Health Data & Management Solutions
Delivering Better Care With Connected Health Insights

The healthcare sector is experiencing a renaissance. We see accelerated adoption of digital offerings across operations, drug discovery and more. This development is enhanced by technological advances. And in light of this, data capture is happening all the way from first contact through to the final delivery of care. Subsequently, with each innovation, solutions become more sophisticated and data-driven. However, with different facets of business data stored in disparate sources with each database protected by a different set of regulations, a majority of businesses are finding it hard to leverage their data and drive transformational changes in their approach. This challenge in data consolidation and the lack of actionable insights has become a problem that goes beyond healthcare and affects adjacent sectors such as health plans, carriers, and benefit management as well. And as the primary antidote to this problem is expensive IT restructuring and significant downtimes, companies are finding themselves in ‘between a rock and a hard place’ type of situation. So how can a firm enhance the efficiencies of its data consolidation and extract insights in a manner that is quick and affordable?

Enter Health Data & Management Solutions (HDMS), a CVS Health company that builds and manages connected health platforms to provide explorable views of data and insights for its clients. The company transforms unrefined data, often disparate and difficult-to access, into integrated, actionable insights derived from a connected health model. “Our widespread partner network, our strengths in data management and health analytics, combined with our AI-powered predictive modeling capabilities allow us to help clients extract insights that will not only stand the test of time, but also the unforeseen market shifts” says Dr. Rani Aravamudhan, head of clinical advisory services at HDMS.

Further discussing the core competencies of her company, Dr. Rani mentions the ‘data Play-Doh’ paradigm that HDMS leverages to extract newer, never-before-seen insights from existing data sets by viewing them through different, more relevant “in-the-moment” lenses and creating new and different metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs). As an example, she elaborates on using HDMS predictive modeling to identify the members who may end up in the ER for preventable reasons, which, when added into a connected health view, could also surface expensive testing or procedures of questionable or low value.Hence reducing the number of preventable ER visits with better primary care - reduces morbidity and conserves resources.

“As a company that consolidates and refines data, we want to be able to view an individual’s health status holistically to deliver care that boosts overall health; not just address isolated symptoms or conditions,” explains Dr. Rani.

With respect to client engagement, HDMS begins every project by gathering a team that comprises a dedicated account manager, a team of analysts to handle the day to-day due diligence, its senior customer experience personnel, and a member of the clinical analytics department for support. “Once we start receiving data, we use our sophisticated AI algorithms to identify data patterns, and blind spots. We extract metrics that will simplify the process of applying the insights into real-world scenarios,” adds Dr. Rani. HDMS often trains customer teams (data analysts) who wish to be hands-on in the application.

“This lets our clients set the balance between self-service and support from our teams. What works best for them usually changes over time, so having these options keeps everything smooth,” Dr. Rani explains. Furthermore, HDMS offers seamless integration and flexible data exchange options with third-party solutions to ensure a smooth implementation of its connected health offerings.

With such unparalleled capabilities, HDMS has ignited success stories since its inception in 1995. Recently, they assisted a leading employer in the healthcare space to accurately evaluate the impact of their onsite medical and dental clinics. Once the study was designed and the value metrics defined in collaboration with the client, HDMS analysts analyzed medical and pharmacy claims, custom data from onsite clinic vendor, as well as leave and disability data sets within their connected health model.

To everyone’s surprise, HDMS found that employees were using onsite health clinics almost exclusively for urgent care needs and not for routine primary care as intended. This led the employer, HDMS, and the clinic partners to discuss areas to optimize for convenience and affordability for employees. “When we presented the study results, our client and the clinic partner participated in all discussions. Despite the unexpected immediate observations, because we had the bigger data picture, we all saw the opportunity and what was needed in this community. It was clear that everyone present had the welfare of the employees on top of their minds,” states Dr. Rani.

At the heart of this success is HDMS’ ability to seamlessly integrate with and consolidate data from different sources. This simplifies security and privacy complexities related to data sharing across third parties and stringent regulatory mandates, without information loss. At the same time, the company prides itself in its rapid turnaround time, with Dr. Rani mentioning several instances where a team member has assisted clients by turning around an ad-hoc request in record time, a couple of days or even overnight. Above all, the company has a mindset that drives it to leverage data to not only enhance business performance but also deliver real, tangible value in terms of care delivery. Concurrently, HDMS is a big supporter of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives with experience helping employers identify their shortcomings with respect to offering health benefits to marginalized and minority employees. In fact, according to Dr. Rani, HDMS has played a critical role in raising awareness around the unique health needs of transgender individuals in the workforce across a multitude of businesses.

Looking ahead, HDMS plans include collaborating with additional top health systems and expanding the capabilities of their proprietary algorithms (AI, predictive models and more) to assist clients in coping with the evolving marketplace and member behaviors. Additionally, to highlight their emphasis on DEI, the company has made huge investments in mainstreaming how organizations can leverage data to easily analyze how social determinants of health influence health engagement and outcomes, with baseline and progress dashboards and metrics. The goal is to facilitate better care delivery to more individuals in convenient and affordable ways.