Whitepapers & E-Books

Revenue cycle leaders know the staffing crisis in healthcare is not limited to clinical functions; there’s also a revenue cycle staffing crisis.

Based on increasing revenue cycle work and a shortage of skilled workers, it is impossible to hire enough people or ask current employees to work harder.

It’s time to work smarter, not harder. What does working smarter in the revenue cycle mean? It means finding innovative ways to do more with less.

Download for best practices on:

 

• Developing a smarter revenue cycle and administrative strategy
• Cutting down on outdated manual processes
• Streamlining existing processes with intelligent automation

  Learn more about what intelligent automation is, how it works, which revenue cycle tasks are best automated and what the benefits are

This white paper examines findings from both in-vitro and in-vivo studies on new porous PEEK technology.

Key findings examined in the white paper include:

• New porous PEEK technology produced higher osseointegration capability when compared to solid PEEK, solid titanium and porous titanium in cell culture.
• New technology possessed higher fusion and quality of fusion grades at 12- and 26-weeks post-op when compared to solid PEEK.
• New technology Proved to obtain new bone formation throughout porous structure.

Value-based care delivery is dependent on perioperative value.

Approximately 45 to 60 percent of a hospital’s revenue and expenses are related to perioperative services, and bundled payment models demand standardization and reliability to be successful. Yet at many hospitals, high variability in outcomes and costs produces a misalignment of goals among physicians, staff and administrators.

Besides delayed cases, slow operating room throughput, dissatisfied surgeons and significant deviations between same procedures performed by different surgeons inhibit organizations from offering competitive pricing or assuming the financial risk of managing community health.

At Wilmington, N.C.-based New Hanover Regional Medical Center, North American Partners in Anesthesia's team led by Rob Shakar, MD, chief of anesthesia, worked collaboratively with clinical colleagues to improve standardization in the total joint program by piloting a perioperative surgical home program in orthopedics.

The program generated outstanding clinical and operational outcomes and saved the hospital $4.2 million in the first year, prompting the hospital to scale perioperative surgical home across 16 service lines that produced an annual return on investment of up to $12 million.

Download this case study to learn:

• The benefits of monetizing the perioperative surgical home program
• How perioperative surgical home program can increase operating room utilization, first case on-time starts and patient and surgeon satisfaction
• How a perioperative surgical home program has decisive impacts on patients, surgeons, efficiency and profitability

Achieving spinal alignment involves a simple three-step process: scan-design-deliver, for any patient, one patient at a time.

A surgeon-authored report of patient-specific planning and placement of aprevo® interbody devices is available to spine surgeons, PAs, nurses and C-suite members.

Examples include single and multi-level fusions in patients diagnosed with stenosis, spondylolisthesis and adult deformity.

Planned versus achieved spinal alignment is shown for personalized surgical procedures utilizing aprevo® for:

• Transforaminal approach with a long fusion for scoliosis
• Anterior approach to address anterolisthesis with lateral listhesis
• Lateral approach for disc degeneration and foraminal stenosis

Limited grocery options, minimal access to healthcare in rural areas and lack of public transportation are all examples of social determinants of health that your members can and do face. Couple these factors with the rising rate of cardiometabolic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity, and you're looking at the perfect storm for your members.

Based on these challenges, a virtual care solution that only caters to the tech-savvy hoping to shed a few pounds isn't going to cut it. This report shares how a SDOH-attuned, virtual solution can offer your members access to:

• Personalized eating plans that fall within their budget and food accessibility
• Accessible, human-led care — even with limited access to technology
• Cognitive behavioral therapy-based coaching to address underlying causes
• Health literacy skills to sustain future success

Healthcare's workforce is in crisis. Waves of employee departures amid a once-in-a-century public health crisis have left hospitals all over the nation scrambling to fill critical roles across the enterprise. There are no easy solutions.

These 10 must-read articles collectively examine healthcare's workforce crisis and offer insights into the kind of leadership necessary to nurture high-performing teams. Articles examine:

 

• Why healthcare employees are increasingly less engaged
• How six health systems are battling labor shortages
• The 15 states affected most, least by the "Great Resignation"

Facing frequent no-shows, high staff turnover and resource draining, paper-based processes in patient access, Wayne HealthCare was due for a digital upgrade.

Read the case study to learn how using EngageCare self-service technology to transition administrative and financial tasks to patients helped Wayne improve patient safety, reduce no-shows and increase staff efficiency.

Download a copy of the case study to learn how Wayne:

• Reduced denials 80 percent
• Decreased no-shows and cancellations, saving revenue
• Reallocated staff and eliminated need to fill 5 vacant positions

A "wrap network" or "gap network" is an extended network of providers where employee health plan members can acess care if they are in a different location or if they require care from a specialist that is not in the plan's primary network.

But, 28 percent of health system human resources decision-makers say they are "very unfamiliar" with these networks.

It is time to close the gap of awareness and ensure that health system human resources decision-makers fully understand wrap networks, their costs and their benefits.

In this whitepaper, you will learn:

• The most important attributes of a wrap network
• Today's wrap network gaps and the opportunity for better solutions
• Opinions of out-of-network wraps from health system human resources decision makers' and provider-sponsored heath plan executives.

Healthcare has a people problem. For years prior to the arrival of COVID-19, hospitals in various corners of the nation experienced troubling shortages of medical staff, a problem that has been exacerbated by the pressures of a multiyear pandemic.

The crisis is pushing leaders to rethink long-term strategies related to training, education, recruitment and contingency planning. In the near-term, health systems must make immediate adjustments to staffing models and learn how to utilize new technology to better support care teams, especially in the operating room.

This e-book offers an inside look at how Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus and Methodist Healthcare System in San Antonio are leveraging an ecosystem of technology to alleviate staff burden and optimize OR performance.

Social determinants of health are responsible for 60 percent of health outcomes — and that's before factors like hospital quality and physician experience come into play, according to the CDC. Even as hospitals invest more in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, a new survey reveals patients of color still have different healthcare experiences than their white counterparts.

Healthgrades BIPOC Healthcare Attitudes Survey uncovers what's behind this discrepancy to help hospitals better align DEI initiatives with patients' experiences.

Read the findings to learn:

• What patients actually expect from DEI initiatives
• Five ways to make hospital marketing more inclusive
• How hospital marketers can ensure DEI programming connects underserved populations to the right care

Block time is part of an outdated scheduling system that often leaves the operating room sitting unused, while patients wait for surgery and new surgeons are unable to find open time for their cases.

To address these inefficiencies, health systems such as Dignity Health and Novant Health are tapping predictive and prescriptive analytics. Using a new data-driven approach, these organizations are optimizing block and open time to maximize OR access.

Download this case study booklet to learn how more than 265 hospitals from across the country are using this strategy to optimize OR performance and achieve the following results: 

• Ability to repurpose up to 20 percent of blocks for greater utilization
• Increase case volume by 10 percent or more without opening additional rooms
• Generate five to 20 times ROI based on contribution margin

Today, provider groups of all sizes share a common challenge: how to meet increasing consumer demand with rising complexity amid the new reality of administrative staffing shortages. A recent study of more than 200 provider executives explored their perspectives on patient engagement, common strategies in patient communication methods, and staffing priorities related to scheduling and access.

Download this eBook to uncover the current state of patient scheduling and communication tools, the technology and processes providers are implementing today and how they are prioritizing for the future.

