New Explorer Filtering Tools Offer Impactful Views of Patient Encounters

By Erin Tyrol 

With the release of new Explorer filtering tools – Preventive Services and Global Filters – Connie unveils two dynamic mechanisms that can accelerate care coordination for the people of Connecticut.  

Both filters alert providers to subsets of their patient population supporting work in quality and patient care. By providing additional insights into the full picture of patient health, these new tools have the power to transform interactions between care teams and the people who entrust them with their physical and mental well-being. 

Understanding the Impact of the Preventive Services Filter 

The news that former president Joe Biden was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer serves as an important reminder of how crucial preventive screenings are to protect one’s health.  

The Preventive Services filter alerts providers to patients with completed preventive screenings, wherever they have received care. Using parameters in support of quality measures, the Preventive Services filter is designed to reduce the time it takes care teams to determine which of their patients have had preventative screenings, and where those screenings took place.  

Features include:  

• Use of CPT, SNOMED, LOINC, and HCPCS codes sourced from participating provider ADTs, CCDs, and ORU HL7 messages to identify completed screenings 

• List of patients who have completed preventive screenings  

• Specific details, such as where and when the screening was completed, and name of the screening 

Currently, Preventive Services is available for colorectal screening. Statistics from the American Cancer Society cite colorectal cancers as the second most common cause of cancer deaths when numbers for men and women are combined, making early detection critical to flipping the paradigm on mortality rates. Additionally, Connie is working to include additional screenings, like those for breast cancer and cervical cancer, to allow a more comprehensive view of the patient’s screening health.  

 

How Utilizing the Global Filter Can Enhance Your Connie Experience 

Connie’s Global Filter uses a pre-defined set of diagnosis codes to identify patients experiencing certain encounters. Currently, a Global Filter is available for mental health follow-up, which will identify emergency department (ED) or inpatient encounters resulting from a patient’s mental health diagnosis. The Global Filter is based on ICD-10 diagnosis codes associated with the HEDIS Follow-Up After Emergency Department Visit for Mental Illness (FUM) and Follow-Up After Hospitalization for Mental Illness (FUH) measures.   

Considering more than 531,000 adults in Connecticut have a mental health condition, this marks an important step forward in efforts to provide more holistic care that takes into account a patient’s entire medical and mental health. 

Features include:  

• Utilization of a specific subset of ICD10 dx codes that ease the burden for organizations from manually entering in each code 

• Additional filters that can be used in conjunction with Global Filters to pinpoint a more specific patient population 

 

Learn More about the New Explorer Filtering Tools 

Want to see Population Explorer in action?  This newly released video offers a tutorial that walks through navigating Population Explorer to make the most of this amazing tool.  

If you have questions or would like to learn more, reach out to our team: info@conniect.org. 

About Erin Tyrol:   Erin is a clinical application trainer for Connie responsible for helping new organizations learn the functionalities of the Connie portal, analyzing utilization of Connie tools, and increasing portal engagement through outreach.