Speaker Q&A: Raymond Gregg: Mind the gap in patient data 

DALLAS - When it comes to patient reporting, physicians are looking for information that goes beyond “box data” to give them a complete picture of overall health, as well as potential gaps in care, says Raymond Gregg, vice president of sales & business development at Encore Healthcare. 

Here’s what Gregg, who will host a session at Medtrade on patient reporting and outcome goals, has to say about “minding the gap” and how to intervene. 

HME News: What do physicians look for in patient reporting? Are there specific data points? 

Raymond Gregg: Yes, two of the more significant ones include understanding how our patient feels overall—general wellness—and whether or not they have been in the hospital since the last visit. Other areas of interest include insights into current respiratory medication management and adherence, and disease-specific symptom burden status and accompanying ADL impact. 

HME: How does patient reporting and outcome goals interplay? 

Gregg: Patient reporting allows an opportunity for regular patient touchpoints to track changes in disease status closer to real-time and can allow for an opportunity for earlier intervention. 

HME: What’s a real-life example of using patient reporting to align outcome goals?  

Gregg: In a presentation to a large pulmonary group regarding several hundred patients being managed in our Nexus platform, we presented medication data that revealed a significant gap in care. We revealed that 27% of their COPD patients were on the wrong respiratory medication. This led to a sit down with their executive team to dig into the data and determine that, while they prescribed these meds on most patients, the patients didn’t actually have the meds in the home. This, ultimately, led to a deeper conversation around why the HME partner should be managing all their patients going forward.