Key learning points:

• The top challenges providers face with patient scheduling and communications
• Common strategies used to address provider staffing challenges
• Understand the use of technology adoption related to patient engagement, scheduling, and access

According to the American Journal of Medicine, more than one out of three healthcare workers has a BMI that places them in the obese category–and that was before the pandemic exacerbated the issue. Obesity is linked to more than 200 chronic conditions; leads to employee absenteeism, which is an even bigger problem during post-pandemic staffing shortages; and drives up healthcare costs.

Providing these workers with the appropriate resources to manage their weight can improve employee retention and lower healthcare costs for both patients and payers.

In this white paper, you'll learn:

• How obesity impacts quality measures, patient outcomes, employee satisfaction and healthcare costs
• How the pandemic exacerbated healthcare worker mental and physical health issues
• Why employee wellness benefits should include weight management programs that take a comprehensive medical approach that incorporate pharmacology when behavior and lifestyle changes alone aren't enough

COVID-19 has disrupted healthcare, creating enormous leadership and talent challenges. There are high levels of burnout, labor shortages, leadership transitions, mergers and acquisitions activity and new ways of working. To cultivate an environment of trust and high performance, now is a crucial time for hospital and health systems executives to reflect on how they lead and to consider new ways of teaming.

For this new white paper on leading during tumultuous times, Becker's Hospital Review spoke with industry leadership experts, who shared best practices about:

 

• Shifting the organization's focus from agility to resilience and purpose
• Leading like a conductor, not a hero
• Leaning in on people development and potential, whether working with a new team or reinvigorating an established one

Learn what it takes to build cohesive, high-performing teams, retain key talent and drive transformation during these times of great change.

Baptist Memorial Health Care, a 22-hospital healthcare system spanning across Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas increased their efficiency and effectiveness of care through a total performance management agreement with big results. By working with Vizient, the health system anticipates $44M through savings and additional revenue generation in addition to $25M from the national quality scorecard work in annualized financial value.

  Learning points:

• See how Baptist Memorial Health Care has been able to achieve sustainable performance improvements
• How to optimize your growth strategy
• See how Vizient helped Baptist improve their quality of care with $50M in opportunities.

During normal times, staffing levels are always a focal point for provider organizations, and often the number one concern for nurses. During a pandemic, existing staffing challenges are exacerbated.

This case study examines how Philadelphia-based Temple Health developed a more flexible workforce management strategy by leveraging technology, advanced strategies, and analytics to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve patient and provider experiences — while achieving a 93 percent RN fill rate and reducing contingency spend.

You will learn how to:

 

• Utilize data and analytics to uncover staff supply and demand across a health system
• Implement strategies to decrease premium pay and agency usage while increasing the flexibility of care staff
• Apply flexible staffing solutions can increase fill rates, and improve staff satisfaction and retention

 

Please fill out the form to download the whitepaper.

As healthcare moves away from a provider-centric model, organizations must remember that patients are concerned about much more than just their clinical outcomes: they want to enjoy quality of life. That requires organizations to go beyond offering same-day appointments and telehealth visits.

This report covers the three pillars required to make a true shift to a patient-centric care paradigm.

Learning points:

• How a hospital-SNF partnership in Fresno, Calif. reduces readmission rate
• How care navigation at Ascension improves outcomes for its Medicaid population
• The value of 'street medicine' being offered through a partnership between a California hospital and clinic

As the healthcare industry continues to grapple with labor shortages and pressure to implement cost-cutting tactics, many hospitals are turning to automation to simplify costly operational processes. This is especially true for physician payment processes because paying physicians often consists of a series of tedious tasks that puts a heavy administrative burden on operation team members and physicians alike.

But where can a hospital get support in the physician payment space? What options are out there? How can they evaluate them in an efficient manner?

Download this whitepaper to learn:

• The benefits of physician payment automation for hospitals
• Why hospitals are choosing automation to streamline payment processes
• How to determine if you should build an in-house solution or partner with an external expert
• Steps to finding the right solution and how to prepare for implementation

Hospital C-suite and system leaders are under a tremendous amount of pressure to continue serving a growing number of patients despite severe staffing shortages, resource constraints, and depressed margins. While the pandemic instigated unforeseen strains on the healthcare system, it also amplified, inspired, and demanded creative thinking. How can healthcare leaders who are charged with “doing more with less” meet these increasingly high demands?

Healthcare leaders must examine how other resource-intensive industries like airline, package delivery, and rideshare services have successfully solved the complex operational challenge of matching supply and demand. The answer? Adopting machine learning, AI, and predictive and prescriptive analytics to drive operational decisions.

Sounds too good to be true? It's not. And many healthcare leaders are already reaping the rewards of AI by achieving hard ROI in challenging times. Fortunately, you can “stand on the shoulders” of your industry peers that have adopted AI:

• In operating room operations and generated $40 million in contribution margin for their health system (which translated into a 10x+ ROI)
• In infusion centers and decreased infusion patient wait times by 30%, and delivered an average increase of $20,000/infusion chair per year in cancer centers
• In inpatient bed patient flow management and achieved an 8% decrease in opportunity days, the equivalent to $8 million in ROI – during the pandemic.

Owens & Minor recently surveyed over 220 hospital purchasing leaders to understand their goals, strategies and challenges. The key findings from that survey were recently compiled in the 2022 State of Hospital Purchasing report.

Download this report to discover the key values and the biggest challenges for hospital purchasing leaders. Discover how they are addressing those challenges and where they are making critical investments for the future.

The nation’s ICUs currently face unprecedented stresses, including chronic under-resourcing and increasingly difficult reimbursement.

The time has come for a new approach when it comes to the ICU to enable a new framework that helps achieve the strategic needs of the hospital.

SCP Health Vice President of Critical Care Medicine, Erika Gabbard, DNP, RN, CCNS, CCRN-K, discusses strategies to transform critical care medicine programs including:

• Expanded roles of physicians, virtual health, and teleintensivist
• Optimized advanced practice provider scope and responsibility
• Clinical staffing integration
• Modernized nurse training

Rises rates of respiratory syncytial virus, flu and COVID-19 have hospitals bracing for a challenging winter. The so-called "tripledemic" represents yet another curveball for healthcare organizations, which are already grappling with longstanding labor shortages and rising financial pressures.

Amid the pandemic and future crises that will certainly come, hospitals and health systems are looking to stay ahead of challenges and craft robust contingency plans.

Download this report to learn:

 

• How to build contingency plans to ensure your organization can staff for any kind of healthcare event, no matter the level of urgency.
• Why investing in predictive modeling solutions is now the norm rather than an afterthought.
• How to build and maintain a nurturing environment for staff, even during times of crisis.

Resource and staffing limitations are the new reality for hospitals across the country — and it's affecting the patient experience, according to industry research.

However, there are resources available to help health systems reduce staff workload and improve operational efficiency while enhancing the patient experience. Read this report to learn how your healthcare organization can bolster the patient experience amid unavoidable staffing limitations.

Key points:

• Solutions to improving patient experience and addressing staffing shortages
• Benefits of automated digital patient engagement
• Results from using the digital patient engagement tactic

Amid chronic workforce shortages, healthcare leaders are looking to onboard new talent as quickly as possible. But complex and outdated hiring processes are often a barrier. These processes alone may also deter the arrival of new talent.

