Whitepapers & E-Books

Surgical site infections continue to plague hospitals and health systems. While the industry has made strides in infection control practices — including sterilization methods — SSIs remain a significant cause of morbidity, prolonged or repeat hospitalization and patient deaths. As a result, some healthcare leaders are closely examining or reassessing their organizations' instrument sterilization practices and opportunities for innovation here. 

In this research-based white paper, you'll learn: 

• The current state of instrument sterilization quality + deficiencies at most hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers
• Why the design of reusable surgical instruments makes it challenging to reliably clean them
• Recommended paths forward, including transitioning to single-use, sterile, pre-packaged instruments

Source: Surgical Site Infection (cdc.gov)

 

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• Cutting down on outdated manual processes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

Americans' desire for more comprehensive birthing and postpartum care has led to an enduring role in the realm of labor support: the doula.

Doulas are nonclinical professionals who can provide emotional, physical and informational support during pregnancy, delivery and after childbirth. Research shows working with a doula can reduce cesarean section rates, decrease complications and increase satisfaction with birth experiences. But because doula support is rarely covered by insurance, accessing care can be challenging.

This white paper outlines opportunities for health plans to expand access to doula care and improve outcomes, especially for at-risk populations.

Key learnings:

• How prenatal and birth doula care can improve birth outcomes
• The role postpartum doulas can play in improving postpartum mental health
• Strategies for seamlessly integrating doula support with health plan coverage

The vendor onboarding process at Meharry Medical College was too manual, and keeping pace was challenging. Ensuring vendor partners meet federal and state compliance requirements is integral to risk management operations

After implementing ProviderTrust’s vendor monitoring solution, Meharry was able to onboard, manage, and monitor its entire vendor network with confidence and ease in one central location.

Download this white paper to learn how: 

• Partnering with ProviderTrust allowed Meharry to achieve automated compliance monitoring for its vendors
• 90% of Meharry’s vendors are now verified as compliant before an invoice is paid
• Hours of tedious and manual work were eliminated with  ProviderTrust’s solution

Healthcare will face elevated levels of uncertainty and risk over the next 12 to 18 months, with leaders navigating powerful, complex crosscurrents.

This white paper examines three challenges that will dominate the industry throughout 2024: financial constraints, workforce disruption and growing competition. The crosscurrents produced by these challenges will be explored, along with their implications for talent management strategies.

Key learnings:

• Implications of workforce disruptions and solutions being explored
• Organizational strategies that are taking center stage to stimulate top-line growth
• Strategic considerations to help leaders navigate these crosscurrents

 

Emergencies don't take breaks. When delivering round-the-clock care, accurate data and efficient communications are vital to addressing urgent patient needs. On-call scheduling and communications play a crucial role in ensuring the right provider is available and easily contacted — every time — for faster time-to-care and better patient outcomes.

Every second wasted tracking down the right provider can have serious repercussions. Lacking centralized visibility into who's on call, clinicians often end up searching multiple sources or accessing outdated schedules.

With patient demand, provider burnout and turnover on the rise, this chaotic approach to on-call scheduling is simply not sustainable. Rethinking on-call scheduling must be a top priority.

Download the e-book to: 

• Uncover the high-stakes consequences that on-call inefficiencies can have on patient care.
• Discover how a unified on-call platform improves accuracy and efficiency.
• Identify best practices for choosing an on-call scheduling solution and ensuring a thoughtful and structured implementation.

da Vinci-assisted surgery has seen a boom in the last decade as more data emerges about its clinical and financial benefits, while the open and laparoscopic modalities decline. Younger surgeons are also making robotics a priority: 77 percent of resident applicants believe that da Vinci surgery will be very important in their future, meaning organizations that offer this experience may have an easier time recruiting.

It's clear hospitals and health systems looking to keep up with innovation and attract top surgeon candidates need to implement or expand robotic surgery programs. In this ebook, experts from New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health and San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare detail how their systems got started and the benefits they've seen from their da Vinci robotic-assisted surgery programs.

You'll learn:

• Meta-analysis data on robotic surgery outcomes
• The right investments for long-term success in the robotic surgery space
• How to expand your robotics program without breaking the bank

Care variation is a persistent problem throughout healthcare — and reducing it is especially important in oncology, where unwanted care variation negatively affects all aspects of cancer care, including operational efficiencies, financial goals, clinician burnout and patient outcomes. 

Oncology leaders are on top of it: In a recent survey, 90 percent said they saw reducing care variation as a priority. Yet many organizations still rely on multiple manual processes to standardize care, which adds to the total cost of care and burdens clinicians and administrative staff. 

This whitepaper dives into insights from 134 oncology leaders on their priorities, strategies and views on the future and details how organizations can more easily achieve care standardization. 

You'll learn: 

• What clinical pathways leaders are already doing to reduce care variation at their cancer centers
• How to identify and tackle sources of unwanted care variation
• The tech solutions that can help reduce costs, improve patient outcomes and unburden staff

The nation's persistent nursing shortage has forced healthcare organizations to get creative with staffing. Many hospitals are finding success by turning to on-demand marketplaces, rather than travel agencies, to find available nurses.

This white paper outlines how hospitals can use W-2 marketplaces as a bridge to hire permanent nurses and ensure uninterrupted patient care. From streamlined staffing to risk management, find out how these platforms redefine workforce excellence, elevate patient outcomes and reduce overall expenses.

Key Points:

• How an on-demand local workforce reduces overall expenses while continuing to engage, support and attract your workforce
• How a nurse marketplace leads to less reliance on agencies, lower labor costs and increased retention rates

Workplace violence has become all too familiar for healthcare workers in the U.S. With violence in these settings at epidemic levels, hospitals and health systems must act to assess unique risks in their organizations to foster a safer environment for all staff members and patients. 

This white paper overviews key statistics on violence in healthcare settings today, how legislative measures may change requirements for organizations, and proactive measures that mitigate risks. 

Learning points:

• Understand the growing scope of workplace violence in healthcare & the cost to patients, staff, and organizations at large
• Gain insights for conducting a thorough risk assessment of  your workforce's safety, wellbeing, and preparedness for workplace violence
• Discover potential sources of workplace violence and determine how to address, deescalate, or prevent each of them as quickly and efficiently as possible

Healthcare organizations have struggled to address staff turnover, vacancies and the overreliance on agencies for the past three years.

This white paper outlines how one of the top academic medical centers in the nation used innovative enterprise workforce management approaches to address these challenges, including establishing an internal agency pool. See how the organization optimized its use of external agencies and travelers while achieving an 86 percent registered nurse fill rate consistently over the course of 2022.

Key learnings:

• The strategic, three-layer protocol used to deploy team members
• The technologies necessary to centrally manage all staff
• The unique employment model that helped improve retention and bring back nurses who had left the organization

 

In today's healthcare labor market, demand for nurses outweighs the supply – and studies indicate that will remain true for the foreseeable future. So how can hospitals stay competitive and level up their strategies to retain top talent?

Having the flexibility of a reliable, on-demand workforce is critical for retaining staff. This whitepaper dives deeper into actionable solutions for retaining top talent, enhancing patient care, supporting your clinical staff, and reducing labor costs.

