Launching and sustaining an accountable care organization (ACO) without robust technology is like building a house without power tools. It can be done, but it will take a lot of time and resources to accomplish. Furthermore, the final product may not be as good--or sophisticated--as it could be. Technology, including electronic health records; data acquisition, aggregation, and normalization; financial and clinical analytics; patient engagement applications; and care management software (collectively called population health management solutions), can help ACOs efficiently identify at-risk patients and proactively transition them into cost-effective care--activities that are essential to any well-performing operation.
