As patient demand continues to grow and hospital expenses outpace inflation, many organizations are struggling to provide adequate access to affordable care.
One promising path forward is utilizing our existing healthcare infrastructure in smarter, more efficient ways.
Capacity optimization — and specifically, the ROI of capacity optimization — was a major theme in an executive roundtable sponsored by LeanTaaS at Becker’s 10th Annual Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Meeting. The roundtable was led by Niel Oscarson, research director at KLAS Research, and Joe Versino, vice president of sales at LeanTaaS.
Four key takeaways were:
- Asset utilization in healthcare lags behind other asset-intensive industries. When it comes tooperating return on assets, logistics companies typically yield between 9% and 12%, and airlines between 5% and 8%. In comparison, most healthcare organizations report razor-thin operating return on assets, ranging from just 1% to 3%.
Predictive analytics and machine learning is helping healthcare organizations unlock the utilization of their most valuable assets, providing a layer of intelligence that works in partnership with the EHR to optimize revenue-generating assets.
- Return on partnership is as important as ROI. Healthcare leaders routinely must decide whether to leverage functionality available from their EHR vendors or implement market-leading technology solutions. Mr. Oscarson, head of research for healthcare RCM and Business Solutions, observed that healthcare organizations almost always select top-rated solution vendors due to the strength of the partnership.
During interviews with KLAS, hospitals and health systems report that LeanTaaS offers expertise and guidance that large EHR companies simply can’t provide. LeanTaaS engages with stakeholders throughout the implementation process and comes back whenever issues arise.
“Good technology plus great relationships equals success in healthcare,” Mr. Oscarson said.” You can’t drop off great technology, leave and have success. You need the great relationship.”
- Software alone won’t transform hospital operations. The key to capacity optimization is combining technology with change management — they are two sides of the same coin. Mr. Versino explained that prescriptive analytics are useless, unless they are seamlessly integrated with native workflows. Change management and transformation-as-a-service are arguably the most important parts of what LeanTaaS offers. “We go on site, set up governance, and perform assessments to ensure that we achieve goals,” he said. “We hold ourselves accountable for results.”
- Capacity optimization delivers a clear return on investment. LeanTaaS solutions have a direct impact on key healthcare metrics like length of stay and operating room capacity. KLAS has found that all LeanTaaS customers are 100% satisfied with their investment and would work with LeanTaaS again.
