The 14th Annual HEDIS® & Quality Improvement Summit heads to Las Vegas September 29-October 1. This year’s event features new case studies and practical strategies for working smarter, data optimization, and moving the needle on key HEDIS® measures. In this article, we talk to three speakers about the overall conference and their upcoming session on how to make the work you do work for you.
Editor’s note: HEDIS® is a registered trademark of National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and any reference thereto by RISE Health does not imply any endorsement by NCQA of RISE Health and its offerings.
Kyra Valdez-Shipp, R.N., MSN, CCM, founder & principal, Peak Performance Solutions Group, is not only a speaker at this year’s conference, she’s also an enthusiastic attendee. “I personally love HEDIS,” she says. “I believe in the model and with the changes coming with how it's so deeply impacting every single performance of every single product, I think it's just going to be a good conference to level set, get the annual updates, and network with like-minded people.”
Valdez-Shipp will be a panelist on a session that addresses “Making the Work You Do Work for You.” Topics include capturing data from organic touchpoints with members, exploring how to close data gaps, and leveraging low- or no-budget sources of data. Most people tend to focus on HEDIS data to close care gaps, but Valdez-Shipp says that there is a plethora of data that is available but not used and may serve as a leading indicator of the member’s overall health and care.
For example, she says, when a new member comes into a plan or is having his or her annual Health Risk Assessment (HRA), it would be helpful to put together the information in a structured format that can be easily accessed by anyone in the organization. The data may offer insight into the likelihood of members to be compliant or identify a social determination of health barrier. “If we can utilize those things that we already have but have the architecture in such a way that we can better capture it and build reports, I feel like the sky’s the limit…But we are collecting it and we’re not doing anything with it.”
Valdez-Shipp says she expects to discuss where organizations have touch points with members, whether by phone calls, texts, or online. “There are so many missed opportunities to either get the data or take the data and then feed it into a report that we can actually use the intel for,” she says.
Katie Gries, MHA, manager, quality management, Blue Cross of Idaho, will also serve as a panelist with Valdez-Shipp. She expects to talk about how her organization leveraged their HRAs to identify opportunities and gaps within care and how they closed those gaps. For example, Gries says that Blue Cross identified an opportunity with their care management team via a cancer care outreach program to connect with members who need or have not had cancer care screenings.
Shannon Decker, M.Ed., MBA, Ph.D., principal, VBC One, will moderate the session and is excited to hear more from the panel about the strategies they’ve used to close care gaps. Organizations must invest in these patients, so they feel they have had a good experience at a lower price point. “They are going to feel like they got value, and I think HEDIS and the work we do around quality contributes largely to that,” she says.
The 14th Annual HEDIS® & Quality Improvement Summit will take place September 29- October 1 at Paris Las Vegas. The panel, “Making the Work You Do Work for You,” will kick off the final day of the conference. Click here for the entire agenda, roster of speakers, and how to register.