Case Studies Reveal Vital Importance of Healthcare Transparency

“The best way to change a culture is to be transparent,” says Emily Kagan Trenchard, Associate Vice President of Digital Strategy at Northwell Health (formerly North Shore-LIJ). “When you pull back the curtain, everyone wants to tidy up the room.”

Kagan Trenchard and co-presenter Chris Boyer, Senior Vice President of ReviveHealth, shared their perspectives on transparency in a recent eHST webinar (which is available for on-demand viewing): The Value of Transparency: Using Digital to Drive Transparency and Embrace Consumerism in Healthcare.

The impetus for transparency, which may include a range of initiatives, from listing prices for medical procedures to posting quality ratings, is coming from several directions, according to the presenters:

• The Affordable Care Act is aggressively moving the industry away from Fee-for-Service toward Value-Based Purchasing tied to quality.
• Consumers, accustomed to transparency in other industries like financial services and retail, have a growing expectation of transparency in healthcare, especially as they assume a greater share of the cost of their care.
• Third-party review sites such as Healthgrades and Vitals, and publications like U.S. News & World Report, exert a strong influence on consumer choice of providers.
• State legislation is placing new requirements on healthcare organizations to become more transparent, or face penalties.

Kagan Trenchard and Boyer, who was her predecessor at Northwell Health, have collaborated over the past five years on several major transparency initiatives, some internally motivated, and others driven by external forces.

Our new article, Let the Sunshine In: 3 Case Studies Reveal What You Need to Know About Transparency Now, explores three of these projects in depth. Click here to read it now.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President