Download this brief report, featuring insights from Ryan Garman, Sterling’s Healthcare and Life Sciences Director, and Amiee Hawkins, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Operations at Cross Country Healthcare, to learn how healthcare organizations can quickly modernize the hiring process with technology-enabled background screening services.

Key learning points:

• An overview of the largest inefficiencies in hiring and onboarding workflows
• How tech-enabled workflows specific to healthcare speed hiring and save HR leaders time and frustration
• How a streamlined hiring process helps attract and retain the right candidates

With the gig economy taking a bite out of your workforce, you have to stay ahead of hiring trends. Read the Gartner Peer Insights Report to learn just how much you be concerned with recruitment and retention.
While it might be evident that flexibility is an incentive to retain employees, some industries can’t offer 100% remote options for their frontline employees. Given the competitive hiring environment, how much should healthcare, retail, and manufacturing be concerned with recruitment and retention, and how do they maintain a healthy workforce?

Gartner Peer Insights and Firstup surveyed IT, HR, and internal communications leaders in the healthcare, retail, and manufacturing industry to see how communication and the digital employee experience impact an organization’s ability to recruit and retain its workforce in the current climate.

Read this report to learn:

• Where industry leaders are spending their recruiting budgets this year
• How they rank the value of employee engagement in helping retain a quality workforce
• What they believe really matters to their workers (hint: it’s not just about the money)

Many hospitals and health systems struggle with emergency department throughput to ensure care management resources are operating at the top of their licenses, and preventing unnecessary admissions and 30-day readmissions.

North Carolina-based Cone Health was facing that kind of challenge and turned to Stories, Bamboo Health's care transitions assistant, which delivers relevant patient context within clinical workflows at the point of care.

Here's what Cone Health was able to do after using Stories for a 9-month period:

• Saved 20-30 minutes on average per patient assessment.
• Avoided 106 admissions in a 9-month period, amounting to over $1.2M saved.
• Tracked high-utilizers and acute visit histories both in and out of Cone Health hospitals.
• Reduced readmissions and activated home health providers by re-directing patients unnecessarily in the ED back home.
• Gained insight into recent SNF stays within the last 30 days, allowing them to re-direct patients back to the SNF they recently discharged from.
• Easily connected with patients' care teams through surfaced contact information, facilitating communication with community resources like ACO partners, FQHCs, and PCPs.

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a staffing transformation — especially for nurses. To be successful, health systems cannot revert back to the old ways.

Healthcare is at a pivotal moment where the nurse-to-patient ratio gap is widening. To alleviate the stresses of this gap, facilities can create their own tech-enabled staffing pool rather than client-vendor relationships.

Transform the current approach to staffing through partnerships backed by technology, and learn more about end-to-end user experience creating efficiency.

Supply chain inefficiencies cost hospitals $25.7 billion annually. With the right strategies, however, supply chain teams can not only lower supply chain and healthcare costs but also serve as a direct bridge to improved care quality.

At the Becker's Supply Chain Leadership Virtual Forum, six healthcare supply chain experts discussed their systems' supply chain transformation efforts and shared how supply chains can become a strategic asset when bolstered by the power of data, standardization and process efficiency. This report offers seven takeaways from the discussion.

Key learnings:

• How labor challenges are affecting supply chain teams
• Top priorities for healthcare supply chain leaders in 2022
• The key to successful supply chain transformations
  
  

Patient safety is a primary concern for all health systems and medical devices play a critical role in supporting the safe and effective delivery of patient care.

Key Takeaways:

• Health systems can support medical device availability through optimized preventative maintenance schedules and standardized workflows.
• Dedicated monitoring and remediation of OEM-reported FDA alerts and recalls can minimize the potential impact on device availability and patient safety.
• Patient safety should be a key consideration throughout a health system's capital planning process 

Learn how we worked with this fully-integrated healthcare system to deliver a whole-person approach to care for its employees and spouses with chronic conditions.

Results include:

• A coordinated experience across conditions for people living with both diabetes and hypertension Multiyear impact on clinical diabetes measures, including reduced HbA1c levels and a fewer hypoglycemic readings
• Measurable impact on systolic and diastolic blood pressure rates among those with uncontrolled hypertension
• Reduced spending incurred through medical care, emergency room visits and pharmacy costs associated with managing chronic conditions, resulting in a positive ROI

Before COVID-19, the opioid epidemic was the nation's most consequential public health threat. The pandemic has magnified the impact of the opioid crisis on communities as unemployment, homelessness and behavioral health disorder rates soar.

Learn how eight organizations across the country have used technology and collaboration to achieve the following:

• 61 percent reduction in opioid prescriptions
• 32 percent reduction in opioid deaths
• 50 percent decrease in emergency department visits for patients with high utilization patterns
• $34 million in cost savings

This downloadable whitepaper will cover:

• Four proven strategies for addressing the opioid epidemic on an organizational and community level
• Statewide efforts to reduce opioid prescribing and use, including implementation of seven best practices for prescription opioids
• How collaboration helped achieve measurable results outside opioids — including decreased ED visits and significant cost savings

Did you know that Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System named David L. Callendar, MD, as their new president and CEO and that Kaiser Permanente appointed Prat Vemana as their chief digital officer, a newly created role in August 2019? There were also a handful of unique positions filled this quarter!

The second quarter of 2019 continued to have exciting healthcare executive moves, including more than 50 CEOs and presidents who stepped into new roles, retired, or resigned during the quarter. Altogether, at least 122 hospital and health system C-suite executives were on the move during this time of the year.

Keep track of all the 2019 second quarter C-suite executive moves with this report.

The commonality of cyberattacks and both natural and human-made disasters means healthcare teams have had to take on a new role: disaster recovery experts.

As hospitals and health systems navigate these events, their primary goal of improving patients' health remains unchanged. Organizations must keep downtime to an absolute minimum and ensure continuity of care.

Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with Hector Rodriguez, executive security advisor, WWPS health and life sciences at AWS, about how enterprise resilience and immutable IT infrastructures can reduce risks for patients and organizations.

Download this brief report to learn:

 

• How enterprise resilience protects patient safety and cuts costly organizational downtime
• What enterprise resilience plans should cover & key considerations for where to focus initial efforts
• The value of immutable IT infrastructures & how employee training fits into enterprise resilience

If your hospital pharmacy staff is like most, they probably make numerous phone calls to local pharmacies and providers to reconcile patient medication histories. Then, once they gather the information, they need to enter it manually into the patient record.

MedHx SM, an AI-powered solution, allows pharmacists and other clinicians to spend more time providing care and less time manually gathering, entering and confirming medications.

Read the case study to see how Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health is using MedHx SM to:

• Gather data from 120 local and independent pharmacies
• Achieve a medication reconciliation "hit rate" of more than 93 percent
• Reduce the need for phone calls and manual entry

South Shore Hospital prioritized efforts within its emergency department to reduce costly adverse drug events and potential readmissions that commonly occur in patients admitted through the ED.

This whitepaper explains how the ED improved the processes and tools used to gather a patient’s medication history to address these major sources of organizational pain.

Download the whitepaper to learn about: 

• Avoiding medication errors
• Preventing adverse drug events
• Reducing hospital readmissions
• Staff satisfaction with technology

Stay one step ahead of fraud by leveraging AI and advanced technologies.

