Better Results and Lower Costs With Improved Medical Precision
America's health care system is undoubtedly one of the best in the world, but it is also probably one of the most wasteful. Physicians and patients alike regularly take a spare-no-expenses approach to the subject, and this probably accounts for some of the successes within the system. At the same time, this outlook is also undoubtedly a major driver of the skyrocketing health care costs that have become such problem in recent years.
In order to help slow health care cost inflation, then, one thing that needs to be looked at is the poorly targeted use of medical services. Unnecessary tests alone likely account for billions of dollars of wastage in the health care system every year, with unneeded medicines and procedures almost certainly exacting a similar toll.
It is not enough merely to set this goal out in the hopes that disparate health care organizations across the country will pursue it, however. Instead, it is important that strategic, well-planned means of getting there be made common knowledge and accessible to all.
Those who look into the question as to what is precision medicine find the basis of just such a strategy. What is precision medicine is fairly easy to answer, as it amounts to little more than recalibration of medical usage and application with an eye toward more accuracy. Instead of ordering a whole barrage of tests, only a few of which might actually be helpful, a physician who practices precision medicine will focus first on those that are most likely to yield the desired results.
Clinical data management, then, is that it empowers physicians and others to keep costs down while still doing highly effective work. In fact, some studies show that doctors who sign on with this approach not only cost their organizations less in the way of money, they also do better by their patients.
While this result might seem counter-intuitive, there is a good reason for it. Doctors who put a premium on the precision of their medical practice, it turns out, are more likely to strike the target with their diagnoses and therapies early on. Physicians who practice in this way not only save money for those responsible for health care payments, they also deliver better outcomes and results themselves. With such uniformly positive results being the norm when greater precision becomes the goal, there is little reason to neglect this new strategy for cutting costs and delivering better care.
