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A Sustainable Healthcare Emergency Management Framework: COVID-19 and Beyond

August 20, 2020
Holly Rimmasch

Chief Clinical Officer

Ed Corbett, MD

Medical Officer

Anne Marie Bickmore

Chief Product Officer

Article Summary


由于对COVID-19的认识不断变化,疾病影响不断波动,卫生系统不能依赖单一、僵化的计划来指导应对和恢复工作。An effective solution is likely a flexible framework that steers hospitals and other providers through four critical phases of a communitywide healthcare emergency:

1. Prepare for an outbreak.
2. Prevent transmission.
3. Recover from an outbreak.
4. Plan for the future.

The framework must include data-supported surveillance and containment strategies to enhance detection, reduce transmission, and manage capacity and supplies, providing a roadmap to respond to immediate demands and also support a sustainable long-term pandemic response.

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General Manager & Senior Vice President, Life Sciences Business

As the era of COVID-19 extends, healthcare systems face a daunting range of challenges. Scientific understanding of COVID-19 has been continuously expanding since the World Health Organizationdeclaredit a “public health emergency of international concern” in late January 2020. Global infection and disease progression rates, effective treatment, and theories on potential vaccines are continually fluctuating. The combination of unpredictable patterns and incomplete knowledge means that planning for and implementing both an immediate and sustainable long-term pandemic response is difficult—yet absolutely critical for the care of patients, employees, and organizational survival.

While organizations should focus on immediate data-supported tactics, such as improving case detection, reducing transmission, and managing supplies, the longer-term strategies of adjusting care delivery, risk contracts, and operational processes cannot be neglected. Systems must increasingly focus on planning resources to chart a sustainable course forward as providers and stewards of health in their communities.

COVID-19 response requires a flexible framework to guide health systems through critical phases seen in any communitywide healthcare emergency: prepare, prevent, recover, and plan for the future. Health systems can use the framework to respond to immediate challenges and the ongoing management demands of a forever-altered healthcare system.

A Framework for Short- and Long-Term Healthcare Emergency Management

Health systems can pivot to address changing pandemic needs with a cyclical framework. Organizations navigating a COVID-19 response will move in and out of four critical phases:

  1. Prepare for COVID-19: Healthcare leaders can plan, train, and educate, readying their organizations to act in the event of an escalation of COVID-19.
  2. Prevent COVID-19: Leaders and frontline staff take action to save lives without causing further stress to people or the system.
  3. Recover from COVID-19: Operational, clinical, and financial leadership can begin efforts to adapt operations and restore a sense of normalcy to people and the system.
  4. Plan for the future: Organizations can build a crisis-ready, sustainable future across all levels, from executive leadership to frontline staff.

Health Catalyst designed its COVID-19 Solution Framework (Figure 1) around the four phases above. As a healthcaredataand analytics organization, Health Catalyst responded by leveraging its Data Operating System (DOS™), a portfolio of emergency-ready products, widespread access to data from its health system partners, information-sharing capabilities, and the agile services expertise to understand and adapt to shifting demands.

为了实现强大的大流行数据基础设施,Health Catalyst提供与州和国家领导人的持续接触以及世界杯葡萄牙vs加纳即时走地第三方合作。例如,在国家和州一级提供注册服务。

Health Catalyst COVID-19 Solution Framework
Figure 1: Health Catalyst COVID-19 Solution Framework.

The top capabilities of the COVID-19 response framework include integrating data from across the healthcare ecosystem, identifying variation and trends in patient volumes and cohorts, testing, disposition, staffing and outcomes; applying domain and quality-improvement expertise; and monitoring and managing performance in coordination with public health. The framework is an ongoing analytics-supported approach, positioned to support short-term needs as well as get providers through the phases and moving towards a sustainable, emergency-ready recovery.

A Framework to Navigate the Four Critical Phases of COVID-19

In each of its four phases—prepare, prevent, recover, and plan—a COVID-19 solution framework addresses vital areas of action. These areas comprise infrastructure, clinical improvement andpatient safety, operational, and financial. Various Health Catalyst solutions support each area across the four COVID-19 phases.

Phase: Prepare for COVID

  • Infrastructure: Organizations need the following data and analytics infrastructure in place to prepare for COVID-19 with comprehensive, transparent information:
    • Curated COVID-19 content built into DOS Marts™ (data models that draw from multiple healthcare source systems to aggregate data into domain-specific marts) saves time and improves COVID-19 preparation data quality and accuracy.
    • Touchstone®新增的国家数据集和注册中心可提高8000多万份记录的比较分析能力,用于基于人口的研究,为应对COVID-19做好准备。
  • Clinical Improvement and patient safety: Capabilities in clinical Improvement and patient safety further support preparation for COVID-19:
    • 将COVID-19疾病登记添加到人口生成器™:分层模块,加快了评估和增加人口健康分析和报告的时间,为知情的COVID-19准备工作。
    • New public health content within the Patient Safety Monitor™ ApplicationPatient Safety Monitor™ Applicationhelps organizations prepare for COVID-19 with triggers for emerging threats and enhanced biosurveillance monitoring and analytics. The application monitors incoming patient data from multiple sources in near real-time.
    • 与感染相关的分析加速器——如CAUTI、CLABSI、C. diff、败血症和肺炎——在组织为COVID-19做准备时增强事件和感染的检测、预防和改进能力。
  • Operational: Critical operational tools also support COVID-19 preparation:
    • The Capacity Planning Tool enables forecasting and management of local COVID-19 system demand.
    • The Patient & Staff Tracker traces interactions of confirmed/suspected cases, helping organizations prepare for COVID impact.

