At a recent virtual coffee event, attendees gathered for a tutorial on how to improve their morning brew and a lively discussion about the power of a cleaner, more actionable problem list. With IMO Health experts Sri Talluri, Product Sales Director, and Lisa Franklin, Client Success Director, leading the conversation, participants explored how stronger documentation practices can enhance clinical insights, support value-based care performance, and reduce administrative burden.
Keep scrolling for five key takeaways from the event:
1. Cluttered problem lists are a widespread, persistent challenge
IMO Health has assessed more than 100 million problem list items, and the primary challenge is clear: documentation clutter remains a major obstacle for health systems. As Talluri said, many clinicians face “problem lists that are 40, 50, 60 conditions long… [with] lower back pain said four different ways.”
Duplicate conditions, outdated diagnoses, and inconsistent entries obscure meaningful data and create an additional cognitive load for already overburdened clinicians. In short, clutter threatens both usability and clinical relevance.
2. Scalable clean-up tools replace time-consuming manual review
Manual cleanup of lapsed, duplicate, or outdated EHR entries is burdensome and unrealistic at scale. IMO Health’s clinical informaticists developed logic to automate much of this process, identifying lapsed problems, duplicates, and related diagnoses that should be merged or retired.
Regarding duplicates, Talluri highlighted a common frustration: “You don’t need four instances of low back pain on the problem list.”
Automated cleanup makes it far easier for clinicians to focus on what matters rather than sorting through redundant documentation.
3. Organizing the problem list dramatically improves usability
A better problem list begins with structure. IMO Health’s problem list tooling enables clinicians to quickly navigate relevant conditions by offering system and specialty views, ensuring that every condition has a home. Early results show that once implemented, 98% of providers maintain the views provided by IMO Health.
4. Missing chronic conditions weakens both care quality and VBC performance
Even with rich structured and unstructured data in the electronic health record (EHR), many chronic conditions and hierarchical condition categories (HCCs) never make it into the problem list. Talluri described the EHR as a “treasure trove of clinical data,” yet emphasized that much of it doesn’t translate into the structured list clinicians rely on.
This gap creates two core issues:
- Clinically, it obscures the patient’s full story, making it harder to choose the right care for better outcomes
- Financially, it risks under-documenting acuity – especially in risk-based models where diagnoses reset yearly
“It really is the responsibility of the health system to capture this year in and year out,” Talluri said.
5. Change management is essential for successful adoption
Even the best tooling falls short without thoughtful rollout and clinician support. Franklin emphasized that clinicians are “stretched thin,” and without the right strategy, new workflows can feel disruptive.
The most successful health systems:
- Embed at-the-elbow support, such as HCC nurses or trainers, during early use
- Educate on the why – linking cleaner lists to reduce rework, increase accuracy, and improve revenue integrity
- Use pilot groups and provider champions to build momentum
- Create feedback loops so teams can surface challenges early and refine quickly
Above all, Franklin stressed the importance of partnership: “We are here to partner with you,” she said, emphasizing how sustainable improvement depends on shared ownership across clinical, operational, and informatics teams.
Final thoughts
These five takeaways support the idea that when health systems invest in cleaner, more organized problem lists and back that up with thoughtful change management, clinicians gain what matters most: a clearer view of the patient. That clarity drives better decisions, reduces rework, and ultimately improves outcomes – while strengthening performance in value-based care.
