WED AM News: Epic rolling out personalized care data tool this summer; WMC touting report showing high hospital prices in the state, though WHA disputes findings

May 15, 2024

— Epic is rolling out a new personalized care data tool, which aims to give doctors crucial patient insights.

That’s according to Phil Lindemann, vice president of data and analytics informatics for the Verona-based electronic health records company. He spoke yesterday during In Business magazine’s Health Care Summit in Madison.

He said patients with hypertension, for example, currently face an overwhelming number of choices for medications but aren’t able to ask their doctor what will work best for them. That’s because providing an informed answer to that question requires too much data for any one clinician to analyze, he said.

That’s where Epic’s Cosmos database comes in, drawing from numerous health systems that use the company’s software platform, he said. Most of the studies done by Epic’s research division already use the database, which the company describes as “a universe of electronic health record data.”

Lindemann said care providers in Indiana will be among the first to try out this decision support function this summer. Epic’s website shows the Cosmos “community” includes more than 1,400 hospitals and 33,000 clinics representing hundreds of millions of patients.

He explained doctors will be able to check their patients’ medical history and compare them with other patients over time to determine the treatment path most likely to succeed.

“Let’s look at patients just like you, and what happened to them over the last three years, five years, what resulted in the lowest incidence of you having a stroke, or a heart attack, and maybe we’ll pick that medication instead,” he said. “So that’s the type of stuff that’s now possible, where essentially every physician can learn from the decisions of every physician before them.”

Epic is also exploring technologies for improving the “load balance” of work done at health care facilities, such as managing direct messaging between patients and doctors, Lindemann said.

“What we did is, after you message your doctor, we’ll actually generate an AI response back to you … so that’s cool, that’s an AI thing,” he said. “But what the researchers found is that it didn’t save doctors any time. Which is like, okay is this a good thing or a bad thing? But they felt the doctors were happier, because they weren’t starting from scratch.”

Watch the video.

— Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is highlighting a new report showing hospital costs in the state are the fifth highest in the nation, while the Wisconsin Hospital Association disputes its findings.

The report from the California-based nonprofit think tank RAND is part of an “employer-led transparency initiative” focused on prices paid to hospitals by private health plans.

WMC Associate Vice President of Government Relations Rachel Ver Velde says rising health care costs are “making it more and more difficult for employers to provide quality and affordable benefits” to their workers.

“Unfortunately, a lack of competition and transparency is hurting patients and making health care increasingly unaffordable,” she said in a statement on the report.

But WHA President and CEO Eric Borgerding says the report needs “clarification and critique due to its use of inherently flawed methodology and skewed data,” noting it relies on a small, “cherry-picked” sample size that doesn’t represent Wisconsin’s full landscape of hospital finances.

“Their decision to use such finite, misrepresentative data begs questions about RAND’s motives, especially considering that employers and insurers are supposed to comply with federal law by providing complete pricing information online, which RAND would easily be able to use for its study,” he said in a statement. “Instead, RAND has chosen to use narrow datasets that fit with their desired narrative.”

Wisconsin hospitals charge 318% of Medicare rates, according to the report, while the national average is 254%. The comparable figures for other Midwest states include: Indiana. 297%; Illinois, 247%; Minnesota, 238%; Michigan, 192%; and Iowa, 185%.

Ver Velde notes Wisconsin is one of just seven states where that figure is 300% or greater. She says the report “should serve as a catalyst for policymakers to enact meaningful hospital price transparency legislation,” arguing this would lead to lower costs and more informed decisions by patients.

Still, Borgerding notes the RAND study accounts for less than 275,000 outpatient visits in 2022, representing just 1.3% of the more than 21 million outpatient visits. He also argues the study “ignores the reality” that Medicare reimbursements fall short of covering providers’ costs.

But WMC claims the report showed “no statistically significant relationship found between overall cost and the composition of patients.”

Meanwhile, Borgerding says RAND ignores the role of “middlemen” in rising health care costs.

“These types of inherently skewed studies are misguided and damaging, and deflect attention away from the billions of dollars sucked out of the health care system every year by a growing industry of middlemen that stand between patients and providers, harming access and increasing cost,” he said.

See WMC’s release and see Borgerding’s full statement on the report.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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— April home sales in the greater Milwaukee area increased 17.9% over the year as more listings were met with “a considerable amount of pent up buyer demand.”

That’s according to the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors’ latest report, which shows the four-county area had 1,462 sales in April, compared to 1,240 in April 2023. The majority of those sales were in Milwaukee County, with the rest spread between Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties.

The report also points to a “strong uptick” in listings for the month, as the total rose 17.3% over the year from 1,669 to 1,958. GMAR notes that change continues a nine-month streak of increases, the longest since 2005.

Meanwhile, prices were 3.5% higher over the year in April, the report shows.

“Often if listings increase prices will moderate because buyers have more options, however, we are still living in an extremely low listing environment,” report authors wrote, noting that is driving the higher prices.

GMAR says the metro market would need 4,625 more listings to be considered balanced. While new construction permits for the region rose 75% over the year in March, the total of 460 for the month is “well below” what’s needed to meet demand, according to the group.

“The increase in listings released some of the demand pressure in the market — like pushing the valve stem on an overinflated tire,” report authors wrote. “But the market is still in desperate need of more listings.”

See the full report.

— The Port of Green Bay is reporting a “solid start” to this year’s shipping season, as 204,659 tons of cargo moved through the northeastern Wisconsin port in March and April.

That total for the same period of last year was 186,066 tons, according to yesterday’s release from port officials, compared to 101,252 tons in 2022 and 132,423 tons in 2021.

Major commodities moving through the port include petroleum products, cement, salt, limestone and coal, the release shows. Twenty-one ships entered the port in March and April, up from 17 ships during the same two months in 2023.

“We’re pleased to see such a robust start to the new season with an almost 10% increase over year-todate totals from last season,” Port of Green Bay Director Dean Haen said in a statement. “We’re looking forward to watching the year unfold, especially as so many investments in Great Lakes shipping have been announced recently and the Port pursues its own development project.”

See the release and more detailed shipment data.

Listen to a recent podcast with Haen.

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