Phase: Prevent COVID-19

  • Infrastructure: Like the COVID-19 preparation phase, critical data and analytics infrastructure also supports the prevention phase:
    • DOS mart内置的COVID-19策划内容为预防工作节省了时间,提高了数据质量和准确性。
    • National data sets and registry added to Touchstone enhance prevention strategy by allowing comparative analysis across 80 million-plus records.
  • Clinical Improvement and patient safety: Health systems can leverage data-driven clinical improvement and patient safety tools to prevent COVID-19 spread and poor patient outcomes:
    • COVID-19 disease registries added to the Population Builder: Stratification Module support prevention by speeding time to value and augmenting population health analysis and reporting.
    • New public health content within the Patient Safety Monitor Application supports prevention with COVID-19 triggers and allows enhanced biosurveillance monitoring and analytics.
    • Infection-related analytics accelerators—such as CAUTI, CLABSI, C. diff, sepsis, and pneumonia—enhance event and prevention capabilities.
    • 临床改善加速器和护理管理工作流程工具集成了不断增长的知识库、机器学习和闭环分析,以识别和更好地管理有不良结果风险的患者。
  • Operational: Essential operational tools further help organizations prevent COVID-19 spread:
    • 容量规划工具能够预测和管理当地COVID-19系统的需求,以防止破坏性影响。
    • The Patient & Staff Tracker traces interactions of confirmed/suspected cases to prevent further disease spread.
    • The Self-Service Analytics Solution™ for COVID-19 helps organizations prevent the virus with fast and easy data, registries, and dashboard capabilities.
    • 员工增强支持服务提供分析、数据科学和领域专业知识,以暂时加强预防工作。
    • Reporting capabilities like the HIE Public Health COVID-19 report reduce administrative burden, allowing organizations to direct resources to prevention efforts.

Phase: Recover from COVID-19

  • Infrastructure: Like the planning and prevention phases, recovering from COVID-19 relies on data and analytics infrastructure:
    • DOS mart内置的COVID-19内容提供以恢复为重点的数据。
    • National data sets and registry added to Touchstone allow improved comparative analysis capabilities across 80 million-plus records, allowing communities nationwide to learning from each other’s recovery efforts.
  • Clinical Improvement and Patient Safety: Tools and resources to support clinical improvement and patient safety continue to be essential through COVID-19 recovery:
    • COVID-19 disease registries added to the Population Builder: Stratification Module enhances population health analysis and reporting during the recovery phase with key metrics, including COVID-positive rates and numbers, mortality, adverse events, and more.
    • New public health content within the Patient Safety Monitor Application allows enhanced biosurveillance monitoring and analytics to inform recovery.
    • Infection-related analytics accelerators—such as CAUTI, CLABSI, C. diff, sepsis, and pneumonia—add improvement capabilities for informed recovery.
    • Clinical improvement accelerators and care management workflow tools integrate a growing knowledge base, machine learning, and closed-loop analytics guide a recovery strategy.
  • Operational: As organizations move through the recovery phase, operational solutions, services, and capabilities help restore activity:
    • 针对COVID-19的自助分析解决方案支持快速轻松的数据、注册表和仪表板功能恢复。
    • 员工增强支持服务提供分析、数据科学和领域专业知识,以临时增强恢复活动。
    • 像HIE公共卫生2019冠状病毒病报告这样的报告功能减少了行政负担,释放了用于恢复的资源。
  • Financial:从COVID-19中恢复对卫生系统来说是一个重要的财政组成部分。Data- and analytics-enabled financial tools and capabilities are a must as organizations reconcile backlogs of elective surgeries due to COVID-19, revenue losses due to surgery cancellation, and address strategic scheduling challenges:
    • A package of Financial Impact Recovery analytics tools support the financial area: Elective Surgery, Ambulatory, Revenue Cycle Launch, CORUS® Suite: Activity-Based Costing, and Able Health™ by Health Catalyst for MIPS/stimulus submission.

Phase: Plan for the Future

  • Clinical Improvement and Patient Safety: Capabilities in clinical improvement and patient safety will help organizations prepare for an emergency-ready future:
    • 患者安全监测应用程序使安全分析可在护理点的工作流程中访问,从而实现主动的伤害预防、有效的护理和及时的公共卫生响应,帮助组织为未来的大规模卫生危机制定计划。
    • Infection-related analytics accelerators—such as CAUTI, CLABSI, C. diff, sepsis, and pneumonia—deliver strategic insights for future planning.
    • 临床改善加速器和护理管理工作流程工具将有助于识别和更好地管理未来疫情中可能出现不良结果的患者。
  • Financial: Financial Impact Recovery analytics tools support an emergency-ready plan for the future: Elective Surgery, Ambulatory, Revenue Cycle Launch, CORUS®Suite: Activity-Based Costing, and Able Health™ by Health Catalyst for MIPS/stimulus submission.

An Essential Framework for Healthcare’s New Normal

Health Catalyst built its emergency response framework to support COVID-19, but the structure is also a long-term strategy for future outbreaks, whether COVID related or not. Pandemic management is an ongoing reality. Health Catalyst will support the continued development and expansion of its crisis-ready applications with industry experts and client partners as guides. The goal is to offer long-term, flexible, and agile support, creating a central guidance platform, giving health systems a universal yet customizable roadmap for a sustainable future.

Additional Reading

Would you like to learn more about this topic? Here are some articles we suggest:

  1. What Health Systems Need to Know About COVID-19 Relief Funding
  2. How Data Transforms the Hospital Command Center to Pandemic Proportions
  3. How to Scale Telehealth Solutions to Increase Patient Access During COVID-19
  4. Activity-Based Costing in Healthcare During COVID-19: Meeting Four Critical Needs
  5. Cross-State Nurse Licensing: One Way to Improve Care During COVID-19

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Health Catalyst Launches COVID-19 Patient Data Repository to Speed Vaccine Development

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