Learning points: 

• 5 key strategies to retain top talent
• Tapping into a flexible, pre-qualified clinical talent on demand
• Overcoming implementation barriers
• How to keep your facility at the top of the ‘best places to work’ list

This 102-page handbook is a comprehensive overview of how leading hospitals and health systems are implementing workforce models that address the root cause of the nurse staffing problem – lack of flexibility – to ultimately cure their nurse staffing crisis and get out of daily symptom management.

  As chronic understaffing has impacted nursing departments across the nation, tireless efforts to hire more nurses than the year before, working long hours, or devising elaborate incentive programs to drive shift pick up, have all come up short… if not failed. This Handbook empowers nursing leadership with;  

• An overview of ten different flexible workforce models
• A process to conduct an organizational assessment to choose and build the right staffing model for your environment
• Defining the nuts and bolts of best practice staffing and scheduling policies, and how to choose the right workforce technology
• A look into the future of nurse staffing with the power of AI and predictive modeling

 Authored by Danielle Bowie DNP, RN, NE-BC, The Flexible Workforce Handbook [IBSN: 979-8-9888856-0-3] outlines a plethora of best practice recommendations, based on 16 years of Workforce Transformation experience, alongside leaders across variety of organizations in developing innovative workforce strategies to meet their staffing needs. The Handbook concludes with tools, such as a checklist for implementing an internal staffing agency, that help smooth implementation of the book’s ideas to reality. 

 

Urgent priority shifts are taking center stage for health care leaders and the economic environment is shaping today’s decision-making. Consumerism, the workforce crisis, digital initiatives and the demand for health equity are all shaping the health care landscape in 2023.

With data from 150 health care leaders across health plans, providers, employers, life science organizations and government agencies, this 2023 research report reveals: 

• Where progress has been made
• Healthcare's greatest challenges
• Priorities for a sustainable and equitable system
• How leaders are advancing on the path to value
• Governance, investment and partnership priorities 

Learn how C-suite leaders are approaching these topics and what they see as critical risks and opportunities in the development of a modern health system that best serves individuals, the workforce and collaborators across the industry.

Care variation significantly reduces the quality of care for patients and costs hospitals millions of dollars every year. The over, under, or unnecessary utilization of healthcare services and resources stems from factors such as outdated habits, differences in medical training, and lack of transparency.

Hospital leaders have attempted various strategies to address care variation, however, none have been fully successful because they aren’t addressing clinical variation in real-time.

In this report, we share effective strategies to reduce care variation, improve margins, and ultimately enhance patient outcomes.

Key points that our readers will learn from the paper: 

• The root causes of clinical variation and why it’s important to address.
• Effective ways to reduce care variation, and how to combine them into an effective strategy for your health system.
• How to give real-time feedback on care utilization and cost information that help physicians make more informed care decisions.

The nurse labor shortage has hit a critical point with record levels of early retirements, job changes and exits from the profession. Maintaining status-quo retention strategies is no longer viable, as traditional approaches raise labor expenses and lower operating margins.

To ensure financial stability, immediate action is essential. In this ebook, you'll learn six key strategies to engage and optimize internal nurse resources to help you reduce premium labor spend while making progress in addressing the staffing shortage.

You'll also learn:  

• Today’s top workforce management challenges and why current initiatives are not sufficiently addressing the problem.
• Creative approaches to retaining nurses and reducing premium labor spend.
• How your current strategy compares to best practices + where there's room for improvement in nurse retention, resource optimization, and labor cost control.

Patients expect simple, intuitive, self-service experiences like they get when shopping on Amazon or booking a vacation through Airbnb.

Instead, they’re asked to make phone calls and endure long hold times to do something as simple as schedule an appointment or pay a bill.

Using lessons learned from three leading health systems, this whitepaper offers best practices for optimizing patient engagement with an automation platform.

Discover how:

• Automation drove $2.8 million in annual cost savings for one health system
• Proactive patient engagement can close thousands of care gaps in a short time
• Leading health systems can 2x the number of new patient appointments without creating more work for staff

Inaccurate inventory records can cause unexpected delays in demand fulfillment and lost revenue for healthcare organizations. 

The right inventory partner can take the stress out of audits, prevent waste and save time. But choosing a partner is a decision that should not be taken lightly. Find out how to evaluate physical inventory count services in this guide.

Key takeaways: 

• How to ensure robust and extensive inventory reporting
• Which tech and platform features to look for
• How to approach due diligence in the evaluation process

Whether thin or negative margins, workforce shortages, or inflation, the complex challenges confronting health systems today are just the tip of the iceberg.

Yet there’s another layer to these myriad issues: alignment with important community-based physicians.

The relationship between health systems and physician groups is evolving. Ongoing headwinds necessitate better performance in both fee-for-service and value-based arrangements for health systems and their physician partners. The progression of value-based care will either help address or continue to compound the problem. Health systems that fail to adapt their care model and redefine their relationships with employed and independent physicians will continue to face financial challenges.

However, a growing number of systems, such as Health First, Novant Health, and OhioHealth, recognized this opportunity and reevaluated their broader network strategy through a partnership with Privia Health.

“We recognized Privia as having best-in-class practice management solutions and population health capabilities,” Leelee Thames, MD, Senior Vice President & Chief Value Officer at Novant Health Enterprises, told the American Medical Association. “It’s not a vendor transactional relationship. You're part of something bigger, and, as a physician, there is empowerment in working alongside your colleagues towards something greater to improve patient outcomes.”

Privia’s model aims to unite diverse specialties in a cohesive physician network that enables health systems to stabilize their existing physician footprint, possibly expand geographically with a capital-efficient alignment vehicle, and thoughtfully increase their experience and potential success in risk-based arrangements. This adaptable, complementary, and comprehensive model aligns hospital-employed and community physicians across four key domains: 

• Strategic
• Financial
• Structural
• Cultural 

Download the whitepaper for an in-depth look into how Privia’s flexible model supports medical groups and health systems of all shapes, sizes, and geographies.

Vendor risk management is crucial to ensure outside partners meet the needs and compliance requirements of the whole organization. But how can healthcare organizations identify the potential threats and vulnerabilities to protected health information?

Effectively managing vendor risk doesn't have to be a burden on your organization's resources.

This white paper details the vital steps you can take to protect your organization and covers:

• How to mitigate risks and vulnerabilities to an acceptable and suitable degree in accordance with HIPAA
• Best practices for identifying threats and protecting protected health information
• Leveraging technology to reduce operational cost and improve compliance

The "silver tsunami" continues to impact hospitals and health systems, with many of their most experienced facilities managers retiring. This reality has led to staffing challenges at healthcare facilities nationwide — at a time when demand for facilities managers is booming.

Because it takes six to nine months to fill these vacancies, the time for healthcare organizations to focus on succession planning is now. This whitepaper outlines how to ensure a strong future for your organization's facilities management even as demand outpaces supply of FM professionals.

You'll learn: 

• Why facilities managers are key to attracting and empowering your talent
• How to build a robust FM platform to minimize the impact of personnel changes
• How recruiting and training candidates from other fields can help fill crucial talent gaps

Ongoing workforce challenges, product shortages and inflation have underscored the critical role of healthcare supply chain resiliency and its impact on timely, cost-effective and high-quality patient care.

More than 75 percent of respondents in a recent survey said they expect supply chain challenges to worsen or remain the same over the next year. But leaders have learned valuable lessons since 2020, helping the healthcare supply chain evolve and become stronger as it emerges from the pandemic.

