Empowering Doctors to Further Improve Patient Care and Manage Outcomes

Original article from drchrono Published May 21, 2018 by Nickwee

Following and analyzing outcomes has traditionally been used in FDA studies and clinical trials to qualify whether treatments would benefit large populations with similar symptoms.

The outcome measures themselves are essentially a compilation of the ‘perfect’ questions to ask a patient with a particular condition in order to drill down and understand the nature and severity of their symptoms at a point in time. These question sets are commonly called Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). They are considered to be the perfect questions to ask because they have been validated in peer reviewed medical literature studies to provide a holistic, scientific view of a patients symptoms or quality of life with a given condition. New digital technologies are now allowing these same outcome tracking question sets to be put to work in the clinical care arena in some very exciting ways.

PROs for clinical trials are driven by national standards, and care providers actively rely on these questions in specialties such as physical therapy to manage patient health outside of the office, or in large hospitals to optimize health systems. Now outcomes management can allow for better care at the patient level.

Introducing a Turnkey Outcome Management Software

A newly available software called OutcomeMD has brought to light an easier way for providers and patients to track outcomes. Partnering with OutcomeMD, DrChrono EHR will have outcome tracking for almost every specialty helping patients and doctors, both clinically and financially.

Improved Patient Engagement

OutcomeMD’s Outcome Tracker allows patients to fully understand their symptom starting point before their treatment and to track their improvement or deterioration over time. The app also comes with an Outcome Timeline that patients can use to organize and track their medical history as it relates to their outcomes. These trackers can provide peace of mind to patients through insight into their own health and can help them receive additional care when needed. By using this platform, the patients also become more confident in their care-givers, who are making a transparent statement to their patients that their outcomes are the number one priority.

Comprehensive Questions Improve Clinical Efficiency

OutcomeMD provides an extensive library of PRO question sets that cover almost every known medical condition. Using these question sets can streamline your SOAP charting, standardize how you assess all of your patients and provide structured data that can be used for high level analysis of your overall patient population.

Patient Care Now Visualized

Apps like OutcomeMD have features such as the “Outcome Timeline” that make medical notes and factors that affect patient outcomes easily visible for clinicians. These include the patient’s outcomes alongside other vital information such as adverse life events, medication side effects and patient compliance. What used to be disorganized conversation is now structured information, which enhances the clinician’s ability to make fully informed medical decisions. In addition, all of this data can be placed into the medical note to improve documentation and make the chosen level of care more defendable should an audit occur.

Improve Outcomes

Studies have shown that patients live longer when clinicians are notified about an increasing symptom burden on the patient (Basch, et.al, 2016 J Clin Oncology). OutcomeMD mimics this process by providing a Practice Overview section that gives clinicians a quick snapshot of their patient’s status and makes it easy to know when an outlier needs attention.

Negotiate higher paying contracts.

Finally, PROM data can be used to negotiate better contracts with insurance companies and Medicare. Insurance companies realize that following outcomes is imperative, and reward clinicians who are tracking them.

OutcomeMD is revolutionizing patient care via better outcome management. You can now utilize DrChrono EHR’s integration with OutcomeMD to improve your practice productivity and overall patient care.