One of the biggest trends I’m seeing with clinical data is identifying the needles out of the haystack. In patient populations, clinical data is the accurate method to find those people who need care the most. For example, payers and providers have begun using remote monitoring systems to manage patients with chronic diseases. These devices can be effective, but unless you’re interpreting the clinical results of the patients, it’s difficult to identify who needs these services and if their health improved from using the system.

For example, an insurance company may utilize remote diabetes monitoring with point of care glucose testing and include educational and nutritional management. Tracking patient changes like testing for hemoglobin A1C and lipids can help determine effectiveness enabling a clearer understanding about the program’s worth of investment and patients’ improvements.

Rhodes works with clients that use different types of vendors who monitor and manage diseases and risk factors in areas such as diabetes, chronic kidney disease and prenatal care. We enable our clients to identify who to enroll and how to measure the success of these targeted programs by using clinical data. By using longitudinal clinical data, we can see patients’ results on any given timeframe and compare the overall results of the patients who enrolled in the program to those patients who chose not to enroll and use that information to continually improve patient health. Finally, payers can review the claims for these two groups and determine if the expenses decreased and if the program was worth the investment.