Day 1 of the Caradigm Customer Summit is in the books and the message of the day was that population health management is about collaboration. Working together is critical for anyone looking to succeed in population health and transform healthcare. With 75 of the country’s leading healthcare delivery organizations in attendance, representing the care of 50 million patients, it was a remarkable group to collaborate with as presentations organically turned into discussions. Here are some highlights from the day.

Caradigm - Michael Simpson CEO Opening Keynote

“We’re on a journey together.”

Michael set the tone for the day and the summit by recognizing that population health is about collaboration. Healthcare organizations need to collaborate internally, with patients and with strategic technology partners. Population health technology partners need to collaborate not only with customers, but with other technology vendors in order to provide a complete, best-of-breed solution.

Billings Clinic - Chris Stevens CIO and Dr. Karen Cabell Associate Chief of Quality

“We picked Caradigm as a strategic partner, and that means something to us.” – Chris Stevens

It was great to hear the confidence in a collaboration partner from Billings Clinic, a recognized innovator in clinical quality, ranked number one in patient safety by Consumer Reports. Chris Stevens said that their organization found legacy systems like EMRs to be functionally immature for population health management. They could not provide a single source of truth and the data was constantly questioned. Dr. Cabell talked about how the Caradigm Quality Improvement application is helping get “actionable and manageable” data in front of employees so that they can focus on quality, drill down to identify opportunities for improvement and lead process improvement initiatives.

Geisinger Health Plans - Janet Tomcavage RN, MSN – SVP and Chief, Value-Based Care Strategic Initiatives

“If you’re the best performing, patients will come. Let’s see who can deliver.”

Janet spoke about Caradigm Care Management, an application that Geisinger helped shape in partnership with Caradigm. The app gives them the opportunity to infuse different types of data across the care continuum to fuel a care plan. Janet said care managers can’t help but appreciate how the app helps them deliver better care to patients faster and with less effort on their part. The app has been rolled out to Geisinger’s entire 160 person case management team.

Elsevier Clinical Solutions - Dr. Peter Edelstein CMO

“I entered healthcare because I wanted to provide quality.”

Dr. Edelstein said physicians need more than just data collection. Data collection by itself is not going to improve the quality of care. Physicians are open to partners who can guide them to drive better care. At the end of the day, better healthcare should cost less.

The agenda also featured Caradigm’s talented product managers going deeper into specific population health apps such as Risk Management, Quality Improvement, Readmissions Management and Identity and Access Management, as well as laying out the roadmap into the future. Day 2 will feature even more apps, and we will be exploring each of these in the coming weeks on the blog.

The evening event was held at the Olympic Sculpture Park on the Seattle waterfront. With a lovely sunset and a view of Puget Sound as the backdrop, a good time was had by all.

A giant thank you to our phenomenal guest speakers. We’ll see you back here tomorrow for a recap of Day 2!