Clinical Blog
Published: January 23, 2023

In Value We Trust: How Health Systems Can Drive Population Health With Digital Solutions

With perpetually rising healthcare costs, soaring operating expenses, and plummeting profit margins, health systems are pressured to re-evaluate their care delivery models and shift their focus to value.

Implementing the right tools to enhance decision making and build care management capabilities for population health, risk stratification, and site-of-care optimization will be vital for navigating this actively evolving landscape. Digital health solutions are critical enablers of success, especially having demonstrated clinical and real-world outcomes in all reimbursement settings. 

In an outcomes-based payment model, health systems can leverage digital solutions to:

Engage the most at-risk (and expensive) patients

Personalization is key for promoting sustainable behavior change and improving outcomes. Digital health solutions excel at motivating disengaged patients and empowering better disease self-management through multiple personalized touchpoints. These touchpoints could include mobile apps or web portals that deliver educational content or virtual coaching that provides human support in real-time. Together with regular clinician monitoring, digital solutions are proven to prevent unnecessary acute hospitalizations, lowering overall costs of care. In chronic respiratory care, this includes a 35% and 57% reduction in healthcare utilization (emergency department visits and hospitalizations) for COPD and asthma patients, respectively.1,2

Make sweeping improvements in quality metrics

Quality metrics will always be a top priority for health systems. Digital health solutions have been clinically and commercially proven to improve performance measures around quality care (e.g., HEDIS and CAHPS), health outcomes (e.g., Asthma Medication Ratio for respiratory patients), patient satisfaction, and care coordination by enabling the identification of potential gaps in care and reallocation of finite clinical resources. In strengthening these care management capabilities and enhancing site-of-care optimization, health systems can efficiently improve quality metrics, potentially leading to increased reimbursement.

Access critical data for reducing costs at scale

Only one in two physicians are aware of the costs of the treatments they select, yet the majority are increasingly cognizant of their role in improving the affordability of care.3 For health systems’ population health initiatives or shared risk arrangements, access to objective patient data such as medication adherence or prescription refills is crucial for cutting healthcare costs. With consistent data points from digital health solutions, providers and clinicians can see how patients are trending in real-time and make evidence-based, cost-conscious care decisions across the board. 

More invested in traditional payment models? Find out how digital health solutions can help maximize fee-for-service arrangements.  

Every health system is unique. Ready to discuss how Propeller can transform your organization? Get started today.


1 Alshabani et al., 2019. Electronic inhaler monitoring and healthcare utilization in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare.
2 Merchant et al., 2018. Impact of a Digital Health Intervention on Asthma Resource Utilization, WAOJ.
3 Deloitte, 2021. Equipping Physicians for Value-Based Care.

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