This white paper dives into responses from a broad cross-section of healthcare and supply chain leaders who shared what challenges they're still facing — and what they're doing about it.

Download the whitepaper to get: 

• Survey insights from hundreds of leaders on their biggest challenges
• Strategies for handling risk prevention and mitigation, among other pressing issues
• Comprehensive recommendations for advancing a stronger supply chain

 

Health systems' technology investments are ramping up — this year, 95 percent of providers are expected to purchase new tech that can boost productivity and ease labor costs and demands, as well as address burdensome administrative tasks that preceded the COVID-19 pandemic. Many organizations are turning to one promising tool in particular: automation.

In this e-book, you'll read insights gleaned from an executive discussion with healthcare and IT leaders — from organizations like Paterson, N.J.-based St. Joseph Health and New Albany, Ind.-based Baptist Health Floyd — on the opportunities they see in robotic process automation to reduce staff burden, raise employee satisfaction, mitigate turnover and build a stronger workforce. 

You'll learn: 

• How automation can empower clinical staff to work at the top of their licenses 
• Why technology can't (and shouldn't) replace the human aspect of care — and why it's critical to effectively communicate this to staff
• Generating buy-in for new technology

Amid labor shortages and financial challenges, healthcare organizations must look in all areas for savings and efficiencies while maintaining quality patient care. ASCs are no different. But with limited time and resources, it can be overwhelming to know where to focus attention and make a significant impact.

This article offers suggestions on how to overcome some key challenges and contribute to overall surgery center success by optimizing shipping operations.

Key learnings: 

• Offset the impact of rising supply costs
• Drive efficiencies even with limited resources
• Maintain clinician satisfaction and quality patient care

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

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
  
  

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

There's a consensus among healthcare leaders: Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve patient outcomes and experiences, as well as reduce the cost of care delivery. But when it comes to the pace of deploying this technology and concerns of bias, privacy and effects on patients — confidence levels and viewpoints become mixed. 

In this e-book, you'll see key takeaways from a survey of more than 190 clinical, administrative and IT leaders on their current approaches to AI and perspectives on what this technology means for the future of healthcare. 

Read more to learn: 
•        How leaders believe AI can help achieve strategic objectives
•        The current state of this tech at organizations surveyed
•        Privacy, security and ethical concerns + pathways forward

Though hospitals, health systems and payers have diverse population health strategies, they all have one thing in common — major barriers to accessing high-quality, cohesive data that fuels these initiatives and desired outcomes.

In this white paper, you'll learn key insights from a roundtable discussion with Intermountain Health (Salt Lake City) and Inland Empire Health Plan (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.), where technology, nursing and medical leaders shared how they're tackling data issues, where they're seeing successes in addressing social determinants of health and what they recommend to other organizations striving to do the same.

Key learning points:

• Challenges in gathering essential SDoH data
• Benefits of real-time data feeds and reports
• Key elements of a successful population health program and building community trust

The nation is facing high demand for mental health services, but there's no one-size-fits-all approach to solving today's challenges. 

Despite the high demand for behavioral healthcare services, many face barriers care. To make real change, it's essential to identify and reduce the root causes of mental health inequity and expand access to meet the mental health needs of every individual.

This mental health series for healthcare executives explores how to close the information gaps in mental and behavioral health data, uncover and conquer the root causes of mental health disparities, and evolve to meet an ever-rising mental health demand.

You'll learn: 

• 4 steps to assess and improve the quality of your mental health data
• 7 tips for improving health equity and care access 
• How to guide your organization through adapting to new strategies and customizing the mental health experience to fit each unique individual

Hackensack Meridian Health, one of the largest health systems in New Jersey, has a telestroke program that operates 24/7/365. This program has allowed Hackensack Meridian to improve its stroke response times and treatment rates, ensuring that patients receive the highest standards of care and minimize the potential long-term effects of a stroke.

The program is a model for how virtual care can be used to improve stroke care. This approach has the potential to save lives and improve the quality of life for stroke patients.

In this whitepaper, healthcare leaders will learn:

• How the organization implemented a 24/7/365 telestroke program.
• How the program has allowed Hackensack Meridian to improve its stroke response times and treatment rates.
• How the program provides a more coordinated and efficient approach to stroke care, which can lead to better outcomes for patients.

Healthcare systems are undergoing significant transformations as they strive to optimize their operations while delivering high-quality patient care. Strategic decisions at the executive level impact both the operational efficiency and financial security of the organization and most importantly, patient safety. One key aspect that can significantly influence executive decision-making is data-driven clinical asset management. By connecting executive leadership teams with actionable data from their organizations' medical device inventories, health systems can enable strategic capital planning and resource allocation decisions that drive positive outcomes.
 
Learning statements:

 

• Learn about the challenges impacting health system executive decision-making.
• Explore five steps that health systems can take to better inform stronger executive decision-making.
• Review how health systems can achieve better organizational outcomes by formalizing visibility and standardized processes in their clinical asset management strategy. 

By harnessing the power of actionable data, health system executives can navigate the challenges of today's healthcare landscape with confidence, drive positive organizational outcomes, and usher in a new era of excellence in patient care and operational performance.

 

About 20 percent of people in the U.S. speak a language other than English at home. That equates to almost 9 percent of patients who will encounter some type of language barrier when seeking medical care.

That has major implications for healthcare organizations. Patients with language barriers experience reduced quality outcomes — including 1.5 days longer length of stay and 9.4 percent higher readmission rates than English-speaking patients.

This report explains the value of a robust language access program that goes beyond simple compliance and delivers real financial value for the business and better outcomes for the patients.

This short report will cover:

• Improving reliability
• Reducing costs
• Increasing revenue

Remote care programs are gaining steam as hospitals and health systems strive to improve care quality, deliver better patient experiences and reduce costs. Deploying such initiatives, however, comes with challenges. 

This e-book highlights insights from the Becker's Healthcare-Biofourmis leadership survey on the current state of the home-based care paradigm, as well as Augusta (Ga.) University Health's experience implementing a care-at-home strategy.

You'll learn:  

• Leaders' target areas for remote care programs
• Top barriers to adopting these initiatives
• How Augusta University Health approached operational barriers + is seeing reduced length of stay and readmissions

Today, only 6% of health system executives have an established generative AI strategy according to a recent survey by Bain & Company.

But that’s going to change, rapidly.

If you’ve heard the generative AI hype, but aren’t sure where to get started, or if you’re on the fence about the real-world implications of LLMs, this is the resource for you.

Discover:

• How advanced AI technologies are being deployed by health systems to personalize the patient experience at scale
• The right use cases for implementing these technologies in support of the existing healthcare infrastructure and teams
• Practical applications for generative AI and large language models in healthcare

Medical imaging experienced profound advancements in the 19th and 20th century. Beginning with the advent of the X-ray in 1895 and continuing through the emergence of ultrasound technologies, tomography techniques such as CT and PET scans, and capping off with the invention of the MRI in 1977.

In the 21st century, medical imaging is again experiencing a leap forward. New imaging technologies will allow for more detailed pictures of patients’ tissues and organs — perhaps even at the cellular level.

Technologies powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning also have the potential to detect health issues, such as stroke or heart attack, sooner. Machine learning can also support physicians with real-time feedback as they review images.

Collectively, these solutions could improve speed to diagnosis and treatment which would ultimately improve patient outcomes.

