for Medical Affairs at Maine Medical Center.

Demand for the application continues to grow as it proves to be a highly effective tool for integrating and delivering data via an easy-to-use Web tool. “Internally, from the Board to the nursing units, the mantra ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’ has taken root,” noted Dr. Higgins. “Success of all of the strategic initiatives and programs is measured against targets and the expectation of measurable improvement.”

Health plans get in on the action too
The Health Plan Theater Track included presentations from Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida and Highmark Inc., covering their respective benchmarks and progress in disease management, customer segmentation and customer reporting.

Tina Brown-Stevenson, President and Head of Aetna Integrated Informatics, discussed disease management via coordinated care. Aetna uses its PULSE and AIM models in conjunction with one another: PULSE reviews claims data and predicts future usage of healthcare services, creating an additional 2.3 times the savings on case management return on investment (ROI); AIM identifies medical information on specific members to improve their care and reduce costs, working with patients and physicians to identify potential risks and costly diagnosis/prescription errors.

Lynn Locke, Database Marketing Director for BCBS of Florida, demonstrated the use of SAS in managing her company’s marketing campaigns. BCBS divided its marketing database into four customer segments: members, former members, prospects (those who have responded to campaigns but who have not purchased) and suspects (those who may have received past promotions but who have not responded). Targeting the latter group, BCBS was able to reduce its cost per lead from $58 to $28 in two years.

David Hanna, Highmark’s Director of Client Relationship Consulting, discussed and demonstrated Reports@Hand, Highmark’s interactive, Web-based reporting tool for clients. Highmark clients use Reports@Hand to submit, schedule and receive claims analysis reports. The system quickly obtains data via an electronic format, easily downloads the data for further analysis, delivers uniform reports and simplifies employee segmentation. This facilitates self-service, reduces administrative costs/reporting workloads and provides time for Highmark’s customer relationship consulting staff to focus on their jobs instead of on churning reports.

At the conclusion of the conference, attendees were able to see SAS in action, thanks to the live demonstrations presented during the Intelligence in Action Showcase.