Though the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act doesn't take full effect until 2014, right now is the perfect time for providers to start developing Accountable Care Organization plans, according to a white paper from Computer Sciences Corp. "The availability of the [Medicare] incentives and the start-up programs make it an ideal time for healthcare providers to get in on the ground floor of ACO development--the time for innovation will never be better, and the financial risks will never be lower," the CSC report says.

The international consulting firm has identified six "critical success factors" and accompanying health IT solutions to help assure that providers meet ACO operational goals:

1. ACO member engagement, enabling patient-members to take a greater role in their own care and manage administrative and financial transactions. Patient portals can provide access to test results, prescription refill requests and other "clinical support" tools.

2. Medical management across the continuum of care, supported by electronic health records.

3. Clinical information exchange to assure collaboration and care coordination. CSC believes many ACOs will turn to health information exchange, while other "well-integrated delivery networks that will form ACOs would be on an EHR approach path."

4. Quality reporting is a prerequisite for participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program and other ACO incentive plans. While CMS hasn't set performance measures or quality metrics yet, CSC says to look toward real-time reporting technology via "dashboard" or "desktop" views.

5. Business intelligence, predictive modeling and analytics as components of a new set of information-management tools. "Successful business intelligence implementations must include tools to transform and integrate data and information from multiple sources and systems, apply a variety of analytics and predictive models, and produce outputs that can be used in many different clinical, financial and operational settings," according to CSC.

6. Risk and revenue-cycle management, representing a "fundamental reorientation of traditional revenue-cycle activities." Look for information systems that allow providers to manage beneficiaries rather than patients.

For more details:
- download the CSC white paper (.pdf)
- here's the landing page for the CSC report

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