As the advancements, requirements, and transition to highly integrated and technical aspects of healthcare proceed as never seen before, a pause is beneficial to assess what it is truly being said, and how is it being expressed. This is more than the transfer of diagnoses and required treatment through provider claims and payer reimbursement cycling. It also encompasses including the suggestions of specific clinical and business units coupled with demographics and disease specification of a corresponding patient population. The more traditional methodologies include recertification courses for physicians, in-depth training seminars for updated in information technology, and public health education for patient awareness of disease management. However, is the healthcare industry missing opportunities that could link these major categories to enhance overall efficiency and operations?
It is logical to reason that effective patient management is reliant on the continual communication and comprehension of disease manifestation with treatment procedures. Is the healthcare industry still missing basic information that would enhance a patient’s recovery and the subsequent improvement in financial viability? Topics such as patient compliance, effective follow-up, and prevention measures are common in linking the two. What can be enhanced, however, is implementing techniques and information sharing that explicitly gathers and reviews all related components of the entire healthcare delivery process. This entails the combination of data collection templates that can be conveyed to a patient population then ultimately linked to a provider’s submitted claims and corresponding treatment techniques. Some possible options include the creation of software applications that would estimate a patient survey and monitoring system with the intricacies of claims data platforms and reporting mechanisms.
There is no straightforward or established manner to bridge the patient treatment and understanding of detailed medical concepts of diagnosis and treatment. Rather, the healthcare industry would need to establish multiple layers of information integration that would begin with the most basic levels of patient compliance and understanding of his/her own disease manifestation. Terminology, expanded definitions, and an incorporation of medical and information technology expertise would slowly be introduced in pairing the patient experience with professional knowledge. Though it is to be expected that this mapping between patient and professional/technical expertise may render in broader generalizations, it is a place to initiate such a correlation. As time progresses, all aspects of medicine, information systems, and public health standards will enable a streamlined channel of information messaging.
