Siemens Launches Strategic Consulting Services To Help Healthcare Providers Address Health Reform

Healthcare providers prepare for accountable care using Siemens Soarian, quality reporting and healthcare intelligence tools, coupled with risk stratification, program dashboards and content fueled workflows.

Recently, Siemens Healthcare is announcing the availability of three Strategic Consulting solutions for accountable care to help hospital and health system customers meet healthcare reform objectives such as hospital Value Based Purchasing programs, reduction of Preventable Re-admissions, and reduction of Healthcare Acquired Conditions. These patient safety and quality improvement initiatives were called for in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and they call for organizations to provide high quality care at a reduced cost. Siemens Strategic Consulting helps customers prepare for accountable care by identifying the critical systems and processes that contribute to achievement of these objectives. By optimizing care environments through a variety of program dashboards and workflows, best practices can be embedded within healthcare organization processes. Helping hospitals find more sustainable approaches to meeting the challenges of health reform is a key goal of Agenda 2013, which is a two-year global initiative in the Siemens Healthcare Sector.

“The successful achievement of the objectives of healthcare reform does not occur at a single point in time; so it becomes necessary to deliver a suite of dashboards and workflow elements that help customers know they are complying with these measures today and that they will be able to monitor their continual performance,” said John Glaser, PhD, CEO, Siemens Healthcare, Health Services. “Many hospitals and health systems do not operate from a position of excess revenue and as the outcomes that are measured become increasingly tied to the reimbursement stream it will be critical that our customers can rely on methods to detect and remedy variation.”

Value Based Purchasing
The Siemens Value Based Purchasing (VBP) Solution assists hospitals in identifying gaps in current processes and technologies, while directing attention to the appropriate changes in order for organizations to optimize care delivery and establish performance metrics that have a more direct impact on fiscal incentive payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“The managing board of Kaweah Delta Medical Center has made it a priority that we act as standard bearers in health reform. It is their expressed belief that these efforts will impact the financial performance of the health system and, more importantly, improve the level of care that is delivered to the community of Visalia,” said Mark D. Garfield, MD, FACP, FCCP, Vice President, and Chief Medical Officer at Kaweah Delta Medical Center. “Siemens is uniquely positioned in the industry to help make a difference for hospitals like Kaweah Delta Medical Center, who are beginning their Value Based Purchasing activities.”

Siemens Healthcare Strategic Consulting executives worked with Kaweah Delta Medical Center administration to establish a response to VBP that tapped a multidisciplinary team. The project involved the establishment of baseline metrics to provide a current-state analysis and, a method to analyze how various process changes could help generate the appropriate outcomes. In collaboration with Siemens, Kaweah Delta was able to utilize its existing Soarian Clinicals solution to prospectively automate the clinical process, data collection and reporting.

Preventable Readmissions and Healthcare-Acquired Conditions
The Siemens solutions for Preventable Readmissions and Healthcare Acquired Conditions (HACs) are new Strategic Consulting offerings that are designed to address the financial and clinical impact of these mandates. The solution for Preventable Readmissions provides consulting expertise, tools, and services to assist providers and payors with benchmarking, performance improvement, and continuous quality improvement by creating or enhancing effective programs. Siemens Healthcare Acquired Conditions program provides services that deliver and support risk identification, outcomes improvement, identification of conditions present on admission (POA), condition and risk monitoring, and industry benchmarks for the 10 categories of conditions that guide the HAC payment provision before, during, and after a patient visit.

Launched in November 2011, “Agenda 2013” is the initiative of the Siemens Healthcare Sector to further strengthen its innovative power and competitiveness. Specific measures, which will be implemented by the end of 2013, have been defined in four fields of action: innovation, competitiveness, regional footprint, and people development.

About Siemens Healthcare Sector
The Siemens Healthcare Sector is one of the world's largest suppliers to the healthcare industry and a trendsetter in medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, medical information technology and hearing aids. Siemens offers its customers products and solutions for the entire range of patient care from a single source – from prevention and early detection to diagnosis, and on to treatment and aftercare. By optimizing clinical workflows for the most common diseases, Siemens also makes healthcare faster, better and more cost-effective. Siemens Healthcare employs some 51,000 employees worldwide and operates around the world. In fiscal year 2012 (to September 30), the Sector posted revenue of 13.6 billion euros and profit of 1.8 billion euros. For more information, visit: www.siemens.com/healthcare