In a bid to improve value-based care, UPMC Enterprises has incubated and launched a digital health care quality company, Astrata. According to the Pittsburgh-based company, Astrata uses cloud-based natural language processing (NLP) technologies to help insurers more efficiently analyze unstructured clinical data. Its real-time insights help assess quality of care and population health against Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) measures.
- Astrata president Dr. Rebecca Jacobson said their technology “serves as a catalyst for the transition our industry is experiencing”. The company strives to help payers and providers use all the data at their disposal to improve the health of the population as a whole.
- According to Jacobson, the platform is capable of scanning hundreds of millions of clinical notes. Through NLP, it can conclude if a patient received care that is compliant with quality measures. “The platform is really evaluating all the text across one member or one patient and then it says, yes this person is in the denominator, that is, the measure applies to them,” she added.
- In a departure from the current practice, healthcare organizations using the Astrata platform can conduct monitoring and work to improve the quality throughout the year. This is in contrast to the current system where quality rates for many HEDIS measures can only be determined manually just once a year.
- President and CEO of UPMC Health Plan Diane Holder said, “Over the last two years, UPMC Health Plan abstractors found they can work up to 38 times faster with the implementation of Astrata’s NLP-assisted tools… This partnership facilitates a more rapid and accurate flow of thorough, meaningful data between our quality team and our providers.”