Reducing Waste in Tests by Applying Data

Where doctors are reimbursed for each test, it’s well known that they order more tests than necessary. Over time, payers have tightened criteria for reimbursements. The difficult trick is to balance the value of a test against the cost, which comes out of the clinician’s bottom line. Illumicare’s Smart Ribbon service guides hospitals on tests and treatments to reduce waste. Illumicare’s clients cull data from their EHRs to create databases of relevant patient data that Smart Ribbon can hook into. Smart Ribbon then summarizes information and presents suggestions to doctors as they evaluate the need for a test of treatment. According to Gerry Miller, founder and CEO of Cloudticity, incremental testing is starting to take hold. The doctor orders an initial simple test, and if its results are abnormal, orders a second, more expensive test. Tests can be combined so that test equipment uses algorithms to decide whether to perform the higher-level test immediately.