How Data-Driven Insights Can Empower Community Health

As U.S. health systems transition from fee-for-service to value-based care models, maintaining focus on resources aimed at improving community health is key to achieving better outcomes. Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO)—a nonprofit pediatric hospital driven by a mission to improve the health of children worldwide—recognized this when they discovered that their surrounding communities were utilizing high cost-of-care services for low-complexity healthcare needs.

CHCO knew that they had to understand the root cause of this problem in order to be able to work with different populations to achieve better health outcomes for children across the CHCO community. To do so, they set out to develop an EMR solution that could test how access to food, exercise frequency and other personal health information could be utilized more effectively.

Stage 7 Success Story: Creating Healthier Communities

Population health leaders at CHCO started by identifying and analyzing how to incorporate external data into their Community Complexity Score (CCS), which examines the relationship between community-level data and CHCO patient healthcare utilization. The higher the CCS, the more likely the patient in a community is to seek high levels of care. The score highlights contributing factors that can help identify areas in which the hospital and community leaders can intervene. CHCO displayed this information on an interactive map that allowed them to review correlations between community health and patient-level features on outcomes of interest, such as low-severity emergency department visits.

By embracing the advanced data science techniques of machine learning and modeling, CHCO was able to effectively measure the impact of various community-level features on patient outcomes. CHCO is now using this information to make connections between individuals and community health needs, such as physical activity and nutrition, and healthcare utilization. Their EMR solution improved access to data-driven insights in order to better support their community needs assessment. Moving forward, CHCO will use this information to inform programming and partnerships while developing action plans.

Adoption Model for Analytics Maturity Stage 7 Validation

HIMSS is pleased to recognize Children's Hospital Colorado for their HIMSS Adoption Model for Analytics Maturity (AMAM) Stage 7 validation.

“Children’s Hospital Colorado has leveraged advanced analytical capabilities called out in the HIMSS AMAM to inform community health needs using a variety of social determinants of health data sets, determined both at individual and community levels,” said James E. Gaston, FHIMSS, MBA, senior director, Healthcare Advisory Services Group, HIMSS Analytics. “Also a 2018 HIMSS Davies Award winner, Children’s Colorado has developed a strong analytical culture to provide the best care possible for their special patients.”

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Updated February 21, 2020