Health plans are overwhelmed by fraudulent activity. Unfortunately, the pandemic opened the door for even more cybercriminals to find new schemes to submit improper, fraudulent claims.

Given the sheer volume, it’s impossible to pursue every instance of fraud. Health plans have launched special investigation units, with high-dollar cases as their top priority. While many lower-value cases fall by the wayside, these cases can have a broad impact on patients, quality of care and financial results.

A new white paper from Becker’s Hospital Review looks at the fraud landscape, drawbacks of current approaches to fight fraud and the role of AI in preventing fraud. This white paper details:

• The magnitude of fraud in healthcare
• Drawbacks of the rules-based approach used by many organizations
• Why leading healthcare organizations are turning to AI for data protection and fraud prevention
• Specific solutions that can reduce fraud, waste and abuse

Fraud in healthcare is only getting worse. Learn how your organization can use AI to more effectively manage this costly problem.  

For large health systems, software scalability is critical. As organizations grow, they need data to flow seamlessly across their health IT systems to achieve a unified care record and analytics that span the care continuum. However, many first-generation data sharing initiatives fail to address fundamental technical challenges, including access, scalability and performance.

Learn how top healthcare organizations met these challenges with a new healthcare integration engine and experienced:

• 78 percent faster legacy interface conversion
• Deployment of 2,000 interfaces in less than two years
• Zero hours of unscheduled downtime
• Millions of dollars in savings

Every day we hear about high and persistent levels of clinician burnout. But what are the facts? How high is burnout? What are the drivers? What can be done to address it?

Becker’s Hospital Review recently collaborated with Zoom to survey 255 healthcare workers. Respondents were asked about their current level of burnout (teaser: it remains exceedingly high) as well as their use of telehealth technology and applications of video communication technology other than telehealth.

Download this two-page survey summary to discover:

• Current levels of burnout
• Top factors driving burnout (many are controllable)
• Use of and satisfaction with telehealth
• Applications of video communication other than telehealth
• Ways that communication technologies can improve employee satisfaction

This survey identifies actionable ways that video and other communications
technologies can help improve employee satisfaction, reduce burnout and boost productivity.

Given the breadth and depth of potential use cases, one thing is clear – more and more people will find themselves working in environments where ML plays a critical role. And thanks to the emergence of low-code and no-code software, ML is no longer the exclusive preserve of programmers, data scientists, and people who paid attention in math class. More of us can – and will – be involved in developing and deploying practical ML solutions.

This eGuide will help you understand:

 

• The key concepts behind ML and common applications
• How it’s becoming more useful to people at all levels of organizations

 

It might be cliché to say healthcare in the U.S. is having a transformative moment, but it's cliché for a reason — because it's true.

Healthcare delivery is experiencing a profound transformation. And as hospital and health system leaders work to balance in-person and remote care while navigating crisis-level staffing shortages and integrating new technology solutions, they must not overlook one facet of healthcare that has long been ripe for improvement — the patient experience.

These 10 articles comprise actionable insights for hospital and health system leaders committed to delivering a better patient experience.

Articles headlines include:

• 5 leaders on their system’s most valuable patient experience strategy this year
• NewYork-Presbyterian CXO Rick Evans: Patient experience is rebounding, but our work is not over
• A powerful way to start a medical appointment? With non-medical questions

The concept of connected healthcare is ambitious: bring together comprehensive data about patients, including clinical, environmental and administrative data. Then, use this data to provide clinicians with insights and a better line of sight for treating the whole person. At the same time, leverage this connected healthcare infrastructure to provide a better consumer experience.

Innovative new technology solutions are rapidly turning the vision for connected healthcare into reality.

A new white paper from Becker’s Hospital Review looks at the current state of connected healthcare and details:

• The goals, promise and benefits of connected healthcare
• Opportunities for connected ecosystems to improve patient and provider experiences
• Barriers that must be addressed to achieve truly connected healthcare
• Tips for communicating with and engaging patients in using connected digital tools Learn the benefits to your organization and patients from realizing the vision of connected healthcare and discover what it will take to get there.

Demand for behavioral healthcare has risen dramatically, but there are now more patients seeking these services than organizations have the bandwidth to provide. As staffing and resource shortages persist, organizations are increasingly implementing clinically proven, digitally delivered behavioral therapies that help deliver effective care at scale without the added operational strain.

Download this short report to see the clinical and patient experience improvements St. Luke's Health Network, MemorialCare Medical Group, OSF HealthCare and the University of Virginia Health System saw after adopting a digital behavioral health program.

Hospitals waste thousands of nursing hours a year using fall prevention tools that produce false alarms. These ineffective tools create unnecessary pressure on care teams and contribute to burnout.

New fall prevention technology powered artificial intelligence can help eliminate false alarms and gets nurses back to the bedside. The technology offloads additional tasks for nurses by reducing false alarms by 95 percent. It also provides effective patient safety and nursing support at a fraction of the cost of telesitters.

Key learnings:

How many nursing hours are wasted due to false alarms
How AI technology reduces tasks from nursing workloads, reducing burnout
How AI solutions deliver 1:1 patient fall monitoring

Revenue cycle management (RCM) leaders face increasing demands to improve and accelerate patient financial clearance. While many organizations turn to automation to ease these burdens, automation historically has introduced more challenges than it has resolved. Providers fear the loss of control associated with outsourcing revenue cycle processes and building in-house automation is often costly.

By unifying disparate RCM workflows through intelligent automation, providers can process claims faster with improved accuracy and response time. They can also serve a higher volume of patients without hiring more staff to support them. 

Finally, intelligent automation can drive digital patient engagement, reduce workqueue volumes, and boost revenues.

In this whitepaper you will learn:

 

• Tactics for driving digital patient engagement and boost self-pay collections via intelligent automation
• How to solve revenue growth during an economic downturn by improving the digital front door
• Frameworks for a data-driven improvement cycle that provides structure for revenue growth

Healthcare organizations are digging deeper to improve health equity and access to care in telehealth.

With 89 percent of U.S. adults owning a smartphone, telehealth services can help break down barriers as patients are able to get care from anywhere. Advancements in language services and other technologies allow telehealth services to become even more accessible.

Learn how improvements in virtual care and language services can make a difference in this whitepaper.

Key learnings:

 

• How advances in language services and technology are improving access to care for limited English proficient, deaf or hard of hearing patients
• Why ensuring health equity in telehealth programs is a necessary and vital element of a successful strategy
• Strategies to define telehealth roles and secure talent with the right competencies to fill them

Even as the pandemic wanes, patient demand for behavioral health services continues to soar. Yet healthcare organizations struggle to attract and retain behavioral health providers.

To meet rising demand, health systems are rethinking the delivery of behavior care services. This means increasing use of virtual behavioral healthcare and other digital interventions.

Becker's Hospital Review recently convened a panel of behavioral health leaders from across the country to share best practices on the new normal for behavioral health and the role technology will play.

Organizations represented on the panel were:

 

• Centra Health (Lynchburg, Va.)
• Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles)
• Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.)
• Penn State Health (Hershey, Pa.)
• Prisma Health (Columbia, S.C.)
• Steward Health Care (headquartered in Dallas)

  Download the report to learn:  

• How the pandemic drove these health systems to innovate behavioral healthcare delivery
• Why digital interventions may be the next wave of innovation
• Best practices and case studies from behavioral health leaders from across the country
  
  

Across the industry, health systems make significant investments in EHR systems. These systems are the default technology used for patient communications — without it a hospital can't succeed. But many EHRs, like Epic, are limited in patient communications, making it difficult to successfully engage patients across the care journey.