Maintaining, growing and securing on premises data storage presents major challenges for hospitals and health systems in such an environment.

Enter the cloud.

As remote care and artificial intelligence become key strategic areas for hospitals and health systems hoping to drive efficiency and better patient outcomes, a host of considerations have emerged — from appropriate application of technology to governance and ethics. Before implementing AI-driven tools especially, some leaders are conducting a proactive first step: ensuring network connectivity for safe, secure and reliable use of budding technology.

In this white paper, you'll access insights and best practices from mobile technology experts and leadership at Driscoll Children's Hospital (Corpus Christi, Texas) on smart tactics for deploying AI in healthcare to ensure it delivers accurate information and value.

You'll also learn:

• The many pain points in healthcare that AI can address — if deployed thoughtfully
• Two areas leaders should assess before implementing
• New tech, as well as essential regulatory and oversight concerns
• How to ensure your organization's network will support AI traffic + the role of 5G

Technology in healthcare is advancing at a rapid clip. Still, many hospitals and health systems continue to equip their teams with archaic tools — like the dreaded spreadsheet — to carry out scheduling, patient assignments and other critical day-to-day tasks. Not only does this approach jeopardize accuracy, efficiency and patient care, it also wears down current staff.

These issues coupled with workforce gaps demand that hospitals and health systems use technology now to more effectively manage staff and reduce administrative burden. In this research- and case study-backed paper, you'll see how systems like Baptist Health (Jacksonville, Fla.), Health First (Rockledge, Fla.) and Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland have embraced this method and realized better clinical outcomes.

Download to learn:

• How artificial intelligence and predictive analytics can activate the workforce, support inpatient staffing and help organizations prepare for lingering shortages
• Benefits of technology applied to infusion centers and operating rooms
• Key steps and results from systems like Baptist, which saw 40 percent reduced call volume after using electronic case scheduling at their largest hospital

The Clinical Surveillance Maturity Model is a framework that aims to reduce unnecessary medical alarms and identify critical patient conditions early.

The model shows how healthcare monitoring is advancing from basic alarms to more sophisticated "smart alerts." These smart alerts utilize high-fidelity, live streaming medical devices data and consider critical patient information like demographics and test results to provide more useful warnings.

The Clinical Surveillance Maturity Model's ultimate goal is to help improve patient safety and outcomes by aligning alerts with evidence based clinical practice guidelines and using advanced technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence for better and more precise monitoring.

Key learnings:  

• How the Clinical Surveillance Maturity Model tracks the progression from basic medical device alarms to more advanced, context-rich smart alerts in health systems.
• What it takes to develop and adopt smart alerts
• Why clinical trust in the smart rules is crucial for successful adoption.

The U.S. spends more per capita on healthcare than any other country, yet care is still relatively inaccessible, unaffordable and inequitable for many people.

Healthcare leaders are increasingly leveraging remote patient management programs to improve access, affordability, and equity for patients. The evidence demonstrates these programs can achieve these goals while also improving clinical outcomes and lowering the cost of delivering care. Technology is obviously a critical enabler for this care model. But staffing, logistics, supply chain, patient selection, and other “non-tech” considerations remain a challenge and cannot necessarily be solved with wearables or artificial intelligence. This whitepaper outlines six strategies hospitals can take to overcome such obstacles and realize the value of a remote patient management program.

Whitepaper key takeaways:

• Going beyond the tech to focus on the importance of in-home care coordination
• Patient selection as an important part of scaling up care an RPM program
• How to generate clinically actionable insights instead of data
• Considering access and care equity as an objective

The enduring workforce crisis has forced hospitals and health systems to embrace technologies that have significant potential to improve staff well-being, workflows, and care delivery. Healthcare organizations are challenging the status quo by employing innovative technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the clinician experience.

  In this eBook, leading experts share insights on tackling the challenges of clinician burnout and resource limitations through the implementation of technology, automation, and standardization. Learn how AI integration in workflows enhances decision-making, improves patient outcomes, and boosts employee satisfaction. Uncover the power of ambient intelligence in reducing administrative burdens for providers, as well as the potential of generative AI in streamlining documentation and enhancing patient engagement. Find out how to accelerate technology adoption and build a brighter future for healthcare.

Key Learning Points: 

• Explore how technology, automation, and standardization can alleviate clinician burnout and resource constraints in healthcare organizations
• Why patients are an "underutilized resource in healthcare" and how digital processes fit in here
• Best practices for accelerating adoption of new technology, for organizations of any size
• Discover the impact of ambient intelligence in reducing administrative burdens and how generative AI optimizes the clinician experience, transforming healthcare delivery

The crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the U.S. healthcare ecosystem. But with it came the promise of remote care and the swift adoption of telemedicine.

Telemedicine allows patients to receive medical advice, diagnosis, disease management and treatment from the comfort of their homes. With 88 percent of surveyed physicians believing telemedicine increases patient access to healthcare, it is clear why it has been pushed to the forefront of care delivery.

This report examines the continued adoption of telemedicine, its applications across various specialties and healthcare services, and its effects on physician well-being, patient access and continuity of care.

• Three of the many questions that will be answered in this report:
• Which specialties are most likely to use telemedicine and why?
• How often do physicians use telemedicine in their practices?
• How has telemedicine affected patients' adherence to treatment plans?

Communication breakdowns are a leading contributor to sentinel events. And while efficient, HIPAA-compliant communication is a critical part of clinical workflows, many clinicians still rely on phone calls and email to coordinate patient care — and are unaware of the extent to which their current methods negatively affect efficiency and patient outcomes.

In this e-book, you'll learn key findings from the Becker's-TigerConnect 2023 medical and nursing leadership survey, which captured perspectives from more than 100 clinical leaders on the current state of clinical communications and how communication tools impact day-to-day clinical workflows.

You'll learn:

• How traditional communication tools in the clinical workflow, like email and phone calls, are tolerated by nearly 40 percent of survey respondents — and why this is an issue
• The unrealized need for processes that analyze efficiency of clinical workflows + the recommended measures for tracking improvements
• What hospitals and health systems can do to streamline communications and improve patient outcomes

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

 

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.

Hospitals and health systems face challenges that can seem overwhelming — from the rise in denials to declining patient volumes, as well as the continuing workforce shortages and spiraling labor costs.

In this white paper, we'll explore today's RCM workforce landscape and explain how, through the combined use of AI and robotic process automation technology, RCM organizations can not only overcome the current workforce shortages, but also improve the overall productivity and efficiency of their organization.

The combination of these technologies might still be in its early stages, but the potential benefits of the AI/RPA union for RCM organizations are nearly unlimited.

You'll learn:

• How AI and RPA can work together to automate both complex and mundane tasks
• Common problems in RCM and how AI/RPA can help solve them
• Specific tasks and applications for AI/RPA technology

Approximately half of U.S. hospitals finished 2022 with negative margins, marking it the worst financial year for hospitals since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. While margins have stabilized somewhat in 2023, hospital finances remain precarious and extremely challenging.

To better understand how hospital and health system leaders are navigating razor-thin margins, Becker's Hospital Review conducted an advisory call with CEOs, CFOs and vice presidents of finance and operations from health systems across the country. 
The advisory call participants shared their perspectives on factors contributing to margin pressures, what actions hospitals and health systems are taking to address these challenges and an outlook for the future.

