Last week, MAPOC’s Complex Care Committee heard an exciting
presentation by Alan Fontes of UConn
Analytics and Information Management Solutions. Alan came to UConn from DeLoitte where he led
their project providing healthcare advanced analytics and information
management for states across the US. He described
the power of analytics to help guide smart planning for health systems like
Medicaid, which is especially important for members with complex, chronic
conditions. It’s important to first understand the questions that need answers.
My favorites are “What are the most common preventable events?”, “How do we get
consumers involved with managing their own care?”, and “How do I develop and
monitor performance based incentive programs?”. He described how a well-designed
analytics and information system can track disease progression, gaps in care, care
coordination, and outcomes among other options. The other critical piece is to
make the data, and the analysis, available to all involved users, including
policymakers and advisors, through dashboards that allow drilling down into the
data – not carefully selected bullet points on a Powerpoint slide. The
Committee kept Alan almost an hour over his time with questions and a very
lively discussion about the potential for Connecticut’s Medicaid program. As we
now have access to all claims data in the program this could be a vast
improvement in running the program, improving health, and carefully targeting scarce
resources. Several members have followed up with Alan for more discussions.
