Innovator’s Corner

Innovation

On-Site Clinic Operating Under a Health Risk Management Model Using Defense Department–Developed Technologies for Patient Diagnoses and Treatment Plans

Problem Addressed

The typical on-site clinic is fairly generic in that it renders traditional occupational and/or nonoccupational services for chronic, acute and episodic conditions. However, that model misses the valuable opportunity to provide one-on-one, personal coaching to better manage the health risk of the employee and/or family members who use the clinic. Moreover, they usually fall short as well in deploying the latest technologies to aggregate employee health information into a single record so as to better diagnose and treat the patient.

Innovation

This on-site clinic is unique in various ways. First, it operates under a health risk management model that treats the totality of the patient. Electronic medical records (EMRs) are developed for each patient under a proprietary format that is driven by patient health needs and not the provider’s billing system as is the case with most other EMRs. The EMR pulls together all sources of health care information including health risk information. The clinics are staffed with nurse practitioners who are trained using proprietary motivation, education, personal goal setting and behavior change coaching techniques so as to be able to coach patients in ways that maximize behavior modification. This approach is so powerful that the clinic vendor actually puts a percentage of its fees at risk based on its success in changing health risk factors and/or reducing sheer health care claims percentages by amounts that are mutually agreed on in advance with the employer-client.

Second, it uses an automated patient diagnosis and treatment plan technology that was originally developed by the US Department of Defense and is now supported by several dozen full-time health care practitioners so as to be continually updated for the latest in medical thinking and evidence-based care research. The idea here is to reduce the 50% error rate found in the traditional memory-based diagnoses and treatment plans prescribed by the typical physician.

Third, clinic results are displayed via a real-time executive dashboards reporting on return on investment and all clinic utilization.

Return on Innovation (ROI)

Much of the cost of this on-site clinic is funded by transferring dollars that are already being spent by the employer under its health care plan today. The experience has been a $500,000 reduction in claims per 1,000 employees. The expected ROI = Savings of 150% of the cost in the first year, and 400% by the fifth year.

Invitation to Share Innovative Ideas

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