Key learning points:  

• Why margins are under such tremendous pressure
• How organizations are responding right now
• Why partnerships should be a key strategic consideration

As health systems and providers face financial pressures, staff shortages and regulatory changes, it is becoming even harder to keep up with clinical and administrative workloads. As a result, more organizations are investing in advanced technology as a strategy to drive efficiency, reduce costs and overcome these ongoing challenges.

Within the revenue cycle, clinical and administrative workflows like registration, scheduling, coding and billing traditionally require manual, labor-intensive tasks. But automation presents a valuable opportunity to help reduce workloads and administrative burdens, allowing providers to focus on improving the overall patient experience.

This whitepaper dives into the benefits of robotic process automation — in which "bots" that mimic human behavior complete repetitive tasks — and outlines how organizations can identify the best places to implement the technology.

You'll learn:

• How automation technology can help address provider organizations' key challenges
• Where automation can be applied specifically throughout the revenue cycle
• The differences between RPA and artificial intelligence

CMS recently issued the Final Rule on Medicare payment policies and rates for 2024 under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System, with changes effective Oct. 1. Now, hospital and health system leaders are working to understand how the changes will affect finances and operations at their organizations.

Stay informed with this highlights brief, put together by government reimbursement experts. It summarizes 11 key changes leaders need to know about the new regulations, including:

• A look at the annual increase and market basket percentage
• Updates on new and expired MS-DRGs
• A review of the dramatic reduction in uncompensated care payments

Traditional revenue cycle management processes are no longer serving hospitals and health systems amid complex payer rules, tighter margins and rising patient financial responsibility. Organizations that do not evolve risk facing the consequences of lower profits, increased labor and administrative expenses, and a decline in patient satisfaction.

In this white paper, you'll learn how front-end enhancements within your RCM to include pre-care tasks can keep your organization proactive and profitable, while creating a positive patient experience.

Read more to learn about: 

• Automating front-end RCM functions to increase efficiency and accuracy
• Delivering accurate patient estimates to support regulatory requirements and improve the patient experience
• Strategies for consolidating disparate, siloed systems to improve consistency across the patient journey
• Three simple steps to start making RCM change happen

CMS released its latest quality Star Ratings in July, and Dexur had a 98 percent accuracy rate when predicting where hospitals would fall. This whitepaper provides hospital-specific guidance, which are not final predictions but provide valuable strengths, opportunities & weaknesses for 2024 and beyond. 

You'll learn:  

• What your hospital's 2024 CMS Star Rating range is likely to be
• Challenges hospitals face in managing CMS Star Rating and other programs 
• How Dexur helps hospitals achieve quality excellence 

Finance leaders are standing at a crossroads and must answer the following question: How do you build a strong revenue cycle in the face of fiscal headwinds and a shifting regulatory environment?

In the 2023 Revenue IntelligenceTM Data and Insights report, experts from R1 and Cloudmed examine the converging trends reshaping today's healthcare revenue cycle. The report is based on public and private data on hospital RCM performance and patient experience trends.

In this report, you'll learn:

• Expert tips and actionable insights across 13 steps of the revenue cycle
• How to manage complex claims, challenging payer behavior trends and adjudication lags
• The role digital tools and patient experience can have on your bottom line 

Denials are a consistent healthcare industry challenge, and they are often outside of a health organization’s control (think new payer rules or patients switching medical plans).

What’s the best way to stay ahead of denials in healthcare? With the proper insights and action, health organizations can prevent more upfront denials, empower staff with the right tools, and reduce revenue leakage.

In this report, we’ll dive into: 

• Research on the current state of denials
• Steps to prevent, prioritize, and outsmart denials
• Real world examples on how healthcare organizations benefit from purpose-built automation 
• Strategies to examine where denials most frequently originate and how to stay ahead of them

The Medicaid redetermination process has begun. HHS estimates more than 8 million beneficiaries will be affected by the phase-out and will need to transition to other forms of coverage, making it even more difficult for hospitals and systems to predict and protect revenue. 

This brief whitepaper delves into effective strategies for healthcare organizations to overcome the challenges posed by Medicaid enrollments.

Healthcare leaders will learn: 

• How to overcome barriers with state agencies
• The importance of Medicaid recipient re-enrollment and retention of coverage 
• Opportunities for automation within the revenue cycle process and how to implement it for eligibility and benefits verification
• How patient-centric strategies alleviate payment-related stress and enhance a system’s payment collection success

 

All-too-familiar headwinds in healthcare — staff shortages, reimbursement challenges, rising expenses — aren't just costing hospitals and health systems money; they're causing communities to lose trust in their providers, too. Unpredictable billing and a perceived lack of quality and access lead to fewer patients seeking care, giving preventable health issues time to worsen and spiking healthcare costs down the line.

In a Becker's advisory call, healthcare leaders from top systems across the country shared their latest strategies and where they're finding success in solving today's most pressing problems. This e-book summarizes their insights on revenue challenges, staffing woes, payer relationships and more.

You'll learn: 

• How leaders are mitigating staffing shortages
• Ways to boost financial performance through tech, length-of-stay reductions and less reliance on travel nurses
• One system's unique approach to denials management

Return on investment has always been a focus for hospital and health system leaders, but it's taken on an even greater level of importance as organizations navigate historic financial headwinds. At the same time, investments in surgical robots remain a key way to stay competitive.

So how can organizations do a better job at validating ROI and assessing demand? Becker's Hospital Review hosted a virtual advisory call with healthcare finance leaders to discuss just that.

Download a summary of the session to learn:

• The main challenges systems face when evaluating ROI expectations
• Best practices and frameworks to predict costs and volume growth
• What health systems need to generate buy-in

As is often the case in healthcare, the finance team at Montgomery County Memorial Hospital + Clinics (Red Oak, Iowa) formerly relied on disparate sources to assess the health and longevity of their organization. Time-consuming processes for running reports and multiple login applications meant a lot of wasted time for their financial analysts and larger team. 

In this case study, you’ll learn that the technology Montgomery County Memorial Hospital + Clinics uses streamlined accounting and financial processes and led to a 50 percent reduction in month-end close time.

You'll also see: 

• Key features of the hospital's enhanced system that are driving efficiency and time gains
• How they gained internal buy-in and saw enthusiastic adoption by team members
• Support that led to successful implementation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic

It's no secret that the RCM landscape is more challenging than ever. Staffing issues, increasing claim denials, payer pressures — the list goes on. Hospitals need an edge — something to help rescue millions in revenue.
 
If this resonates for your organization, use this guide to find out if it's time to finally invest in the efficacy and efficiency that comes from end-to-end RCM. 

You'll learn: 

• How end-to-end solves five common, complex RCM challenges
• What to look for in a true end-to-end partnership
• How to raise yield by 2 to 5 percent 

With healthy revenue cycles and operating margins either scarce or nonexistent in 2023, healthcare leaders are relying more than ever on innovative tactics to promote efficiency, cost savings and staff sanity.

This e-book features a collection of Becker's top articles and insights on revenue cycle management this year — a comprehensive guide to equip you and your team with the latest, common challenges among healthcare finance executives; best practices from leading hospitals and health systems; and how organizations are adopting technology like automation for improved operations and revenue.

