Victor Murray Describes How Data Can Drive Interventions for Complex Patients

When data is allowed to flow freely, it can be used to understand the patient better and wrap a targeted intervention around them, explained Victor Murray, director for care management initiatives at the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers.

Transcript

When working with patients with complex needs, how does care coordination improve care team efficiency?

Working with individuals in this space ultimately allows data to flow freely. And so that’s data in terms of lab results, tests, things of that nature. But that’s also data who is the individual, so it allows for that individual story to also be highlighted among providers so that providers better understand the individual that I’m treating. And so as community health workers, social workers, nurses are working with individuals they allow for that person to be seen in a different light as they navigate through not just the healthcare system but also social service systems as well.

How does data drive interventions for patients with complex needs?

So I think when we talk about data, oftentimes we think about data, huge data-sets at very high population health-level. But what we found to be very effective is, how do you take those huge data sets and then really drill down to the most important piece of data, which is the individual, and then wrap a targeted intervention around an individual in order to propel them up in a system. And so, really, it’s about how do you allocate resources effectively in order to meets the needs of folks.

What infrastructure needs to be in place for data to be usable to actually coordinate and improve care?

Oftentimes again when we talk about data it’s easy to think about huge data-sets, data platforms, and with that dollars, resources, capacity. And people can very easily become turned off to data, but I think it’s important to think about data on a broader level but just data also on an individual level. And so, even within my program, what are the metrics that we’re capturing? What are the different data points? Do we have clear assessments? How are we asking questions? A lot of times people are not giving particular attention to the way in which they’re asking questions, which can play a factor in how people are responding. And so even that type of data is important, and you can capture that in a variety of different ways. And what we found specifically in a nonprofit space is that a lot of social service organizations don’t necessarily invest in that arm for, again, a variety of reasons, but it’s very important in terms of being able to articulate the story of not just your intervention but also the people that we serve.