When introducing someone to the ACG System, we often describe it as the world’s leading population health analytics software. The ACG System is relied on by health systems, health plans, accountable care organizations, health care analytics companies and others across the globe for powerful insights that improve patient care and reduce cost. Let’s learn more about how the ACG System adapts seamlessly to work in different countries.

Local Language and Context

The first distinguishing feature allowing usage of the ACG System around the world is its ability to incorporate local language. All menus and labels within the program can be easily translated to other languages. In addition to local language, the System also adapts to differences in care delivery systems to meet the needs of various organizations and geographic regions around the world. We currently support customers in more than 20 countries on nearly every continent.

Diagnostic Codes

A second feature distinguishing the ACG System is its adaptability to local coding input. It is the only casemix system in the world that accepts and integrates International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) diagnostic codes. (No mapping from ICPC to ICD needed!) The ACG System also works with ICD and SNOMED-CT codes. Ease of use and acceptance of local data inputs make it a first choice for users around the globe.

Success Around the World

How is the ACG System used worldwide? Patient Identification — identifying individuals or groups of people who are suitable for specific interventions or programs of care — is the most popular use case. Users in Spain, Finland, South Africa, Israel and Australia, for example, identify patients:

• For disease management and wellness programs
• With certain combinations of conditions such as a physical & mental health condition
• With the highest risk of hospitalization
• Taking multiple medications (polypharmacy)
• At risk of poor coordination of care

A second global use case is Population Segmentation. Profiling a population allows ACG System users to understand disease and morbidity distributions within that population as well as key drivers of cost, influencing how services are provided and which care management programs are needed. Users in the UK, South Africa, Singapore and Italy use the ACG System to:

• Understand disease and morbidity distributions within a population
• Identify key drivers of cost
• Segment a population into mutually exclusive groups to aid population health management
• Stratify a population based on overall morbidity burden, individual diseases and/or future risk
• Quantify differences in casemix between different populations

Some international ACG System users — such as those in the UK, South Africa, Canada and Chile — use the ACG System for Provider Engagement. When evaluating provider performance, they adjust for differences in casemix between different providers. This approach enables a more meaningful comparison of providers than traditional benchmarking approaches and identifies new opportunities for improvement. A detailed case study describing work done in Leicester, UK, can be found here.

A final way countries are using the ACG System is for Resource Allocation — identifying opportunities for equitable distribution of resources. Four countries now use the ACG System to allocate resources based on age-sex adjustment:

• In Sweden, primary health care resources are allocated based on a combination of a care needs index (based on socio-economic factors) and morbidity burden. (Read the case study.)
• Iceland has adopted a similar approach.
• In the UK, the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR) ICS has created a new funding model for primary care that more closely aligns with population need. It has helped address many of the issues related to inequity in health outcomes that existed using the old funding formula. (Read the case study.)
• Portugal will be using the ACG System across the entire country to allocate resources in a more equitable way. (Learn more in this webinar recording.)

The benefits of allocating resources this way include rewarding providers that care for sicker patient populations, deterring providers from selectively attracting healthier patients, and supporting organizations that want to specialize in treating people with higher-than-average illness burden.

The ACG System stands as the global benchmark for analytics in population health. Its flexibility and customization options make it suitable for implementation in any country. To learn more about how the ACG System can support your organization, visit hopkinsacg.org or contact us at acginfo@jh.edu. If you are an ACG customer, reach out to your Account Manager.