Download the e-book for more on:

• RCM leaders' take on artificial intelligence
• Spending trends for revenue cycle optimization
• How 42 health systems are boosting their revenues

Healthcare providers have long struggled to get paid for the services they render. New research shows that healthcare financial leaders continue to suffer not only from staffing shortages and bad habits left over from the pandemic but also from mounting obstacles in collecting revenue.

This white paper summarizes 95 survey responses and six interviews with healthcare financial leaders regarding their top revenue cycle challenges and the steps they are taking to address them.

Read this paper to learn:

• What tops the list of RCM headaches
• Where today's RCM solutions fall short
• Why physician productivity remains challenging to measure
• Where AI usage in RCM stands today and expectations for its use tomorrow

Healthcare providers have long struggled to get paid for the services they render. New research shows that healthcare financial leaders continue to suffer not only from staffing shortages and bad habits left over from the pandemic but also from mounting obstacles in collecting revenue.

This white paper summarizes 95 survey responses and six interviews with healthcare financial leaders regarding their top revenue cycle challenges and the steps they are taking to address them.

Read this paper to learn:

• What tops the list of RCM headaches
• Where today's RCM solutions fall short
• Why physician productivity remains challenging to measure
• Where AI usage in RCM stands today and expectations for its use tomorrow

Hospitals are often surprised by the outcomes of CMS programs and struggle to improve CMS Star Ratings. With dozens of measures and frequently changing algorithms, the Star Ratings, Hospital Readmissions Reduction and Value-Based Purchasing programs follow a complex logic that can make it hard for hospitals to find a path to improvement.

This white paper outlines concrete strategies for hospitals to excel at quality and safety and avoid surprises when it comes to the results of these CMS programs.

You'll learn:

4 reasons hospitals struggle with quality excellence
7 ways hospitals can avoid surprises and improve on CMS Star Ratings, HRRP penalties and VBP payouts
How to access predictions on CMS Star Ratings and readmissions and mortality

 

For years, Novant Health had worked to modernize their revenue cycle organization. They had leaned on mail, email, and MyChart to reach patients, and while these initiatives drove incremental improvements, they needed to take a bolder step to simplify patient billing and truly move the needle on reducing bad debt.

To address these challenges, Novant Health launched a new patient engagement and payment platform that integrates into Epic across hospital and physician billing.

Download the case study to learn:

• The impact of launching a new platform at a health system that already made significant investments in MyChart
• Key opportunities to enable a consumer-centric experience for patients
• How they created a low-friction, easy-to-navigate bill payment experience for both patients and team members

With recent advances in artificial intelligence and technology, automation now has the potential to completely transform the healthcare revenue cycle. Today, automation can help simplify several laborious processes including prior authorization, denial management and insurance follow-up.

To discuss current challenges and advances in the revenue cycle, Becker's Hospital Review and healthcare technology company AKASA hosted revenue cycle and technology experts at the RCM Innovation Summit held in conjunction with Becker's 13th Annual Meeting. Organizations represented at the summit included:

• Vermont Medical Center (Burlington)
• Mass General Brigham (Boston)
• Waikiki Health Center (Honolulu)

  Get key takeaways from the summit in this e-book.

Key learnings:  

• Where to start and how to strategically expand automation
• How to Elevate Your Revenue Cycle Staff
• How to get the most out of your automation investment

Health systems are painfully aware of the complexities of revenue cycle management and understand the need for RCM partners. In fact, 93% of health systems rely on at least one RCM partner.

But there are different reasons for pursuing RCM partnerships and very different approaches to partnership. Which approach and partners are best for your organization?

Here are insights from new research conducted with the Health Management Academy:

• 4 key reasons health systems pursue RCM partnerships
• 2 primary approaches to RCM partnership, and the key differences between them
• Factors to consider when vetting and evaluating RCM partnerships
• Why so many leading health systems are considering enterprise RCM partnerships

The key takeaway: RCM partnerships are necessary but they're not all alike. Understand the differences to make the best RCM decision for your health system.

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

Healthcare leaders are preparing for operations and care delivery to look vastly different a few years from now. While digital transformation holds the key to greater efficiencies, cutting-edge care and meeting patients' expectations, the journey is far from simple and demands resilience.

In this e-book, you'll find a collection of seven must-read articles that highlight innovation, challenges and viewpoints of leading hospitals and health systems like CommonSpirit Health (Chiago), UPMC (Pittsburgh) and more as they work toward building a unified digital environment.

You'll find:  

• What leaders predict healthcare will look like in 100 years
• How digital chiefs are preparing for the near future
• Best practices for achieving a unified tech environment that's safe + compliant

Healthcare today is rapidly evolving to facilitate patient care that is decentralized, less fragmented and more competitive. To meet these demands, the industry has begun adopting point-of-care testing (POCT) for convenience and speed over lab-based testing.

To learn more about the state of POCT today, Becker's Hospital Review spoke with Rhonda Ashcraft, laboratory manager for clinical operations with Memorial Hermann Medical Group in Houston, and two leaders from Cue Health, an innovator in molecular point-of-care diagnostics.

This white paper contains insights on:

• The evolution and limitations of antigen testing
• Traditional barriers to molecular POCT and how to overcome them
• Why molecular POCT is becoming the "gold standard" of POCT solutions

Hospital and health systems are all working to attract new patients, retain existing ones and rebuild trust in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Improving access and engagement are key to succeeding in each of these areas. 

Becker's Hospital Review recently spoke with digital experts — including Maria Fernandez, director of patient experience at Emory Johns Creek (Ga.) Hospital — to discuss how to deliver the consumer-centric experience patients are demanding and achieve each of the above goals. 

This brief report covers: 

• Key factors driving patient frustration 
• The type of technology hospitals can use to streamline digital interactions 
• How Emory Johns Creek Hospital is improving staff and patient experience

 

When it comes to the patient experience, standout organizations are those that embrace consumerism and fully understand what patients expect out of technology. What is the preferred technology? How does it increase satisfaction? 

This new report answers these questions and examines more trends affecting the patient experience. It covers:  

• Why healthcare providers need a strong, proven patient-experience strategy 
• Which patient-experience projects should be top priority for providers 
• How artificial intelligence is impacting the quality of digital patient experience 
• 6 practical recommendations for achieving success

Seamless. Cohesive. Unified. These are the praises sung by clinical leaders to describe the transformative impact of a fully connected healthcare delivery ecosystem. When technologies are seamlessly integrated, the result is a streamlined experience for frontline
care teams, enabling them to dedicate their energy to patient care rather than grappling with disjointed tools.

Connexall solutions power the connected hospital with an integrated end-to-end communication platform to promote care quality, enhance patient experience, elevate staff satisfaction, and improve health outcomes.

This interactive guide illustrates examples of how Connexall is helping transform patient care and realize their vision of a becoming truly connected hospitals.

Learning Objectives:

Through this guide, users will:

• Recognize the positive impact that smart integration technology can have on streamlining workflows, improving care delivery, and enhancing patient and staff satisfaction.
• Understand the value of employing a flexible, vendor neutral, and fully customizable use case-based methodology to realize the vision of a smart connected hospital.
• Experience how leading health systems across North America are employing Connexall solutions to more effectively meet the unique needs of their patients, providers, and communities.

Despite the various disruptions and financial headwinds buffeting health systems, one constant remains — a commitment to integrating more patient-facing technologies. However, there is no single solution that can deliver all patients the consumer-friendly experience they crave. And integrating new solutions introduces new operational and user challenges.