But there are ways to mitigate these limits. With CipherHealth's unified platform, healthcare organizations can successfully engage patients throughout the care process to provide a reliable, digital and retail-like experience.

Download this whitepaper to learn how to:

• Use integration to improve workflows and patient outcomes while consolidating technology solutions
• How a patient engagement platform helps health systems maximize their EHR investment

Patients are people. And often, people are more comfortable and at ease in their own homes.

Increasing demand for care at home programs, at all levels of acuity, is one of the many reasons more health systems are deploying remote care programs.

Care-at-home programs support improved outcomes across staffing, readmissions and patient satisfaction. Download this whitepaper to learn how health systems are utilizing remote care to deliver better care:

• New evidence demonstrating reduced cost of care and improved clinical outcomes
• Considerations for programs that manage acute, post-discharge, and chronic care patients
• Best practices to deliver remote care in the home

For healthcare organizations, enterprise intelligence means enabling virtual consultations, making better use of scarce expertise and improving patient outcomes. It means connecting on-site first responders to clinicians, enabling new care pathways that help them limit the damage and loss of function associated with conditions like strokes. It also means tapping the vast quantities of data that often go unused to enable better epidemiology and more personalized care.

Old ways of working simply aren’t up to the challenges of today. They are too expensive, too inflexible and too hard to scale. The network is key to changing how healthcare operates. It enables providers to leverage the latest technologies — including artificial intelligence, machine learning and the internet of medical things — to generate unprecedented insight and make decision making smarter and faster.

In this whitepaper, we walk through the evolving challenges and opportunities for achieving enterprise intelligence across an increasingly decentralized care ecosystem.

What you’ll learn:

What barriers to innovation continue to challenge healthcare’s focus
How infrastructure transformation with network capabilities like private 5G, edge compute and network-as-a-Service will support the evolution of inpatient care
How rearchitecting connectivity, security and collaboration will build the innovation healthcare needs

Healthcare is at an inflection point. Health system leaders must look for new ways to deliver efficient and secure care and adapt to the changing world around them. However, change is complicated.

Today, true care transformation can't be achieved without effective digital health solutions. According to Gartner, the digital health platforms approach guides organizations down "a path to faster value realization when responding to strategic imperatives and external uncertainties." The right digital health platform partnership will help healthcare organizations differentiate themselves and advance care delivery.

Learn more about digital health platforms and access insights from Gartner's "Market Guide for Digital Health Platform for Healthcare Providers."

Today’s health system leaders need faster, more frequent insights to optimize the four core experiences of their organizations: patient, staff, brand and product.

Having real-time insights into every experience that matters allows healthcare organizations to understand the patient journey from end-to-end, connect feedback from multiple data channels, make data-driven business decisions that improve their bottom line and drive action at every level to deliver on patient and employee expectations.

Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica is one of 11,000 healthcare organizations globally reaping the benefits of this strategy, known as experience management.

In this guide, readers will learn how to use experience management to:

• Improve patient experience and drive brand loyalty
• Increase revenue and profits while lowering costs
• Lower employee attrition while boosting productivity

Whether a patient is having a routine checkup or needs a surgical procedure, the ambulatory setting is now often where the care journey begins and ends. Accordingly, health systems nationwide are working to maximize efficiency in this care environment.

Becker's Hospital Review recently spoke with three experts on technology in the ambulatory setting about how their organizations leverage technology to create a better patient and provider experience. The organizations represented include Kansas City, Mo.-based University Health, University of Missouri (MU) Health Care in Columbia and Charleston Area Medical Center in South Charleston, W.Va.

Key learnings:

• Why outstanding ambulatory care requires consistency across technology systems
• How to balance clinician preference with technology standardization
• Why artificial intelligence and telehealth are poised to transform the EHR

At virtually every stage of a patient’s wellbeing, different forms of technology and software support the expansion of better healthcare. As the reliance on technology grows, ensuring that these lifesaving systems don’t break under the strain is imperative.

  To keep operations running smoothly, healthcare IT professionals must perform regular and exhaustive testing. Fortunately, the introduction of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) has made testing easier to deliver.

In this eBook from Keysight Technologies, you will discover  

• How automation can improve workflow management to help physicians and patients alike
• How AI-driven test automation helps your EMR become more interoperable and user-friendly
• Six critical tasks that can be optimized with robotic process automation
• The importance of testing both on-site and wearable medical devices

 

Please fill out the form to download the eBook.

When Houston Methodist Coordinated Care (HMCC) — an Accountable Care Organization — joined Track 3 of the Medicare Shared Savings Program in January 2017, it had little insight into patients' post-acute care activity. The ACO relied on quarterly CMS data and phone calls to skilled nursing facilities to locate patients, which meant they typically didn't find out about patient events until 10 to 15 days later.

That shifted in July 2017 when they began using Bamboo Health’s Pings solution to help monitor patient events in real time, improve care coordination efforts and succeed under MSSP.

Download this short report to learn:

• How HMCC reduced length of stay for its managed patients from 25 days to 21 days, resulting in $681,000 in savings
• How HMCC was able to earn $1,258,180 in shared savings under MSSP in just one year
• A real-world example on how Pings effectively coordinated care for a patient who fell while visiting a friend out of state

Prior authorization has become one of the biggest obstacles in the healthcare industry. However, health information technology can help payers, providers and members overcome prior authorization issues.

In this whitepaper you'll learn how to make informed prior authorization decisions quickly, reduce time spent dealing with phone calls and faxes, lower your overall expenditures and improve your members' care outcomes.

Key Learnings:

• Seven findings from American Medical Association studies where prior authorization caused time, money and health outcome detriments
• Two trends contributing to prior authorizations challenges
• Four faith-building statistics from an America's Health Insurance Plans study about the use of digital tools for prior authorization

Chronic workforce shortages continue to burden hospitals, outpatient clinics and other care settings. This leaves organizations scrambling to fill shifts, but a technology platform is mitigating this stressor for staffing leaders.

Download this one-page summary to learn why nursing leaders consistently turn to CareRev's technology to post shifts, manage float pools and maintain flexible staffing.

Key learning points:

• An overview of what the CareRev app offers nursing leaders
• How it enables nursing leaders to ensure flexible staffing and organizational resilience
• Why healthcare professionals consistently book shifts through CareRev's technology solution

The rise of consumerism has given patients more ownership of their care than ever before. And as consumer-facing technologies become commonplace, patients are increasingly shopping for healthcare experiences that align with their digital behaviors and preferences.

To attract and retain those patients, providers need to offer the modern, convenient features they’re accustomed to using elsewhere.

Phreesia recently surveyed more than 4,000 patients about their digital expectations for their care, including how they want to check in, manage appointments, make payments and engage with providers. We dive deep into the survey results and explore their implications for providers in our new white paper, How consumerism is reshaping the healthcare landscape—and how provider organizations should respond.

Read the white paper to learn:

• How patients feel about using self-service technology to manage their healthcare experience
• Digital strategies you can implement to increase access, activate patients and make payments easier
• Ways to identify third-party vendors that keep patients’ sensitive health information secure
• A 3-step checklist to successfully introduce new technologies to your patients

Surgical revenue is more important than ever. However, manual processes and tools are holding healthcare organizations back from effectively using operating room resources, resulting in an incredible opportunity cost.

