Archived Whitepapers

For an orthopedic practice, a single surgical procedure requires more than four hours of administrative tasks and 11 staff hours — time that could be spent on more valuable things.

Reducing these administrative burdens to improve surgical care efficiency is a key opportunity for independent operators to stay competitive in their markets.

This white paper outlines five tips to decrease administrative burden and maximize surgical efficiency in orthopedic practices based on expert insights from a panel at the Becker’s Annual Spine & Ortho Conference.

When it comes to the revenue cycle, the conversation often centers on challenges. But in the areas where administrative and financial leaders at ambulatory surgery centers are facing the toughest barriers — denials, the workforce and patient payments — key opportunities exist.
In this e-book, revenue cycle management experts outline four areas where ASCs can flip challenges into strategies for a stronger, simpler revenue cycle by uncovering data and reviewing important trends. 

You will learn:

• A legislative update on hospital price transparency
• A three-step plan to shore up security
• Critical checkpoints to prevent denials now
• Four questions to help quality check your technology

For busy materials managers in ambulatory surgery centers, the top priority is ensuring clinicians have the medical-surgical supplies they need — when they need them — while controlling costs. It’s a daunting task, with caseloads and the cost of supplies continuing to grow.

However, shipping is an overlooked opportunity for significant savings. This brief report covers how Mountain View Hospital lowered shipping costs while supporting quality care through a collaboration with OptiFreight® Logistics.

Readers will learn about key insights that led to success, including:

• Tailored, innovative shipping solutions with no change to current processes
• Dedicated support from a team of committed logistics experts to continuously identify savings opportunities
• Data analytics and dashboards to track performance and share with departments and executive management

Rising specialty drug costs, patient financial pressures, cutting service lines — pharmacy leaders are navigating a tough landscape. As hospitals and health systems strategize to streamline operations and ensure patients' access to necessary treatments, the pharmacy plays a critical role.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn current challenges, creative approaches and best practices pharmacy leaders are using at hospitals and health systems across the country to help manage pharmacy costs.

Key learning points:

• The role of pharmacy departments in controlling costs
• Key metrics leaders are assessing in an evolving billing landscape
• Partnerships that can promote financial well-being

ASCs are laser focused on cost reduction as reimbursements decline, labor shortages persist and patient financial responsibility grows.

In less than a year, Atlas Healthcare Partners — one of the nation’s fastest growing ASC management companies — has been able to significantly free up capacity for existing revenue cycle staff. This has led to measurable financial and productivity gains, and improved satisfaction for patients and staff.

This case study delves into how the company leveraged workforce automation and analytics solutions to solve long standing inefficiencies facing many revenue cycle teams.

Key learning points:

• Using technology to create additional capacity for existing staff
• Optimizing tasks across the RCM cycle, from pre-registration to back-office building
• 4 major areas of improvement when revenue cycle automation is done right

Nearly every healthcare organization is experiencing some kind of staffing challenge.

It's time to work smarter, not harder. That means revenue cycle leaders need to find new ways to do more with less. 

This white paper explores how to streamline processes with intelligent automation, simplify cross-training and onboarding, and cut down on outdated manual processes.

Learnings include: 

• Specific benefits of automation in rev cycle
• How to create an intelligent automation strategy
• How to decide which tasks to automate first

Physicians face a mounting documentation burden, fueling burnout and diverting their attention from direct patient care.

By streamlining documentation processes and adopting tailored solutions, ASCs can give physicians more time back in their day, fostering a more sustainable and fulfilling work environment. This white paper shares how ASC leaders can use AI-powered mobile solutions to capture patient-provider conversations for easier and faster documentation.

Key benefits include:

• Up to two hours saved on documentation daily
• 90% accurate notes generated seconds after a patient visit
• Increased access to patient records

The TOPS System was first implanted in 2005 and the current version has been in clinical use for a dozen years. As of today, thousands of patients have benefited from this innovative system.