To unpack this issue, Becker's Hospital Review hosted an advisory call with technology and patient engagement leaders from prominent hospitals and health systems. Organizations represented on the call include: 

 

• Intermountain Health (Salt Lake City)
• MUSC Health (Charleston, S.C.)
• UPMC (Pittsburgh)

  Download the white paper to learn about:  

• The barriers to a positive tech experience for patients
• Health systems' inclusive, proactive patient-facing digital strategies
• Why change management is the biggest hurdle in any technology journey 

 

Despite best intentions, things can go wrong in fast-paced healthcare environments. Early intervention after a patient-harm event is key to minimizing negative effects for everyone involved: patients, families and staff. 

This report covers how to speed up resolution after patient-harm events, lower costs, and mitigate clinician stress and care team disruptions. Cases close three times faster than the national average in instances where intervention happens quickly and indemnity is paid, according to early findings. 

Learning objectives:  

• Why reporting harm events early is important 
• How early reporting influences both expenses and the lifecycle of a case positively 
• The elements of early intervention and their benefits

Having a seamless onboarding experience is vital to start clinicians off on the right foot and set the stage for employee retention — yet most hospitals lack a unified strategy to bring together the many departments involved, making the process unwieldy, time consuming and costly.

An onboarding process can take up to six months and cost up to $300,000 per clinician, and the cost of losing one nurse is estimated to be $52,350. It's imperative for healthcare
organizations to streamline clinicians' onboarding and hold on to them once they're up to speed.

This white paper details how an automated and seamless onboarding process can be a strategic differentiator and free up clinicians to focus on what really matters: patient care.

You'll learn:

• What parts of the onboarding process are frustrating for providers
• Why efficient onboarding is vital for employee retention, patient care and finances
• How to create a unified, seamless onboarding process through intelligent automation

 

Healthcare in general has made great strides in technological advancements that have transformed the industry. Pharmacy is one area that has yet to embrace advancements at the same pace — even as the pharmacy market grows rapidly. As more prescription drugs are introduced, pharmacies are filling more prescriptions, positioning the industry to grow from $560 billion in 2021 to $862 billion by 2028. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical expenses grew 7.7% in the U.S. in 2021.

The bottom line: Pharmacies can't afford to lag behind on digital innovation. Pharmacy workers are already struggling to keep up with the growing demand, and patients expect the convenience, accessibility and reduced costs that a digital experience can offer. This whitepaper lays out the evidence that the pharmacy industry is poised for a movement and offers concrete ways to prepare. 

You'll learn:  

• The three telltale signs of an incoming movement for pharmacy
• Why it's vital for pharmacies to transform the way they operate
• Strategies for innovation and tech advancement, patient satisfaction and retention, and tackling economic headwinds

How is the demand for physicians and advanced practitioners changing? What recruitment incentives are most effective? This 2023 report examines the key trends healthcare leaders need to know to elevate recruitment strategies and stay competitive. 

The annual AMN Healthcare/Merritt Hawkins Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives is a benchmarking resource used by hospitals, medical groups and other facilities to inform recruitment efforts. 

Download the report to learn:  

• How demand for physicians and advanced practitioners is changing and which are most challenging to recruit
• The types of financial and other incentives used to recruit physicians and advanced practitioners
• The types of practice settings into which physicians and advanced practitioners are being recruited and the types of communities that are recruiting them based on population size

Intermediate-risk chest pain patients — those not classified as low risk or high risk — can be especially tricky for emergency department teams. Clinicians do not have access to straightforward or universally agreed upon next steps for intermediate-risk patients like they do for low-risk or high-risk chest pain patients. 

Efficient and effective care for intermediate-risk patients requires a series of correct clinical determinations and decisions. This white paper explores an evidence-based approach to give ED clinicians confidence when caring for patients presenting with immediate-risk chest pain. 

It covers:  

• Appropriate risk assessment
• Next steps for intermediate-risk patients
• Revascularization versus medical therapy

A recent survey of 950 acute care and med-surg nurses revealed Clinical Decision Support Systems are the top tech tool they believe will lead to better care quality over the next five years.

The new findings also reveal more about hospital nurses' overall outlook on care quality, as well as what they want out of technologies to improve the work environment and patient safety.

Healthcare leaders will learn:

What nurses say they want technology to help them do
Where CDSS are being used outside of the ICU and the value nurses find in them
Key barriers to implementing CDSS outside of the ICU and how hospitals can overcome them

Read the full report.

More and more, healthcare leaders are committing to digital, personalized experiences for patients, acknowledging how these offerings can boost satisfaction and enable smoother connection points between patients, providers and payers.

This white paper narrates a patient's healthcare journey supported by cloud communications, demonstrating how this technology applied to each step — from scheduling to post-op, follow-up and billing — can empower and delight patients and support processes between all key players in the care continuum.

With pressure to achieve more with less, hospitals and health systems are getting more selective with their technology investments. Leaders expect cohesive capabilities like access to real-time information, seamless data exchanges, effective communication and more — all while reducing clinician burden and improving patients' experience at every point of the care journey.

This playbook walks you through key components of a tech-enabled patient room, and how organizations like Novant Health (Winston-Salem, N.C.) and Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital are improving experiences for patients and their families, as well as streamlining clinical workflows for front-line teams.

You'll also find:  

• Case studies linked throughout
• Concrete ways smart room technology supports and satisfies nurses 
• Advances in tech that promote personalization and patient education

These days, digital services play a significant role in the healthcare journey. Yet, most patients say providers’ mobile apps fail to meet their needs. To be competitive and to deliver the best experience, hospitals and health systems must meet patients, employees and health plan members where they are and customize their mobile interactions.

This whitepaper outlines how tailoring mobile experiences for various users creates a more personalized and engaging healthcare experience, ultimately boosting staff and patient experience — and your bottom line.

Key learnings: 

• The benefits of patient and employee mobile apps
• How to adopt personalized mobile strategies 

A pragmatic, open-label, randomized controlled trial at two ICUs at Stanford Medical Center – specializing in the care of cardiothoracic surgery patients or critically ill, medical, surgical and trauma patients – saw significant reduction in hospital-acquired pressure injuries with implementation of the LEAF◊ Patient Monitoring System.

Publication summary covers:

• Improvement in turn protocol adherence
• Reduction in incidence of pressure injuries
• Specifics on ventilator-dependent patients

 

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

 

Healthcare organizations rely heavily on value sets in order to identify distinct patient populations. However, creating and maintaining these important tools is complex and challenging, often diverting valuable resources from other essential tasks.

In this insight brief, we delve into value sets and their importance in various healthcare initiatives such as population health management, quality reporting, clinical trials, and more. We also highlight the challenges organizations face when managing value sets, including:

• Issues with processes such as time-consuming manual data manipulation due to code set updates and inconsistent methods for building value sets; and
• Issues with value set definitions and data ambiguity including competing methods for defining value sets and the frequent absence of a centralized repository in which to store them

Fortunately, like most challenges, there is a solution – in this case, one that leverages comprehensive clinical terminology and code mappings along with innovative tooling to streamline the creation and editing of value sets.

 

After patients have a cryptogenic stroke, 30-day monitoring with Philips mobile cardiac telemetry-MCOT patch realizes significant cost-savings compared to proceeding directly with implantable loop recorder (ILR) alone — that's according to new findings from a cost-minimization model.