Fortunately, advances in artificial intelligence and automation can enable you to break out of the status quo and accelerate growth.

By using six strategies implemented at leading health systems across the country, you can harness these capabilities to improve operating room access, increase strategic case volumes and capture more market share.

In this whitepaper, learn how to:

• Boost operating room and resource utilization
• Automate manual work to reduce staff workload
• Drive immediate bottom-line improvements
• Optimize referrals and prevent leakage
• Improve surgeon satisfaction

Health system leaders face an operational paradox. Operating rooms, inpatient beds and infusion chairs appear to be available. Yet, the reality is often very different. These assets experience dramatic peaks and valleys in usage. As a result, patients receive appointments, but when they show up for care at peak times, they have to wait.

Other asset-intensive industries like airlines or package delivery services face similar challenges. However, through sophisticated modeling and simulations, organizations in these industries can predict and match supply to demand with considerable accuracy. Every day, millions of packages are delivered on time and scores of travelers safely reach their destinations. The healthcare sector needs the same types of capacity-optimization tools.

These were the overarching themes that emerged during a hospital operations summit as part of Becker's Hospital Review's 12th Annual Meeting in Chicago. Dozens of hospital executives participated in the summit. This white paper is based on their conversations and includes specific learnings from:

• Rush University Medical Center in Chicago
• UCHealth in Aurora, Colo.
• Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tenn.

As practices watched their patient volume rapidly decrease and physical therapy appointment cancellations soar, administrators, physicians, and staff had difficult decisions to make about how they would proceed with providing care. In this paper, you’ll learn how leaders in the orthopedic space helped their organizations come to realize the value of technology and how they will continue to embrace it.

The perfect storm of COVID-19, staffing shortages and a switch to value-based payment models are leaving healthcare organizations struggling to keep up with a constantly shifting industry.

KeyBank and Cain Brothers are helping healthcare organizations remain flexible and agile. Hear from three industry leaders to learn how your organization can be prepared for upcoming challenges.

• Agapito “Aga” Morgan, commercial healthcare leader, Key Corporate and Commercial Bank
• Dave Morlock, managing director, head of health systems practice, Cain Brothers, a division of KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Kellen Williams, senior manager of business development, Laurel Road, a brand of KeyBank

In this whitepaper you will learn how:

• The healthcare landscape is expected to shift in the coming years
• Value-based care will reshape the industry
• Organizations can be forward-thinking in multiple dimensions

Patient financial obligation reached $491 billion in 2021, and the self-pay portion for patients with insurance now accounts for nearly 60 percent of bad debt. The standard model for patient payments is no longer sufficient.

This is why leading health systems like Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare, St. Louis-based Ascension and Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Healthcare have embraced a bold new approach for patient payment and more effective revenue capture. This ebook highlights four ways to bolster patient engagement and drive a 40 percent increase in net-new cash.

In this ebook you'll learn:

• How health systems can achieve substantial returns with an integrated technology and services approach
• The components of a bold new patient payment model
• How to create a seamless patient experience that drives higher revenue performance

In the wake of COVID-19, an estimated 48 million people in the U.S. lost their jobs. This spike in unemployment caused many people to lose employer-provided health insurance. Loss of coverage at this scale has a major effect on healthcare providers’ bottom lines.

What can providers do?

Take proactive steps to find hidden insurance coverage among patients who present as self-pay. Results include increased collections from patients and payers, decreased bad debt and improved financials.

A new white paper contains insights on maximizing self-pay revenue through better coverage detection.

Key learnings in the whitepaper focus on:

• Why you’re missing billable insurance coverage
• The impact of missing or hidden coverage – which includes writing off bad debt
• 4 ways to find insurance for self-pay patients
• Selecting the right coverage detection technology to meet your organization’s needs
• How coverage detection works

Revenue cycle leaders know the staffing crisis in healthcare is not limited to clinical functions; there’s also a revenue cycle staffing crisis.

Based on increasing revenue cycle work and a shortage of skilled workers, it is impossible to hire enough people or ask current employees to work harder.

It’s time to work smarter, not harder. What does working smarter in the revenue cycle mean? It means finding innovative ways to do more with less.

Download for best practices on:

 

• Developing a smarter revenue cycle and administrative strategy
• Cutting down on outdated manual processes
• Streamlining existing processes with intelligent automation

  Learn more about what intelligent automation is, how it works, which revenue cycle tasks are best automated and what the benefits are

As the fallout from the pandemic lingers, healthcare organizations are seeing expenses rise faster than patient volumes or revenues. Negative margins will continue through 2022 for many, and with little likelihood of relief from payer rates, it’s harder than ever for CFOs to sleep well at night.

This whitepaper covers how to best support CFOs today, and how organizations can implement these five steps to improve financial health:

Improve patient data and charge capture

Improve coding efficiency

Help the team avoid burnout

Monitor physician and organization performance

Minimize risk and optimize value-based care

Finance teams want access to real-time information to make informed, data-driven decisions. But this information is often lacking.

90 percent of respondents to a recent Becker’s/Multiview survey said data analysis is important to achieving their organization’s financial goals, yet only 25 percent have access to robust real-time information to drive better financial performance.

As a result, finance teams are often caught up doing time-consuming “Excel gymnastics.” Many finance teams are more focused on preparing financial statements or getting through audits than making data-driven decisions.

Gain insights from this recent survey among financial leaders which include:

• Why “liquid” data and real-time data are so important
• The unique challenges faced by finance teams at small hospitals
• Effective solutions that enable finance teams to make real-time, data-driven decisions
• Why vendor partnerships are key to data-driven decisions and increased operational efficiencies

Learn what it takes to go from manual, Excel-based processes to real-time, data-driven decisions.

Recent projections suggest hospital margins will be down 37 percent in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic levels. A host of challenges have left half of U.S. hospitals operating in the red. In this environment, identifying opportunities for cost savings is more than important — it's mission critical.

This e-book comprises three case studies featuring large health systems — Cincinnati-based Mercy Health, Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare and Aurora, Colorado-based UCHealth. These organizations reduced costs and increased collections by delivering better patient financial care. Read this eBook to learn how your organization can:

• Increase agency collections by 10 to 15 percent
• Decrease denials related to authorizations by 46 percent
• Boost point-of-service payments by 30 percent

Get a pulse on the current claims environment based on an all-new survey tied to responses from those who are responsible for reimbursements.

Sample findings:

• Denials are increasing. 30 percent of respondents say denials are increasing between 10 percent to 15 percent.
  • LEARN: Discover the top 3 reasons this is happening.
    
    
• Automation is considered critical. 52 percent of respondents upgraded or replaced previous claims process technology in the last 12 months.
  • LEARN: Where are organizations turning for automation technology?
    
    
• Everyone is looking for improved performance. 78 percent of respondents say their organizations are at least somewhat likely to replace their existing claims management solution if convinced something else can deliver better ROI.
  • LEARN: How do providers define ROI in the claims process?

These themes are further broken down based on survey answers to aide revenue cycle leaders with near- and long-term strategy and planning.

The market shifts over the last two decades have resulted in a steep uptick in patient financial responsibility for care, with patient revenue now surpassing that of many healthcare organizations’ largest insurance payers. But patients face financial and economic challenges of their own, making it critical for organizations to be proactive about how to meet patients' needs and clearly communicate financial expectations.

