Closing the Pandemic Healthcare Gap

PRISMA can help make up for missed appointments

None of the human losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic can ever be made whole. But for millions of Americans — particularly those who are older or suffer from chronic conditions — 2022 is an opportunity to make up for missed appointments and the potential health problems that may have arisen when they were unable or unwilling to go to the doctor during the last two years.

According to a February article published by Patient Engagement HIT, about 30% of adults over age 50 had a medical appointment postponed or canceled during the pandemic. About 38% of those slated for a procedure, test, or operation in 2021 rescheduled, while 34% received delayed care, and about 16% reported they planned to do so — but hadn’t yet contacted their provider. The rest, about 10%, simply didn’t get care.

During the last two-plus years, millions of Americans have missed routine screenings, well visits, and follow-up exams for a myriad of minor but worrying conditions. And most experts agree that the results will show up, sooner in later, in higher mortality rates for cancer, heart disease, stroke, and other maladies that can often be detected and prevented.

Making up ground with PRISMA

Many practices used telehealth services to bolster their capacity to deliver care during the pandemic, but some patients were either hesitant to use remote medicine or simply waited for offices to reopen before seeing their doctor once again.

That poses a dual problem for providers. First, they must determine what has been happening to patients they may not have seen for a couple of years. Second, they must develop ways to be more efficient if they hope to clear the backlog of patients needing attention.

PRISMA, the industry’s first healthcare information search engine, gives providers a powerful tool to address those challenges.

Finding out what happened

First, PRISMA sends an automated query for a given patient and captures any records available through either of the two nationwide interoperability networks — Carequality^® or the CommonWell^® Health Alliance — whether those records are from another primary care provider, a specialist, a hospital, or an urgent care center.

In this way, providers can quickly determine what care a given patient may have received over time, from whom, and what the results were. And PRISMA organizes that information so providers can focus on the most clinically relevant parts of the patient’s record. They can search for treatments, diagnoses, medications, or other clinical details.

Clearing the patient backlog

Almost as importantly, PRISMA can save a practice time at each stage of the patient encounter, from intake through documentation and planning follow-up treatment. That means front-office staff can be more efficient, providers are at lower risk of burnout, and the practice can see patients more efficiently.

PRISMA cannot replace physicians’ judgment and isn’t meant to. But it can improve efficiency. Nearly 5,000 practices have activated PRISMA in 2022 alone, joining a nationwide network of PRISMA users who are now exchanging more than 100 million patient records each month.

To learn more about PRISMA, including viewing customer success stories, setting up a demo, or speaking with an expert, click here!