Prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, telehealth functioned as an optional form of health-related service for those that relied on care that was accessible, convenient, and quality. Back in March of last year (2020), there was an understandable 154% increase in telehealth visits during just the last week of March 2020, compared to the same period in 2019, according to the CDC.
The world of virtual service has existed for some time now, but its exigent transition to becoming the primary and mainstream method has created new priorities for all those working diligently on the frontlines to provide continuous quality health care.
Quality Measurement in Pharmacy
As COVID-19 persists, health care providers of all professions and frontline workers of every expertise continue to selflessly dedicate themselves to supporting their communities. Pharmacists are just one sub-group who have taken on the new precedents of telehealth throughout the course of the pandemic. As with any healthcare professional, quality metrics hold pharmacists accountable for their contributions to supporting their patients’ health.
Health Affairs stated, “Methodically measuring comprehensive outcomes that matter to patients will be necessary to drive improvements in the quality of care furnished through telehealth across the care continuum.”
Pharmacists of all roles – whether clinical, retail or long-term care (to name a few) – play a greater role in making patient-centered decisions that meet quality standards and display high-performance levels. Ensuring these quality metrics are being met through the growing presence of telehealth has consequently led to the need to develop new criteria that will be evaluated against and used to create new standard measures of value-based care.
Challenges in Quality Measurement as Telehealth Expands
Understanding the data that needs to be collected is one challenge while implementing and working with the right systems to collect and report on that data is another. Telehealth also poses its own unique challenges when it comes to certain factors that, for some, are the reason and benefits for why they choose telehealth in the first place – access and convenience.
Health Affairs also stated, “There is a pressing need to clarify the infrastructure demands (such as wireless broadband) required to support and sustain equitable care delivery with telehealth technologies. This must transpire in conjunction with establishing platforms that enable measurement of access, clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, and expenditure while preserving interoperability and continuity of care. Meeting these infrastructure demands will be fundamental to promoting value-based dissemination.”
Every individual’s situation and circumstances are unique, and therefore must be recognized when pharmacists and other healthcare professionals seek to align the options and quality of their care to support how their service is being defined and evaluated.
That being said, proper and complete data collection is a vital approach to ensuring the right data is being captured, categorized, measured, and then analyzed for further action-based decisions. Quality data can lead to quality care when the right steps are in place for pharmacists to consistently track the KPIs that drive their daily services.
Data collection and aggregation, however, also bring some challenges for healthcare providers that may be seen as barriers to entry for organizations looking to get more out of their data and maintain quality measures. Certain software solutions can go beyond budget reach, EHR technology can be difficult to streamline across user adoption, and pharmacists’ (and other employees’) responsibilities for successful onboarding can be demanding.
Patient-Centered Care: Using Dashboards to Measure Top Pharmaceutical KPIs
Finding and implementing a solution that complements existing processes and employees is important for health care providers and pharmacies to not disrupt their daily workflow at the expense of time, money, or resources. Over the years, iDashboards Enterprise Reporting Platform from TruOI has found itself working with many healthcare providers, meeting both the unique and common needs they share that align with those concerns – by providing unlimited support for successful onboarding, developing with the end-user (adoption) in mind, and customizing each package for a scalable solution.
As telehealth remains prevalent in today’s society and likely a way that many will still receive care post-pandemic, we understand that the responsibility for pharmacists to document and report on their quality measures and other top KPIs will not diminish, but evolve. That being said, we know pharmacies and their counterparts anticipate that the sooner they are able to dissect the information at hand to re-evaluate their criteria, the more equipped they can adapt their care as a reflection of that analysis. Dashboards can provide that instantaneous and accurate visibility into where things stand, where gaps lie, and opportunities to improve. As top KPIs interact across the dashboard, anticipatory concerns can be answered at the moment to support deliverables and objectives for Quality Control, Research, and Development, Clinical Trials, Expenditures, etc. With live operational intelligence, reporting quickly becomes second nature, promoting transparency to those relying on up-to-date standings.
When human lives sit on the other side of the data, overlooking critical information should never be a concern in healthcare, especially in today’s high-paced and unparalleled environment of COVID-19. Data is more than just the numbers – it’s the processes, the purpose, and most importantly, the people that provide a function to the formula.
Pharmaceutical Dashboard Examples
Curious to see how these dashboards look in action? Check out our pharmaceutical dashboard solutions page here and interact with our live dynamic dashboards as shown below.
Pharmaceuticals & Biotech – Executive Scorecard Dashboard
Pharmaceuticals & Biotech – Clinical Trials Dashboard