Read this report to learn how to retain patients in a competitive marketplace and keep your organization running smoothly.

You'll learn:

• Ways to lead with open + honest communication to provide compassionate financial care
• Strategies to create better connections with your patients
• How to improve patients’ knowledge about payments

The rise of consumerism in healthcare adds yet another dimension to an already challenged revenue cycle. With ever-changing rules regarding patient benefits and payor reimbursement, providers need to find a way to successfully work around the uncertainty.

Download this whitepaper to learn:

• How to turn the challenges of consumerism into opportunities.
• How to create a flexible, personalized payment experience.
• How to engage patients across multiple channels.

High deductible health plans (HDHPs) have shifted the already-complex payer reimbursement burden onto the shoulders of consumers who are unprepared to bear it.

Consumers, on the one hand, need increased support to understand their bills and figure out how to pay them. On the other hand, patients with more skin in the game are becoming more demanding about the quality of their customer experience.

These changes necessitate a new patient payment model that focuses on delivering convenience and clear communication to patients, driving both quicker payments and increased patient satisfaction.

Download this whitepaper to learn:

• The current state of patient collections, with data
• How to help patients take charge of their new responsibility
• How to identify hidden coverage
• How to increase the likelihood of quick, easy payment

The economic landscape of the healthcare market has been forever altered by the COVID-19 crisis. Existing challenges have intensified, and the pace of change is accelerating, raising the bar for organizations to adapt strategically and quickly.

Download the e-book to learn more about how health leaders can ready their organization for growth with forward-thinking strategies that include:

• Meeting the consumer on their terms
• Adapting to new competition
• The growing role of strategic partnerships
• Mastering the new indicators of growth
• Tracking the spend of the health care dollar

Operating health systems and physician practices has always been hard, but COVID-19 has created extraordinary profitability challenges in 2020. Lower volumes, changing case and payer mixes and greater operating margin anxiety make revenue optimization more essential than ever.

We asked physician management and healthcare organization leaders to share their strategies for overcoming the considerable challenges of this altered landscape. They offer 10 strategies for using data and analytics to better manage capacity, coordinate care and optimize revenues, including:

• Tracking real-time practice COVID-19 volumes
• Managing productivity and modifying physician incentive compensation
• Capturing charges efficiently and accurately at the point of care
• Improving throughput across the continuum

The white paper features expert views from:

• Dennis Deruelle, MD – Executive Director of Hospital Medicine, American Physician Partners
• Andrea Funk, RN, MEd, CPHQ – Vice President of Integrated Acute Care Operations, US Acute Care Solutions
• Derick D. Perkins – Founder and Managing Partner, Metis Advisors LLC

COVID-19 has pushed healthcare delivery beyond its breaking point, heightening the urgent need for accelerated patient care, improved clinical efficiencies and secure clinical communication with real-time critical patient updates.

Before the arrival of COVID-19, specific environmental trends were challenging the healthcare industry, such as acquisitions of smaller health systems by larger health systems, clinician shortages and burnout. These trends had already created an urgent demand for clinical communication platforms (CCP) that would work securely across growing networks of diverse care provider organizations. The arrival of COVID-19 has applied untold new pressures to already strained systems.

In this white paper, you will learn about:

• The impact and cost of COVID-19 on healthcare
• How clinical collaboration platforms improved communication during COVID-19
• Where you will see cost savings from leveraging clinical collaboration platforms
• What to look for in a clinical collaboration platform in order to achieve savings
• How clinical collaboration platforms can help your organization increase efficiency and achieve return on investment

Mobile technology plays an important role in daily life. And in healthcare, the demand for mobile options is rising. Fortunately, mobile technology can streamline check-in, facilitate payments and support efficient communication.

This white paper discusses seven ways that mobile technology improves the intake experience for patients, providers and staff, and demonstrates why healthcare organizations that employ a mobile-first intake strategy are well-positioned to succeed in a rapidly changing healthcare system.

Read the white paper to learn:

• How embracing mobile communication helps healthcare organizations improve patient satisfaction
• Why embracing a mobile-first patient intake strategy helps providers save time and boost staff efficiency
• Tips about how to use mobile technologies to deliver the convenience and flexibility patients expect

Is your digital transformation going as planned? We hear from many providers that their systems aren’t generating hoped-for levels of patient engagement.

Unfortunately, outdated interfaces turn customers away, which means more work for providers and administrators.

Health systems must look beyond basic EHR forms and cookie-cutter processes to get patients on board. The user experience is what matters. Winning organizations are using consumer-grade tech solutions that patients can navigate easily. As a result, they’re seeing fewer no-shows and higher patient satisfaction.

How do health systems with limited resources create user-friendly experiences?

In a new whitepaper, we look at how three health systems leverage intelligent automation to save time and increase revenue. Discover ways to reduce workloads by building intelligent automation into your existing EHR system.

We share how intelligent automation is helping health systems achieve:

• 8 percent reduction in no-shows
• 74 percent digital conversion rate
• 51 percent increase in co-payment
• 96 percent patient satisfaction rating

Early identification of sepsis and consistent evidence-based sepsis care must be a priority for hospital administrators and clinical leaders. Sepsis is the most expensive condition for US hospitals driven by lengthy stays, is a major driver for readmissions and a top reason for in-hospital patient mortality.

Conway (Ark.) Regional Medical Center gained more visibility into patients' status and timely, accurate alerts by partnering with Wolters Kluwer. This led to big improvements in the hospital's SEP-1 compliance rates and cost savings.

Read this Sentri7® Sepsis Monitor case study to learn how Conway Regional is:

•  Identifying patients with sepsis earlier with real-time alerts and reminders that guide care
• Improving SEP-1 bundle compliance by more than 20 percent over four months
• Achieved cumulative savings of $384,000 in the four months since adopting Sentri7® Sepsis Monitor

Addressing health inequities has vaulted to the top of healthcare organizations’ agendas, as COVID-19 has created urgency to take meaningful actions to address health disparities and inequities.

However, despite a collective commitment to do better, organizations have lacked the technological infrastructure to enable detecting and addressing these inequities.

To shine a light on the technological infrastructure that is needed, Becker's Hospital Review spoke with David Feinberg, MD, chairman of Oracle Health, and two Indiana University Health leaders — Brownsyne Tucker Edmonds, MD, vice president and chief equity officer, and Nichole Wilson, vice president for community health operations — about the technology solutions required to addressing health inequities.

This white paper examines the:

• Foundational technological infrastructure needed to make progress on inequities – including data platforms and frameworks
• Datasets and analytics capabilities organizations need
• Talent and human capabilities required to turn data into insights and action

Achieving health equity will take more than good intentions – it requires data and a technological underpinning. Discover the technology infrastructure needed to move the needle on health inequities.

Health equity has been a problem for years, but COVID shined a spotlight on this critical issue. Achieving true health equity will require sustained effort at massive scale. To better understand the current state of health equity, its strategic priority, and what healthcare organizations are doing to achieve it, Becker’s Healthcare partnered with TruLite Health on the first-ever survey to benchmark health equity among more than 100 organizations.

