Healthcare is increasingly turning to technology, driven by mandates and necessity, but paper still persists.
Inefficient billing practices, such as paper billing, are responsible for wasting 30 percent of the $5 trillion in healthcare payments. Waste on that scale cannot be lessened overnight, but providers are taking the initial steps toward change.
NYU Langone Medical Center, an academic medical center in New York, has committed to going paperless, according to a Healthcare Informatics report. The medical center already has an EHR (Epic), a personal health record application, self-service kiosks and biometric palm scanning technology, according to the report. Now, NYU Langone is piloting a paperless registration program. Here are three thoughts from the medical center's CIO Nader Mherabi on leaving paper behind.
1. Patient convenience. "It's all about how quickly, through mobility, we can get you through to see a doctor. We want to make this thoroughly mobile, paperless and convenient. This is a piece of it. The pieces are in motion."
2. Gaining buy-in. "We got feedback, we had people test it. It was about getting people's buy-in."
3. Moving healthcare forward. "In order to modernize healthcare for patients and consumers, these are the building blocks that we have to create. Getting concise information from patients regardless of where they are going is just good healthcare. It's not good enough to just be in the EMR. It has to be all around."