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Chilmark Research releases latest ground-breaking report: Longitudinal Care Plans: Delivering on the Promise of Patient-Centered CareBOSTON, Dec. 1, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The migration to value-based care will require Healthcare organizations (HCOs) to develop shared care plans that help patients stay healthy and reduce healthcare system utilization. These care plans will be digitally enabled, incorporate care guidelines and be reflective of a patient's unique needs and desires. They will also allow all stakeholders to collaborate across care settings ensuring a patient's health journey is optimal. That is the vision, however, research by Chilmark Research for their latest report, Longitudinal Care Plans: Delivering on the Promise of Patient-Centered Care, has found a market that is very immature on care plan development, deployment and use. This creates an enormous opportunity for those innovators that can effectively address this need.  Care plans from clinical content vendors and professional physician societies are available on the current market, but few go beyond the basics of coordinated care, and many remain paper-based. This leaves HCOs of all sizes with the unenviable task of having to creating longitudinal care plans and processes to distribute largely on their own. Chilmark forecasts that it will be two to three years, before more robust solutions from vendors will enter the market at scale. Longitudinal care plans play an important part in the healthcare industry's ongoing sift toward value-based, coordinated care. Developed in conjunction with all stakeholders - physicians, nurses, and specialists working alongside patients and their caregivers - care plans identify patients' health and wellness needs, set goals for meeting those needs, and establish a consensus plan for achieving those goals. This can be especially effective for patients with long-term chronic conditions such as diabetes or hypertension or with multiple chronic conditions that require a high level of care management. With this insight, care plans can be specifically tailored to match a patient's needs, goals, and interests, which increases the chances of achieving objectives of reducing utilization, and lowering healthcare costs. Unfortunately, today's off-the-shelf care plans fall short of the mark. HCOs can identify and close care gaps using today's tools, but the true value of digitally enabled longitudinal care planning remains several years away. Matthew Guldin, lead analyst for this report states: "Care plans in use today are most often a compilation of disparate inputs from clinicians and a modicum of evidence-based medicine that rarely includes a 360 degree patient view. Coupling these shortcomings with a lack of digital enablement, care plans are the weak link in the care management process." To create a true longitudinal care plan, HCOs must break down data and operational silos, automating communication processes and other workflows across disparate provider organizations, and provide patients and their caregivers access to the care plan. Some HCOs today use electronic health record (EHR) systems to attempt to accomplish this goal, while others use bare-bones care management systems or even paper-based records. Chilmark believes that HCOs will need far more comprehensive tools for documenting, developing, distributing, and monitoring the types of longitudinal care plans that will truly bend the cost curve in healthcare. To compile this report, Chilmark evaluated care plan offerings available in the United States and several other countries. The report draws on this information to identify the most important elements of a longitudinal care plan, describe the steps that HCOs should take to facilitate coordinated care, indicate which data elements should go into a care plan, and provide best practices for using care plans in inpatient, post-acute, and behavioral health settings. In addition, the report evaluates off-the-shelf care plans from evidence-based clinical content vendors as well as physician specialty societies. The report will provide strategic insight to anyone interested in understanding how longitudinal care plans will evolve over the next several years in an increasingly value-based healthcare system. HCOs, healthcare IT vendors, consultants, investors, and others will all benefit from this in-depth report. The report is available to subscribers of the Chilmark Advisory Service or may be purchased separately. For more information, visit www.chilmarkresearch.com/reports. Direct inquiries for purchase should be addressed to Sean Campbell at [email protected]. About Chilmark Research: Chilmark Research is the only industry analyst firm focusing solely on the most transformational trends in healthcare IT. We combine proven research methodologies with intelligence and insight to provide cogent analyses of the emerging technologies that have the greatest potential to improve healthcare. We do not shy away from making tough calls, and are respected in the industry for our direct and thoughtful commentary. For more information visit: www.chilmarkresearch.com/
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