Spirited conversations exploring new frontiers and compelling new uses for the EMPI were abundant in the recent IMT event “The Next Decade, EMPI as a Strategic Asset” held in Orlando December 4th and 5th and generously hosted by AdventHealth on their campus.
Throughout the two days several themes were voiced as priorities that called for action.
Population health and EMPI go hand in hand
Attendees heard how population health initiatives require the integration of payers and providers. Using the EMPI to create the unique members and consumers that participate in various health plans and maintaining the relationships between them facilitates better reporting, costing, and financial reconciliation. Organizations incorporating payers and providers into their EMPI are achieving excellence in managing members, defining care patterns and care coordination, and identifying effective financial or clinical activities through key performance indicators.
Patient / consumer engagement are driving new uses for the EMPI
Organizations are launching digital front door/consumer engagement initiatives that integrate with their EMPI. The priorities for these “Know Your Client” initiatives include data sharing between providers, family and care givers, self-scheduling, telehealth, family/guarantor billing, and management of consent across the enterprise. Organizations integrating their EMPI with a consumer engagement platform are providing a strong foundation for consumer enrollment and identification, preference and consent management, and new digital workflows using mobile applications and technologies.
“Single vendor” environments that meet all healthcare needs are a myth
Several organizations shared their experiences in planning and migrating to a single vendor platform and the reality vs. the promise made by vendors promising a single application that “does it all”. Attendees described how their investment in a high degree of data integrity via their EMPI mitigated the risks associated with the patient matching approaches of single vendor platforms including missing linkages and false positive rates between 10-50%. Feedback from these experiences indicated that the concept of linking records across an enterprise and the complex identity needs of population health, analytics, and consumer initiatives are poorly supported by most single vendor platforms. Organizations who understand the critical importance of getting identity right at the first point of contact see the need for their EMPI even in a single vendor platform world.
IMT thanks the all participants for their active engagement and their preparation leading to this event. We hope to see you again in 2020 at our next user event.
