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Obesity PPM: Bridging Operational Gaps in Patient Engagement
The term “patient engagement” has become entrenched in today’s healthcare lexicon. Many healthcare networks are endeavoring to implement patient engagement strategies and improve the patient care experience, cost of care, and overall health of the population. However, according to Heather Flannery, CEO of Obesity PPM—an innovative disease management company—the current patient engagement and care coordination domain is marked by numerous operational gaps. She says, “Almost all health systems implement healthcare technology from third-party vendors, and while the software is managed by the technology providers, the actual patient engagement is done by the health systems.” This practice lacks the“operational cohesion” that could have been achieved had the technology and empathy (patient interaction) been deployed by the same group. Obesity PPM’s distinctiveness lies in providing a “capitation structure” business model that is ground-breaking as it provides best-in-class patient management services along with market-leading technology innovations.
Heather notes the challenge most care-giving organizations face is deploying an optimized solution from the perspective of technology as well as human servicing resources. By engaging Obesity PPM, healthcare organizations would be able to outsource those services. “We provide end-to-end solutions that cater to patients suffering from chronic diseases, abstracting every engagement related process of the healthcare system into the cloud and into our virtual delivery model,” mentions Heather. Obesity PPM operates under a client’s brandname and designs, executes, and administers a customized, cloud health IT system for managing chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and a myriad of related health conditions.
When a health system reaches out to Obesity PPM, Dr. Cyndi Inkpen, COO of Obesity PPM, explains they are generally looking to achieve two things: a profitable growth in the obesity treatment service line; and obtaining overall improved population health metrics. Obesity PPM uses a phased approach to address these requirements. Foremost, Obesity PPM creates a competitive analysis for their clients, to develop a three-year strategic plan regarding obesity treatment goals. This outline facilitates implementation of a detailed business and clinical process plan, focusing on patient’s payer and provider engagement tactics. Thereafter, the company moves toward their technology-building phase.
Obesity PPM operates under a client’s brand name and designs, executes, and administers a customized, cloud health IT system for managing chronic diseases
While implementing the processes, Obesity PPM organizes a joint training and change management initiative culminating with a process “Go Live.” It is at this juncture that Obesity PPM’s engagement centers start to communicate with patients and provide management services. At the end of each quarter, Obesity PPM analyzes patient data discovering new clinically and operationally relevant key insights which drive programmatic enhancements.
Obesity PPM reviews data under their research protocol and shares key findings which can potentially influence the decisions of a health system’s engagement strategies. Ada VanHecke, CTO of Obesity PPM, details how the company’s disease-specific contract research wing utilizes capabilities such as distributed ledger and blockchain technology to maintain superior protocol adherence while conducting research. “Key benefits of utilizing these technologies include improved privacy and security, superior data liquidity, interoperability, and the ability to further advance patient-centered approaches to healthcare,” adds VanHecke.
“For the future, we will penetrate further into the U.S. market while expanding globally,” says Bill Bishop, chief growth officer, Obesity PPM. Obesity PPM is looking at developing affiliated brands that are disease-state specific for obesity such as orthopedics, cardiology, and women’s health. “We are envisioning organic growth with our customers that not only provides excellent engagement services for chronic diseases but also takes care of allied disease-state conditions,” ends Heather.
