Financial risk, accountability and outcome management: using data to manage and measure clinical performance

As health care reform and components of managed competition begin to infiltrate the health care system, health care providers will be facing significant challenges over the next several years in responding to priorities that mandate the delivery of appropriate, comprehensive, cost-efficient high quality care. Changes in financial risk, increasing accountability, performance documentation, and outcome measurements will hold providers more responsible for the input and output of services provided. In an effort to respond to these challenges, health care providers will have to rely on integrated data systems to identify opportunities for improvement in an effort to more effectively manage and measure the impact of health care delivery as patients move through the health care system.