BioIQ’s Chief Medical Officer Joshua Sclar, MD, MPH, recently contributed an article to The American Journal of Accountable Care. In it, he discusses why preventive services are severely underutilized and contribute substantially to care gaps and preventable deaths. He also highlights three key trends that promise improvement: consumerism, big data and technology.
“Three key movements—consumerism, big data, and technology—are transforming the landscape of value-based care. Nowhere is this transformation more evident, or more needed, than in the delivery of high-value clinical preventive services, which often go undelivered in today’s health system, resulting in gaps in care.
Preventive service delivery is ripe for disruption. To date, the healthcare industry has focused almost exclusively on the treatment of illness, often to the neglect of prevention. Meanwhile, the number of quality measures and clinical guidelines related to prevention has continued to grow. Clinical preventive services are generally low-risk, are appropriate for large numbers of people (ie, high volume), are guideline-driven, and support fundamental value-based care objectives. Despite this, preventive services are underutilized at alarming rates, contributing substantially to the overall number of care gaps and preventable deaths in any given population.”
The complete article is available in The American Journal of Accountable Care’s December edition. Read it here.