Verisk Health upgrades Explorer product line to improve organization’s exposure to healthcare risk

Mar 12 2010

Verisk Health, Inc., a global leader in healthcare data analytics and risk management, today announced several upgrades to its Explorer product line, including functionality that allows users to evaluate the impact of a member’s lifestyle behaviors on an organization’s overall healthcare and utilization costs. Explorer is one of several tools from Verisk Health that focuses on identifying, understanding, and taking action to improve an organization’s exposure to healthcare risk. Specifically, Explorer is a suite of risk adjustment and predictive modeling solutions that enable organizations to analyze, predict, manage, and minimize healthcare risks and costs associated with Commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid populations.

“It’s widely known that if you smoke, suffer from depression, or are overweight, there is an impact on your health. The latest release of Explorer shows how such lifestyle behaviors actually impact cost”

“It’s widely known that if you smoke, suffer from depression, or are overweight, there is an impact on your health. The latest release of Explorer shows how such lifestyle behaviors actually impact cost,” said Nathan Gunn, MD, chief medical officer of Verisk Health. “From there, we can identify at a population level, the individuals who will most benefit from clinical intervention programs and make wellness and disease management programs more effective.”

Verisk Health’s Explorer is a web-native, application service provider (ASP) solution that enables healthcare organizations to leverage data to better manage their risk. Two new features available in this latest release include:

• HRA Impact Report. The HRA Impact Report provides the impact of lifestyle behaviors on cost and utilization. For example, a customer can see the effect smoking has on their overall claim costs and utilization of services such as ER visits. This information is a critical data point for helping customers fine tune and measure the impact of behavior modification programs.
• Medical Intelligence Report. The updated Medical Intelligence report features several new clinical sections, including a clinical disease fingerprint that reveals the relationship between the risk index and the care gap index. It then compares this to the norm and identifies where to focus to improve quality. It also displays areas of clinical quality performance and economic opportunity by identifying individuals who would benefit from case management, disease management, or wellness programs. The new report is an actionable roadmap that can help customers design and implement the most effective programs for their care community.