The improved atrial fibrillation (AF) detection rates of MCOT followed by ILR reduce the likelihood of a secondary stroke due to new anticoagulant use, resulting in a significantly lower total cost of care.

This study demonstrates:

• MCOT as a first-line evaluation detected 4.6 times more patients with AF compared to ILR alone.
• MCOT followed by IRL resulted in almost 8 times lower costs compared to ILR alone, due to improved AF detection rates and reduction of secondary stroke risk.
• Total cost difference of MCOT followed by ILR vs ILR alone

Gone are the days where genomics is singularly viewed as expensive, hard to implement, and lacking clear benefits and return on investment. 

For forward-thinking healthcare leaders, genomic screening is on the brink of becoming the standard of care.

In this whitepaper, you'll read three experts' thoughts on the evolving clinical and research landscape for genomics, as well as the business case for population genomics at an academic medical center.

Key learnings:

• Explore MUSC's innovative genomics initiative
• The growth of enterprise genomics programs
• How population genomics is transforming clinical care and driving strategic growth

Reporting on data from its latest rankings, The Leapfrog Group said a "dramatic spike" in healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) during 2021 and 2022 "should stop hospitals in their tracks." HAIs lead to increased morbidity, mortality, length of stay, and costs, making infection control paramount for hospitals and health systems. 

Proper use of surgical gloves is a critical aspect of infection control efforts, but surgical gloves come with their own issues, such as being prone to perforation and causing skin problems for wearers after prolonged use. To minimize risks, healthcare providers should develop detailed and consistent guidelines for surgical glove use. 

Download this white paper to learn: 

• Factors to consider to choose the right surgical gloves
• Best practices for safe surgical glove usage
• How to stay up to date on hand hygiene best practices

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

The relationship between health systems and medical equipment can be complicated. The modern standard of care leans heavily on technology to aid diagnostics and treatment. But the cost of advancing care is substantial. In addition to the cost of purchasing equipment, health systems must invest in maintaining these highly technical devices. While the breadth of these demands may seem daunting, standardizing a proactive approach to technical maintenance, supply chain management, regulatory compliance, and cybersecurity can remove many uncertainties from modern care delivery and yield a greater return on a health system’s investments.

In this whitepaper, organizations will learn how to implement a proactive approach to comprehensive clinical engineering for optimal patient care and greater return by:

• Using technology to support a preventative maintenance strategy
• Strengthening supply chains with a dedicated process
• Staying ahead of regulatory developments
• Establishing data-driven cybersecurity protocols for medical equipment

Care management is crucial for people with chronic conditions, many of whom struggle to navigate the healthcare system while managing their health at home. With the healthcare industry still straddling fee-for-service and value-based care, care management stakeholders remain misaligned.

Common pain points, including failing to enroll the right people and missing the mark on holistic, socioeconomically sensitive services, leaving patients in the shuffle.

This whitepaper outlines how care management stakeholders can acknowledge shortfalls and bridge the gaps in financial, technical, and clinical strategies to support better the health and wellness of people with chronic conditions.

Key learnings:

• Insights from clinical executives at a leading national health plan and diabetes management organization
• 5 common pain points in the care management continuum
• Strategies to reinvent the care management status quo

Patients' heightened expectations for convenience and fast responses have spurred healthcare organizations to level up their contact centers, and move away from antiquated "call centers" that have historically led to rerouted calls, inefficiencies and frustration.

This interview with Ron Strachan, Healthcare CIO Advisor at Zoom shares what healthcare organizations — whether a provider, payer or life science company — need to build a modern, robust contact center.

Learning points:

• Why contact centers have gained renewed attention as a top priority
• How a cloud based, video enabled, contact center solution can expand patient engagement and satisfaction
• Ways the modern contact center can increase flexibility for physicians and potentially reduce burnout

As COVID-19 continues, with new variants emerging, the amount of new research and data about COVID-19 testing and treatment is overwhelming, making it hard for clinicians to keep up.

This new e-book provides brief snapshots — one page each — summarizing the latest data and insights on important COVID-19 topics.

Topics include:

• Research shows Paxlovid cuts long COVID-19 risk
• Pediatric cases of COVID-19 jump
• How telehealth can increase access to Paxlovid
• Updates from Pfizer on boosters and a combo vaccine
• How pharmacists delivering vaccines lower healthcare costs
• The growth of new variants
• The impact of COVID-19 on gut bacteria and infections
• Data on COVID-19 and flu coinfections
• Updates on future COVID-19 vaccines and treatment

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

As the subscription economy soars and giants like Amazon explore subscription-based healthcare offerings, it's evident that direct, patient-centric solutions create a financially viable framework that dentists and DSOs can leverage to scale up. 

In this white paper discover:  

• Emerging trends in subscription-based care, plus the rate of industry adoption 
• The ties between patient sacrifice, satisfaction, and profitability
• How to use subscription business strategies to cut patient acquisition costs and extend lifetime value
• Top considerations for implementation in your dental practice(s)

Staffing issues continue to plague DSOs and sometimes it seems as if there is no end in sight. However, there are ways to tackle this problem head on using artificial intelligence.

AI detection assistance gives practices a way to improve clinical performance without requiring more team members or tools. AI is also a crucial element in attracting and training new providers.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn six ways to make your DSO attractive to the most talented providers who will help your organization succeed.

Key learnings: 

• How to showcase AI during interviews with potential new hires
• Ways AI can improve diagnosis and care
• Using AI as a training tool to improve patient education

Dental practices and DSO alike have felt the harsh effects of staffing challenges over the last few years. Almost 60 percent of dental organizations are forecasting that staffing shortages will continue to be their biggest challenge in the remainder of 2023.

Understaffing not only puts a strain on DSOs, but it also has negative implications for the patient experience and care quality. Since staff shortages aren't going away anytime soon, developing a long-term strategy to overcome burnout and do more with fewer staff is critical to DSO success.

In this guide you'll learn how you can leverage technology to: 

• Automate time-consuming administrative tasks
• Shrink practice phone volume
• Give staff flexibility & support
• Improve recruitment efforts
• Keep staff focused on what matters — patients

Investments in the dental space are booming — and for many leaders, navigating the financial ins and outs requires additional partnership and support. In this case study, you'll see how a new, national specialty dental service organization scaled critical back-office services to boost their growth and foster collaboration among clinicians for better patient outcomes.

Read more to learn:  

• The DSO's major growth areas, including $150 million in annual revenue 
• How they tackled key services like accounting, finance, human resources and technology at each practice in the network
• Analytics used and improvement plans developed, as well as strategies for compliance and risk mitigation

The explosive growth and popularity of DSOs over the last year is not without its growing pains. 

To combat challenges such as maintaining high patient and employee satisfaction levels and managing critical financial KPIs, many DSOs are turning to cloud communications.

In this whitepaper, RingCentral leaders Lance Mehaffey, Senior Director of Healthcare Industry Marketing, and John Poli, Healthcare Industry Principal, spoke with Becker's Dental + DSO Review to discuss how DSOs are getting the most out of communication tools. 

Two notable case studies featured in this whitepaper: 

• How Pacific Dental Services decreased patient no-shows
• How Heartland Dental turned missed calls into new patient appointments

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

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.