Using the new program, the facility found that guideline compliance increased from below 50 percent to more than 90 percent. The average cost expenditure per patient, utilization of high cost imaging and variability in biologics in chemotherapeutics went down significantly “just by putting in a simple algorithm that wasn’t painful,” Zane said. “No hard stops, no alerts, and doctors can use the guideline, it’s not forced upon them.”

The facility has also worked with a Denver company to develop clinical decision support around pharmaceuticals. The rate of compliance with first line antibiotics went from 30 percent to 80 percent, and the pharmacy “balk rate” — when patients find out how much a medication costs and decide not to have it filled — went from 20 percent to 2 percent, Zane said.


University of Colorado Health also has two new hospitals, both with virtual ICUs. Patients are also given devices to wear for three days before their doctor’s appointments. During the appointment, the doctor talks to the patient about what the wearable showed, in addition to discussing their chief complaint and conducting a physical exam.

“It’s not just one blood pressure, but what happens when you run up the stairs. What happens to you while you sleep, what happens to you while you eat, what happens to you while you exercise,” Zane said. “We take all of your parameters and look at them all together over the course of a day, it’s far more telling than a static exam.”

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