Social Media Cuts Healthcare CostsSocial Media Cuts Healthcare Costs

Social media initiatives that help physicians, patients, and the medical research community share patient information will drive down healthcare-related costs while improving the quality of care, a report concludes.

The report, "Healthcare Performance Management in the Era of 'Twitter,'" was published this week by the Healthcare Performance Management Institute. Drawing on a number of case studies across the country, the report gives examples of how social media and other Health 2.0 initiatives are transforming the healthcare marketplace to promote a cost-efficient interactive healthcare system that provides better patient outcomes.

Among the cases cited in the report are the Point to Point (P2P) healthcare solutions offered by Healthcare Interactive and WellNet Healthcare, which combines a repository for storing and analyzing medical and pharmacy data with an online social network that links a company's employees with all of their care providers.

The goal is to promote employee wellness while eliminating waste and reducing excessive medical costs. The technology enables plan sponsors to receive and evaluate medical and pharmacy claims data in a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant manner, allowing companies to forecast and manage risk.

Another example is the Department of Veterans Affairs' VistA healthcare system, which enables all its doctors to communicate online to coordinate care for the plan's 3 million members. Use of VistA, VA officials say, has cut per-patient healthcare costs by 30% because patients are more engaged, care is provided in a timely manner, and unnecessary tests and procedures are avoided.

"From a social media perspective, doctors are able to have direct interactions with patients about medication experiences, for example," said Henry Cha, CEO of Healthcare Interactive. "Their responses can then be used to better understand what medicines and treatment protocols are working and which aren't. Then this kind of collaboration can be used to improve outcomes."

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Sharing medical information in a web-based healthcare IT model has also helped the Toms River School District in New Jersey, which opened an employee health clinic in October 2009.

According to the report, in the first three months of operation, the average healthcare cost per employee dropped by $1,950 -- a premium reduction of 19%. At that rate, the school system is poised to save $2 million in the first year.

A big part of the Toms River clinic's success has been creating a health performance management system to deliver metrics to the clinic's primary care physicians. By using that data, leaders were able to create incentives to increase the average clinic visit time from seven-and-a-half minutes to 20 minutes.

An additional benefit has been to decrease the Tom River clinic's referral rate to specialists, which is between 10% and 11%, versus the standard 25% to 30% referral rate.

The report describes how patients at the clinic who are likely to develop an acute condition over the course of a year are paired up with a doctor who is instructed to do whatever is necessary to diagnose the patient and prevent a major -- and expensive -- healthcare crisis. Web-based technology enables the consolidation of analytics with claims data, electronic health records, and drug and lab data to deliver a comprehensive, actionable picture of what's going on with each individual patient.

"The bottom line is that when patient information is more transparent, it enhances the delivery of healthcare, reduces costs, and improves quality," Cha said. "The information also is valuable for measuring what forms of treatment work well and achieve the most successful outcomes."