The pressures of the COVID-19 crisis have accelerated digital transformation and IT innovation throughout healthcare. Automating document workflows and digitizing documents are now key business drivers at leading healthcare organizations.
During a July webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by OneSpan, two leaders from OneSpan — Software Solutions Expert Ryan Kelly and Senior Director Will LaSala — discussed how digital automation and e-signatures are improving the patient and employee experience.
Four insights from the webinar:
- Leading organizations recognize the value of OneSpan Sign for Healthcare. St. Louis Park, Minn.-based LifeSprk, a premium home care services provider for seniors in the United States, was experiencing 30 percent annual growth, according to Mr. Kelly. Rapid expansion meant the organization had to onboard new employees quickly using simplified documentation workflows for mobile. To address these challenges, LifeSprk implemented OneSpan Sign for Healthcare. "Monthly hiring rates have doubled from 12 new people per month to 24 and the onboarding time for employees dropped from two weeks to just under three days. At the same time, LifeSprk went from three full-time hiring staff to just one," Mr. Kelly said.
- Healthcare organizations are turning to e-signatures to enhance the patient experience and operational efficiency. The pandemic has motivated many healthcare providers to adopt touchless and remote technologies, like e-signatures and solutions that support patient onboarding at any time, from any device. Other factors driving the need for e-signatures include improving efficiencies, strengthening compliance and lowering costs. "Healthcare organizations now have the ability to go from days to hours to just minutes to get a patient's or provider's signature. When you're working with Medicaid or Medicare, timely signature of forms leads to faster reimbursement," Mr. Kelly said.
- Agreements are everywhere in healthcare. In addition to patient forms, e-signatures are useful for external and internal workflows. Examples of external workflows include vendor onboarding documents, provider agreements, health insurance claims and nondisclosure agreements. Internal document workflows range from approvals to next-level signoffs, human resources onboarding and physician credentialing. All of these documents can be digitized and e-signatures can be integrated into them. One benefit is that data can be sent automatically to the system of record, whether that's a data repository or an EHR system. In addition, as Mr. LaSala noted, "The move to digital workflows sets the stage for the next phase of e-health, which is the move to mobile."
- When evaluating e-signature solutions, keep best practices in mind. White labeling drives high adoption and completion rates because customers see the healthcare organization's brand in all web and mobile interfaces. Another important feature of e-signature solutions is a single, unified audit trail. "OneSpan is the only company that captures a single audit trail of the entire agreement process, from identity verification and authentication to e-signature," Mr. Kelly said. Security is also essential. OneSpan Sign for Healthcare delivers secure, tamper-sealed, e-signed PDFs that can be pushed downstream to the EHR or other system of record. In addition, OneSpan's cloud-based architecture offers infrastructure security, application security and strong encryption.
Thanks to OneSpan Sign for Healthcare, hospitals, health systems and other providers can streamline signing workflows, while automating and enforcing business rules. "Our solution is very flexible. You pick and choose what you need and design your workflows to meet your specific requirements," Mr. Kelly said.
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