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Coordinated Diagnostics

As the nation’s healthcare system continues on an unsustainable growth track where outcomes underperform relative to spending, the healthcare system has turned to the practice of the Coordinated Care model as a preferred method of addressing issues related to quality, cost and access.

While hospital and physician services, as well as prescription drugs have been managed for years, diagnostics remains the last large segment of the nation’s healthcare system to go unmanaged from both a clinical and cost perspective. The way forward for the nation’s healthcare system demands a new model for diagnostics. This paper establishes that new model as Coordinated Diagnostics: the practice of diagnostics across the healthcare continuum. It is the delivery of knowledge and expertise in real-time to support collaboration and coordination among care providers, diagnostic testing facilities, payers, patients, and other stakeholders.

Coordinated Diagnostics is a necessary requirement for the successful practice of Coordinated Care throughout the healthcare system. Coordinated Diagnostics rests on three core principles: Continuity of Information, Continuity of Experience, and The Right Test at the Right Time. Coordinated Diagnostics advances informed decision-making, which improves outcomes, reduces costs, ensures more efficient use of resources, and enhances the patient experience. For healthcare organizations endeavoring to make Coordinated Care or community health central to their model of care, the adoption of Coordinated Diagnostics should be a requirement in order to be truly successful. For diagnostic testing organizations, moving forward with Coordinated Diagnostics is the key to unlocking substantial new value in their diagnostics operations by evolving existing systems, workflow and processes. Moreover, these organizations will elevate their importance with collaboration and coordination among providers, provide new levels of access and interaction for patients/ consumers, and provide the highest levels of efficiency and transparency for payers, health systems, ACOs, and others throughout the healthcare system to support the continuum of care.