By Angie Franks

Patient leakage out of your health system happens when you lack the people, process, and technology to control critical referral and care coordination decisions. Losing a patient to a competing provider can negatively impact revenue and result in delays in access and care that can impair patient outcomes. Each of these consequences can do irreparable damage to a health system’s reputation and threaten financial viability, particularly in an era of value-based care.

To gain insight into the extent of the patient leakage issue, ABOUT Healthcare commissioned an independent market research firm to survey 138 health system executives on the subject. The results, published in our Patient Leakage & Keepage Report 2021: State of the Industry, reveal progress toward reducing leakage has been slow among health systems, largely impeded by visibility and measurement obstacles. Defining the size and impact of a leakage problem and establishing the workflow process, change management, and technology infrastructure can help health systems address leakage by streamlining communication and patient navigation systemwide.
COVID-19 provides patient access ‘a-ha’ moment for health leaders
Patient leakage has been a problem in healthcare for decades. Many health systems have struggled with challenges such as overcrowded emergency rooms, narrow provider networks, limited specialist capacity, and more. COVID-19, however, has brought these issues into stark focus – magnifying these challenges and accentuating the impact they have on access, care, delivery, and leakage.

The pandemic has placed new strains on hospital intake and capacity that is often resulting in patients being transferred to hospitals out of their state or hundreds of miles away from their home. Increased staff shortages due to illness, quarantine, and burnout have compounded these issues.

According to our research, 76% of health system leaders say COVID-19 has added to patient leakage challenges and 78% have made addressing patient leakage a higher priority as a result. Furthermore, only 28% of those surveyed say their health systems are well prepared to handle the change in patient transfer patterns that could develop due to new COVID-19 variants. Health system leaders cited capacity problems/not enough beds at hospitals (54%) as the top reason why COVID-19 is contributing to patient leakage, followed by service line gaps (25%) and competitors making it easier to gain access to services (22%).

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