How can technology help achieve the Quintuple Aim?
Sonia Pagliaroli | RN, MSc, CPHIMS-CA Chief Nursing Officer | Oracle Health, Canada
Five elements of the Quintuple Aim
An aging population and chronically ill patients who defer health interventions. Unforeseen staff burnout coupled with a subsequent shortage of human resources. The second highest1 health spend in the world.
Today, healthcare in Canada is facing critical challenges. Technology can help Canadian healthcare services reduce costs, provide more timely, innovative, and targeted services, and produce better patient outcomes.
The Quintuple Aim2 provides a framework for advancing healthcare and addressing system-level challenges. This article reflects on how strategic partnerships formed by Canadian health systems are addressing the five components of the Quintuple Aim and leading to better health outcomes for all Canadians.
1. Enhance patient experience
Recent surveys3 show that 91% of patients were satisfied using virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 46% said they would prefer a virtual method as the first point of contact with their doctor.
Patients benefit from greater transparency and control. As consumers, we expect and are familiar with high-quality user experiences and in many ways, healthcare has not kept pace with other industries in providing patients—their customers—with modern and seamless way to use technology. To enhance patient experiences and outcomes, patients require real-time access to a fully integrated and comprehensive longitudinal health record—including patient engagement tools such as virtual care and patient portals—that captures the patient’s entire health journey, enhances patient satisfaction by eliminating the need to repeat their medical history, and allows clinicians to better coordinate care.
Oracle Health customer achievements:
Oracle Health can empower patients in their user journey by delivering personalized experiences that helps them stay engaged with their health. Through patient engagement and with the help of Oracle Health technologies, Island Health improves patient care with seamless communication between clinicians about patient status and health through the Hospital at Home program. Island Health and Oracle developed a patient-friendly medication administration record—one of the first created and utilized in Canada, and the organization anticipates future program expansion to long-term care facilities.
2. Improve staff experience
With clinician burnout and healthcare’s ongoing human resource challenges, technologies must promote workforce well-being and improve the staff experience. A 2021 PwC global survey4 of workers found that 80% of the workers surveyed are confident they can adapt to new technologies entering their workplace. And just like patients, clinicians expect technology that will enable them to focus on their core role—providing patient care.
A single source of truth for clinical information eliminates data silos and data fragmentation to create more seamless experiences for healthcare professionals, presenting relevant clinical information within their workflow to support informed decision-making. Additionally, technology introduces clinical decision support, evidence, and best practices.
Oracle Health customer achievements:
While this article primarily focuses on the clinical side of healthcare, Oracle Health provides solutions that help clinical and nonclinical staff grow their careers. Read this ebook to learn new ways to create a better employee experience that supports and empowers these workers. Some of the clinical examples we’re proud to share include:
- TransForm Shared Service Organization (TSSO) saw rapid technological adoption of health record digitization—with 79% scanning compliance with medication administration, 84.7% compliance with discharge medication reconciliation, and 92% of electronic documentation completed by physicians, with 100% completed by nurses. They leaped from a HIMSS EMRAM Stage 2 to Stage 6 in six months as a result of the program.
- The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) improved nurse administrative workloads by reducing their documentation time spent in EHRs. These time savings increased the number of patients being seen from 59,530 to 80,534 over the period.
3. Improve population health
“The fight against the pandemic has shown us the potential and the necessity of deploying technology effectively in healthcare. Many Governments are starting to recognize that when properly harnessed, healthcare can be transformed by data and life science innovation”
Actionable and aggregate data is paramount to population health management. In fact, this study reports that medical care only contributes 20% to a patient’s health outcomes5, making the case for a more inclusive health record that can better inform a patient’s outcome. Technology can advance population health and well-being by integrating clinical, financial, social, and demographic data from various sources such as electronic health records (EHRs) and devices to eliminate data fragmentation and duplication, convert that data into meaningful insights, and achieve data-driven, holistic, and coordinated patient care programs.
Oracle Health customer achievements:
- Oracle Health’s health information exchange (HIE) connects multiple stakeholders, EHRs, and other patient systems across different settings and services, including the region’s primary care, acute, community, mental health, and social services. This solution is currently being implemented in Ontario to connect data across Ontario Health Teams partners.
- This same technology has proven successful in East London Health & Care Partnership. This technology provides a consolidated view of patients’ longitudinal records and eliminates dual data entry, estimated to save £500k (CAD 817K). Real-time connectivity provides users with up-to-date and relevant clinical information, reducing clinical time by 9,400 hours per year and resulting in an estimated £940k (CAD 155K) in annual cost savings.
4. Lower the cost of care
As healthcare costs outpace inflation, it’s more important than ever that technology create efficiencies across all other segments of the Quintuple Aim. A significant contributor to rising Canadian healthcare costs are health human resources. Enhanced efficiencies—such as, reducing the time it takes for clinicians to gather necessary information to make data-driven decisions, avoiding duplicative tasks, and providing actionable insights within workflows—help achieve more cost-efficient care delivery. Improving continuity of care in the home health and post-acute settings also helps reduce readmissions, which also saves the systems costs.
Oracle Health customer achievements:
North York General Hospital (NYGH) utilizes Cerner Emergency Medicine and ED LaunchPoint to improve patient tracking, increase efficiency, and help bring in increased government funding.
5. Advance health equity
The latest addition to create the Quintuple Aim highlights the need to address healthcare inequities. Disparate data standards and algorithmic bias obstruct population health advancements, but large datasets aggregated in population health platforms provide a means to identify the most vulnerable in society—those at risk of physical and mental illness and in need of intervention to prevent or delay the need for long-term care. Reducing reliance on the safety net of the high-acuity, high-expense acute care system should be a positive result of a healthier, more equitable society.
Oracle Health customer achievements:
Healthy Wirral Partners (HWP) uses Oracle Health’s HealtheIntent and predictive risk analytics, allowing HWP to convey meaningful public health messages directly to those who would benefit most from COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations.
Technology as an enabler to achieving the Quintuple Aim
For technology to have a significant impact in producing better patient outcomes and enabling powerful ways to improve healthcare in Canada, we must leverage technology to align with the Quintuple Aim, address critical issues facing the Canadian healthcare system, and transform healthcare in Canada for the better.
Read this business brief to learn how you can improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs by better using data and technology.
Sources:
1 https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends-2022-snapshot
2 https://www.ihi.org/resources/publications
3 https://www.cma.ca/virtual-care
4 https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/upskilling/hopes-and-fears.html
5 https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/explore-health-rankings/county-health-rankings-model
Sonia Pagliaroli
RN, MSc, CPHIMS-CA
As Chief Nursing Officer for Oracle Health in Canada, Ms. Pagliaroli strives to partner with Canadian customers to ensure the value of improved safety and quality of care is realized through the utilization of Oracle Health technology solutions.
Ms. Pagliaroli is a registered nurse and clinical informatics professional (CPHIMS-CA) with frontline clinical experience and over 15 years of senior management and leadership expertise. She holds board positions as Director of Membership for the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association and Director of Membership for the HIMSS Ontario Chapter. Her passion is in data sharing, standards, and reducing clinician burden, and as such, is an active participant in the National Nursing Data Standards group. She is a graduate of the Master of Health Information Science from the University of Victoria.