The primary goal of value-based care is to improve patient health outcomes by shifting the focus of healthcare from volume to value. This approach aims to shift the industry towards practices that promote preventive care, improve the management of chronic conditions in a cost-effective manner and reduce healthcare costs by improving quality of care, preventing hospitalizations, readmissions and more. Medication optimization is vital to achieving these objectives. Below are some of the key aspects of medication optimization in Value-Based Care.
Better Utilization Management, Prevention of Hospitalizations, Readmission and More
Medication-related problems, such as adverse drug reactions and non-adherence are a major factor for hospital readmissions. Adverse drug events (ADEs) are responsible for 15% of hospital admissions in patients 65 years or older and up to 20% of patients admitted to acute medical units.
Medication optimization is also crucial post-discharge, as patients’ medications change to reflect their current health status. With the change in medications, condition diagnosis and other influencing factors, it is essential to holistically analyze all these factors and make sure the patient has the most effective medication therapy while identifying potential issues such as duplications and incorrect dosage in order to prevent readmission. According to a study by McFarland et al., patients who had a Comprehensive Medication Management visit after hospital discharge (within a week) had a significantly lower rate of 30-day readmissions (8.6% vs 12.8%) than patients who did not have Comprehensive Medication Management services.
Higher Patient Satisfaction
Utilizing medication optimization plays a critical role in enhancing patient satisfaction. Medication optimization ensures that patients receive the most appropriate, effective, and safe medication regimen tailored to their specific health conditions and needs. This essential personalized medication therapy approach minimizes adverse events, leads to better treatment outcomes, improves quality of life, and results in higher patient satisfaction scores, which are increasingly used as a metric in value-based reimbursement models.
Medication optimization is a fundamental component of delivering high-quality, patient-centered, cost-effective care in a value-based care framework. With that, current medication management programs are offered to a small subset of the population and often overlook health risks due to a narrow drug-drug interaction analysis. Medication optimization must be comprehensive, holistic, and scalable in order to achieve these quality improvements and significant cost reduction.
Payors and Value-Based Providers use @MDI Health deep-analytics and AI to personalize and scale high-quality medication therapy and realize $2,000 PMPY of savings. Reach out to learn more about how MDI’s AI medication management can help you prevent drug-related problems, improve quality, and significantly reduce utilization spend.