The COVID-19 pandemic has made it even more crucial that hospitals and health systems have an efficient revenue cycle, and artificial intelligence technology can increase productivity in this area.
That's what presenters concluded during a Feb. 24 webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by 3M Health Information Systems.
Presenters with 3M Health Information Systems were:
- Jared Sorenson, Global Business Partners, Director
- Troy Kennedy, Chief Technologist
- Shawn Lamphear, Client Success Director
Four takeaways from the discussion:
1. The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed trust in science or renewed dependence on science. Annual research by 3M shows that appreciation for science and trust in scientists climbed significantly in 2020, with skepticism declining for the first time since 2018. The findings are based on a survey before the pandemic of a representative sample of 1,000 adults in 14 countries and a second survey last summer of a representative sample of 1,000 adults in 11 countries. Overall, the surveys included the U.S. skepticism in science climbed from 29 percent in 2018, to 35 percent in 2020 before the pandemic, then declined to 28 percent later in 2020.
2. The pandemic also brought trends affecting revenue cycle and clinical documentation teams. Trends cited by 3M include frequent changes in the revenue cycle related to new codes and regulatory information specific to the public health crisis; the acceleration of telehealth; and the decline in elective procedures. There has also been a continued move to outpatient care settings.
3. Different types of AI can help hospital revenue cycle teams address challenges amid new trends. Three types of AI technology improving revenue cycle productivity and impact are clinical language understanding, clinical artificial intelligence, and expert workflow. These technologies analyze many data point points across the patient journey for continuous learning and intelligence to improve patient care. This higher quality input drives better outcomes for revenue cycle teams.
4. Atrium Health provides an example of AI success in the revenue cycle. The health system, a 44-hospital organization based in Charlotte, N.C., has taken a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to computer-assisted physician documentation. Atrium Health formed a documentation excellence committee that recommends documentation standards, educates clinicians, and monitors success in achieving timeliness and accuracy in documentation. Part of the team's efforts included combining the clinical documentation improvement and coding query process via an AI tool that allows CDI specialists and coders to make queries, using the same platform. The tool was rolled out facility by facility over time, and the process continued to be automated. Overall, Atrium concluded the technology improved accuracy of documentation at the health system and allowed clinical documentation improvement nurses to focus on the most complex patients.
To listen to the webinar recording, click here. To learn more about 3M, click here.