Looking at your own existing data to answer “Where?” and “How Big?”
Planning an ambulatory care network can be challenging, especially since ambulatory data can be lacking. While better demand data is on the horizon, some health systems are already using claims data as well ethnographic/market segmentation to put together the demand & supply picture of their market. But even if you don’t have access to those kinds of data, you might have more information than you think…
Some of the primary goals of an ideal ambulatory care network are to optimize access, capital costs, operational costs, and population health management goals. Simply, you are answering two questions: “where?” And “how big?”
You can take an in-depth look in to your existing data and innovatively extract information and insights that will help you answer “where?” and “how big?”,
Data that are likely available to begin answering the question of “where?” include:
- Current and future total population and age by zip code and block; present and forecasts
- Economic attributes of the town, payor mix, community needs assessments
- Locations of existing physicians by specialty in the market
- Your system’s goals on access (drive times for each type of service offered); approach to virtual care
- Drive times to existing sites of care, towns that have no coverage by your system and towns that might have redundant coverage by your system
Data that are likely available to begin answering the question of “how big?” include:
- Your system’s goals on the minimum number/operationally efficient number of providers you would have per site
- The panel size your PCPs or care teams can support now and in the future
- Your system’s targets for “asset utilization” of imaging and minimum workload to distribute specialists
- An assessment of your current facilities ability to adapt to your preferred operating model
These are just some of the examples of data and analyses that can help you begin to paint the picture of your ideal ambulatory network.
You might already have the data you need and all it takes is an innovative analysis to uncover.
The thought leaders at The Innova Group have amalgamated years of experience and data from long standing clients to create algorithms to translate today’s activity into required resources for a future model of care. Visit us at https://theinnovagroup.com to learn more about how we can help you in your health care planning.
Wendy Weitzner | Jan 2016
