Expert Q&A Part 2: Four Use Cases for Procedural Analytics

We continue our educational Q&A series on procedure analytics in healthcare sourcing with this blog on specific use cases. Clinician Nancy Stimson walks us through these valuable applications and shares what to look for and what to avoid. 

• Use Case #1 - Answer Cost Outlier and Clinical Variation Questions
• Use Case #2 - Bring Informed Insights to New Product Requests
• Use Case #3 - Arm Healthcare Supply Chain with Contract Leverage
• Use Case #4 - Meet Requirements for TEAM Mandate Compliance

Use Case #1: Answer Cost Outlier and Clinical Variation Questions

Q - What Impacts Consistency and Variation in Procedure Metrics?

Nancy Stimson - Total cost of care is just overall traditional spend data. What you can do with a procedural analytics solution like Curvo is look at this and say there's your case and there's the reason why there’s a variation.

One case can quickly wreak havoc on procedural analytics conclusions, so there’s still a need for the human perspective to interpret the meaning behind outliers and clinical variation.

Ways to Look at Clinical Metrics About Utilization Practices

NS - We can use a generalized number for total supply cost or we can do an itemized evaluation, which is where we are with analytics. We can dive down into specifics for supply, utilization and traditional spend data for useful insights. This is where the clinicians come into play to put the human eye to the variation and utilization. 

For instance, with a clinician’s procedure data, you can see if they use both low-cost and expensive versions of a product. If one person spends $800 more on this particular brand, is there a reason why they use the less expensive product in 20% of their cases, or could they use it 100% of the time and have the procedure be less costly? Maybe they do more with one particular implant than another. Is there a difference cost-wise or in terms of relevant outcome measures?

Tracing Variation to Product Cost vs Contract Price

NS - Data-driven clinical analytics help healthcare sourcing teams narrow down what drives variation and cost. We can look at some metrics by case type, and then we can look at suppliers and see if their numbers are similar. 

After this we can easily get down even further in the analytics dashboard. What you can see is whether that utilization is based on the product or the contract.

• Is this utilization based on the existing contract?
• Will using x-many more of a specific product get a better price? 
• Is the product itself actually less expensive?

Use Case #2: Bring Informed Insights to New Product Requests

NS - As far as new product requests go, procedural analytics arms the supply chain with better insights, benchmarks and true comparisons. Access to case-level clinical data improves the ability to evaluate product requests or substitutions. Sourcing can determine if they've used a particular clinical product elsewhere, and what the outcomes were for new product requests at other facilities. 

Procedural analytics also gives the supply chain more baseline knowledge about new implants and other clinical products, and this is a real but intangible value. If you've never heard of widget ABC before, you're not going to have much ability to evaluate that new project. You're going to have to just see how it goes and take somebody's word for it. A surgeon’s product choice can also be something that a colleague recommended, they saw at a conference, or something they read about. Their ability to evaluate a new product is very helpful in the process. 

Some level of product knowledge is helpful, but I don't expect the supply chain team to necessarily know about newer technologies or procedures. I would expect a clinician (including those at Curvo) to weigh in on a product and the testing of its use.

Use Case #3: Arm Healthcare Supply Chain with Contract Leverage

NS - If you can really see how a health system spends their money and where and why, that is the place to be. Procedural analytics are one more piece of the puzzle. It brings in a bit more clinical insight as opposed to simply price, and that's what clinicians who are making product decisions want to see.

Clinical usage breakdown by supplier is relevant to the data that Curvo traditionally has about suppliers, and bringing that together with clinical metrics paints a full picture of procedure costs. That's where professionals on the Curvo customer experience team can dive into the data and say this cost is because of contracting or this is clinician variation. Or they may find opportunities in the analysis so in your next sourcing event, you can get a better deal. The insights they get can help identify causes of variation and overall PPI management. 

Armed with analysis like this, the supply chain can enter negotiations better prepared with hard facts and clinician backing. 

Use Case #4: Meet Requirements for TEAM Mandate Compliance

NS -  Regulatory efforts aren't going away, and the TEAM mandate is driving even more need for procedural analytics going forward. Value-based care is being mandated for more procedures, and clinical analytics will help pull in some of the quality metrics and cost metrics that are needed. 

The CMS TEAM mandate puts more emphasis on cost accountability and transparency. With the TEAM mandate, there are currently 785 or so hospitals involved. Once the study is finished, this will likely roll out to the other 6,000+ hospitals in the US. So I would say that the need for procedure costs is always going to be there and will be specific to other procedures moving forward. They're going to look at other higher cost, high-frequency procedures. 

Procedural Analytics Bring Value to Healthcare Sourcing

With such strong use cases for procedural analytics, more and more health systems are adopting spend management tools to capture this important information. They’re working with experts like the Curvo team to dive deeper into the meaning behind the analytics to capture more savings opportunities and reduce the cost of healthcare. 

Learn More About Clinical Analytics

Like to know more? Have a look at these resources:

• Criteria for Evaluating Procedure Analytics in Supply Chain
• Valuing Ongoing Cost per Case Data to Realize Savings
• How to Control Clinical Variation as Healthcare Business Strategy

Meet Our Expert: Nancy Stimson, RN, PMP | Curvo VP of Clinical Analytics