Blood Health™ – The New Disrupter: Your Organization's Health Depends on Your Strategy

In Collaboration with Becker's Healthcare.

In hospitals and health systems, patient blood management matters. Blood management affects patient outcomes and impacts healthcare organizations' bottom lines. There are now opportunities to disrupt the status quo in blood management, with benefits for patients and provider organizations.

At a session sponsored by hc1 + Accumen at the Becker's 10th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, BG Porter, former CEO of Accumen, facilitated a discussion on breakthrough technologies in healthcare with panelists: 

• Jason Carney, VP/GM, comprehensive Patient Blood Management
• Gary Catarella, VP, enterprise lab, Atrium Health
• Michael Harris, MD, founder, MTH Health

Three key takeaways were:

1. Identifying anemia prior to surgery improves health outcomes and equity.

Patient blood management is an often overlooked opportunity to improve health outcomes. The number one reason for hospital transfusions is anemia. Anemia is an independent modifiable risk factor associated with increased morbidity and mortality, longer length of stay, readmissions and extra PT visits for surgical patients. These factors all raise the economic burden of anemia.

Addressing anemia prior to surgery improves outcomes, lowers costs and can improve health equity. "To deliver equitable health care, you need to identify and treat anemia in all patients prior to surgery, giving everyone access to optimal outcomes," Mr. Porter said.

2. Executive leadership buy-in is key to lasting change.

Anemia is a multidisciplinary issue with a lot of moving pieces for patients and providers. Having a standard workflow is key to identifying patients with anemia prior to surgery; however, changing existing processes can be a challenge, as new blood management programs often disrupt the status quo.

Strong change management skills and leadership are critical to any new program's success. In one example, Dr. Harris approached change at Englewood Health in New Jersey by gaining the buy-in of both executive leadership and physicians by demonstrating clear cost savings and increased margins along with better outcomes. In addition, the program introduced new revenue opportunities focused on helping patients prior to surgery and enhanced Englewood's reputation.

Similarly, at Atrium Health, a health system with more than 40 hospitals and 38 laboratory sites, implementing hc1 + Accumen’s blood management program offers the opportunity over four years to decrease red cell transfusions by 60,000, decrease costs by $50 million and improve revenues by $14 million.

The project just kicked off this year, but to drive executive physician support, rather than emphasize the cost benefits, Mr. Catarella used data and case studies to explain the value proposition and drive adoption.

"Your doctors want to do the right thing for their patients and they want to be better than their neighbors and ultimately drive growth in their hospitals," Dr. Harris said. "It's an extraordinary growth opportunity for your organization to be out in front of patient blood management."

3. A strong partnership increases program success.

Understanding that a blood management and anemia program could get back much-needed clinician time, Atrium embarked on its patient blood management program at a time of severe workforce shortages. To accelerate the process and build a solid foundation to support success, Atrium needed a strong change management partner, which they found in hc1 + Accumen. "The hc1 + Accumen team . . . is boots on the ground. They are sitting across the table with you and your leaders and your physicians and nurses, face-to-face, helping you build that programmatic infrastructure," Mr. Catarella said.

hc1 + Accumen's MyBloodHealth® solution uses a high reliability, purpose-built process and a data-rich analytics platform. MyBloodHealth connects to your EMR and using proprietary algorithms, identifies anemic patients who can be treated before surgery, sends them to a virtual waiting room to triage the their severity of anemia, analyzes the time frame to surgery and determines whether treatment is recommended..

hc1 + Accumen clients see between a four to six times ROI on their investment, including a $1,250 per DRG savings and a $600 to $700 net margin increase for patients treated for anemia.

Patient blood management leads to better patient outcomes and results in substantial cost savings for healthcare organizations. However, any successful implementation requires strong change management skills and leadership and physician support. hc1 + Accumen combines people, process, and technology to disrupt health system processes for the better.

 

Learn more about how hc1+Accumen can design a Comprehensive Patient Blood Management program to meet the unique needs of your hospital or health system, ensuring a swift and efficient path to cost savings while elevating patient outcomes.