What did this survey find? A newly published ebook summarizes insights and analysis on the First Annual Health Equity Benchmarking Survey. This ebook focuses on:

• Actionable steps that healthcare organizations are taking to address health equity
• The main elements of health equity programs, budget commitments and status of the implementations
• Tools and technologies required to support organizations in achieving health equity
• Achieving health equity will take significant time, effort and investment. Discover what steps industry leaders are taking– and what your organization can do right now – to address this issue

Nurses are facing more challenges on the job than ever before. Accordingly, they expect more from their workplace to make committing to the job worthwhile. Higher compensation is just one way hospitals can support their nursing workforce.

Ascom's Challenges on The Job for U.S. Nurses survey includes responses from more than 500 nurses to give hospitals a closer look at the needs of today's nursing workforce and the main actions hospitals can take to attract and retain nursing talent.

Here's what you’ll learn:

• What are the top three workplace stressors
• How technology choices matter in deciding where to work
• Nurses' #1 rated technology tool and why it’s critical in day-to-day job satisfaction

More than 6 million Americans suffer from chronic wounds and the problem isn't going away. Pain can become a vicious cycle for patients, leading to stress and anxiety, which can stall healing.

 Becker's Hospital Review spoke with two wound care experts about advances in negative pressure wound therapy and how these innovations may help dramatically improve both clinical outcomes and the patient experience:

• Amanda Loney, BScN, RN, wound, ostomy and continence consultant, Bayshore Home Care Solutions, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada 
• Abbé Benoit, BSN, RN, clinical resource specialist, Smith+Nephew

  Key learnings:

• How pain has a direct effect on the healing process
• How to determine when negative pressure wound therapy is appropriate
• How negative pressure wound therapy solutions can help to improve the patient experience
• How best practices can include use of both traditional and single use negative pressure wound therapy

Healthcare staff are overburdened amid persistent workforce shortages and growing to-do lists. As a result, on-time patient turning often falls by the wayside, leading to increases in pressure injuries.

A single pressure injury can cost hospitals more than $21,000 and often prolong patients' length of stay, among other unwanted outcomes. This report outlines how Mayo Clinic Florida in Jacksonville achieved a 67 percent reduction in hospital-acquired pressure injuries and a $500,000 return on investment after piloting a new system to remind employees of turning times.

Key learnings: 

• The burden of hospital-acquired pressure injuries
• Key challenges in preventing the complication
• Best practices for implementing a sustainable pressure injury prevention program from Mayo Clinic Florida

 

In 2019, AdventHealth began laying the groundwork for a comprehensive genomics and personalized health program. Today, the Central Florida-based health system offers patients comprehensive genomics testing, analysis, interpretation and genetic counseling services.

This paper describes AdventHealth's approach to genomics and personalized health from both a strategic and programmatic standpoint. It includes underlying principles, lessons learned and a perspective on the future of therapeutic development.


Learning points: 

• Identifying focus areas in genomics related to clinical utility
• Leveraging strategic partnerships to accelerate clinical deployment and care improvement
• Connecting genomic data with clinical data to create value from a research, discovery and data science perspective

In a typical healthcare facility, hidden pockets of waste hinder operations, patient safety, and profits. Much of that waste stems from mobile medical equipment. Altogether, MME exceeds 90 percent of all clinical assets in a hospital, ranging from IV pumps to enteral feeding pumps, fluid warmers and more. Inefficiencies in the management of MME can pose infection risks for patients, waste employees' time, and cost healthcare systems' money.

Learn how Catholic Health System in Buffalo, N.Y., eliminated waste and cut these risks by leveraging an MME management program. This case study outlines how the health system used data to track equipment and accurately forecast utilization needs to ensure the right equipment was clean and ready for use when and where it was needed.

Key learning points:

• The improvements Catholic Health System saw in equipment utilization, cleanliness, and safety
• How the health system leveraged the program to increase staff satisfaction and face time with patients
• Lessons learned for successful adoption of an MME management system

The cancer continuum is complex and often full of disconnected processes. From prevention and screening to diagnosis and therapy selection, helping patients and providers adhere to testing recommendations and access complete care is key to improving patient, provider, financial, and quality outcomes. Currently about 70% of cancers do not have a recommend screening method, but through innovations in screening and health information technology, outcomes can be improved. A key component of this comprehensive approach is the delivery of personalized medicine no matter where patients are in their cancer journey.

To unlock the power of personalized medicine, stakeholders such as health systems, industry leaders, payers, and policymakers must work together to streamline system workflow processes and empower patients and providers. Discover how health systems can collaborate with industry to continue improving cancer diagnostics and seamlessly integrate these advancements into patient care protocols.

This meta-analysis tracks results across eight studies covering more than 34,711 patients, 19,136 of whom were monitored using the LEAF◊ Patient Monitoring System.

• See the huge impact the system made on protocol adherence and incidence of pressure injuries.
• 1 randomized controlled trial
• 7 conference abstracts
• Study results included both clinical and health economic data

The LEAF System combines wearable patient sensors with a user interface, offering:

• Personalized care for each patient
• Digital turn reminders (in room and at the nurses’ station)
• Confirmation that patient turns have sufficiently offloaded pressure
• Automatically generated reports that can be used for root cause analysis

Hospitals are fighting an ongoing battle against unrecognized patient deterioration, alarm fatigue, opioid-induced respiratory depression, sepsis, unplanned extubation and other preventable conditions. In this whitepaper, we will review the scope of these patient safety matters, inadequacies of current practices, the emergence of clinical surveillance and a strategy to implement continuous clinical surveillance that helps enhance patient safety and outcomes.

Key points that readers will learn include:

• The clinical and financial impact of alarm fatigue and these adverse patient conditions
• How continuous clinical surveillance is different from patient monitoring and alarm management and focuses on mitigating non-clinically actionable alerts and notifications
• Published results that hospitals have achieved with continuous clinical surveillance

To be successful, every DSO must strive for a strong and dynamic procurement strategy. Large rapidly growing specialty DSOs are no exception.

One multispecialty DSO with more than 180 locations was able to save about $3 million annually by executing a strategic procurement initiative that drove savings towards their bottom line and increased ordering efficiencies among their practices in the process. This was all done while maintaining physicians' and clinicians' autonomy regarding clinically sensitive items they have access to.

Download the case study below to learn how SourceClub helped this multispecialty DSO save millions and achieve success

The best leaders of dental practices are learning that their patients want — and need — help paying for care.

Many leading dental practices have partnered with patient financing solution vendors to improve patients' access to care. Providing best-in-class offerings also improves the patient experience.

In a 2022 survey, 59 percent of respondents from the dental field indicated that fast, safe and secure financing solutions improve the patient experience at their practice.

Take the first step toward providing this much-needed service by getting the facts.

This report describes:

• Trends in patient financing
• Benefits of patient financing solutions for patients and practices
• What to look for in a patient financing solution and in a vendor
• Case studies that highlight the benefits to patients and dental practices of modern, best-in-class financing solutions

Today's most significant business operation problem in dental offices is repetitive, consistent, and boring manual processes and tasks. DentalRobot solves this problem with its proprietary automation platform specially designed for dental practices, and its unique approach of Pre-Built Robots and Automated Workflows.

Regardless of how you built the processes in your DSO, MSO, or Group, DentalRobot provides a custom-fit automation solution that matches your current context and vision for operations and growth. We understand each specialty and its journey. We impact your organization's outcomes by rapidly automating every process from insurance verification or EOB posting to Accelerated Patient Scheduling or Customized Treatment Plan Follow-Ups.