This white paper examines how the TOPS System provides an entirely new modality to treat patients with spinal stenosis and spondylolisthesis. TOPS is the first and only FDA-approved facet replacement device with a superiority-to-fusion claim.

A disruptive breakthrough in spinal care, TOPS uniquely addresses the needs of patients, surgeons, facilities and payers to create a broad win for all stakeholders.

Key takeaways about TOPS:

 

• Motion alternative to lumbar spinal fusion
• FDA labeled as superior to spinal fusion
• New Technology Add-on Payment of up to $11,375 for Medicare eligible procedures

 

Inflation and high deductibles mean patients are getting bigger bills, which causes both surprise and confusion. Often, patients don't understand why they owe so much, or they aren't able to meet their financial responsibility even if they do.

Obviously, this is difficult for patients — but it's also debilitating for healthcare organizations.
When patient collections are down, providers face bad debt, poor patient retention, and decreased satisfaction for patients and staff.

It's time to create a better patient collections experience. Providers who take action now can change a potentially bleak future simply by rethinking patient collections. Download the whitepaper to learn how to leverage data to create consumer-friendly experiences, improving both patient engagement and profit margin.

Key points include:

• The current state of patient collections, from deductibles to denials
• Why transparency is key to patient satisfaction + compliance
• Using automation + data to improve patient collections
• How to empower patients to pay with the 3 Cs

The healthcare industry is seeing a wave of mergers, acquisitions and consolidations among specialty care practices as the need for size and scale leads practitioners to seek the capital and resources necessary for growth.

These growth opportunities present risks for physicians who fiercely value and guard their independence and control over their practices. For investors and advisers, recognizing and addressing these concerns when discussing possible deals is critical to successful transactions.

This white paper outlines current specialty consolidation trends and the top challenges of balancing needed growth with desired autonomy.

Key learnings:

• Macro trends in specialty consolidation
• Types of consolidation business models
• Pros and cons of consolidation

At least 1.6 million U.S. adults seek treatment for spinal deformities every year.

The Rationale for Personalized Interbody Devices is a literature review of published research about the potential benefits of patient specific interbody devices. Over 30 studies describe the benefits related to personalized geometry and endplate fit, which may help surgeons achieve sagittal and coronal alignment goals more reliably.

1. Personalized geometry and fit may help surgeons more reliably achieve optimal alignment, which is the most significant predictor of improved clinical outcomes in surgery to correct spinal malalignment.
2. Compared to non-personalized cage designs, personalized interbody cages reduced endplate stress, increased contact area for bone graft loading, lowered stress on posterior rods and caused a lower stress increase on adjacent levels.
3. Endplate conforming cages provided comparable clinical results and fusion rates in comparison to the traditional cage but with decreased postoperative subsidence and a lower severity of subsidence-related neck pain in follow-up.

McLaren Health Care standardized their non-acute supply chain with Cardinal Health’s support. This case study shows how a whole system approach to supply chain, paired with the right leadership, communication and distribution partner, leads to an efficient protocol with continuous improvement.

Discover how you can transform your own supply chain strategy with these non-acute best practices and key learnings, including the use of data and increased visibility. Read this case study to learn more.

ASCs need to keep up with the latest technological developments in order to drive revenue and attract patients. With the global robotic surgery market on the rise, many ASCs are looking to robots to thrive.

The opportunity for greater surgical volumes is ripe for minimally invasive procedures performed in ASCs.

Although robotic surgeries are a costly investment, the migration of procedures to the outpatient setting can ensure a return on investment.

This white paper from Intuitive Surgical, manufacturer of the da Vinci robotic surgery platform, will offer best practices in adding a robotic surgery line to your ASC.

COVID-19 has clearly demonstrated that hospitals rely on surgical services to drive financial results. Even as the pandemic subsides, ongoing case surges are leading todips in OR volume that reduce hospital revenue and erase profitability.

While the OR is “ground zero” for recent financial problems, it also represents the best opportunity to rebuild hospital margins. In fact, better-performing hospitals are now leveraging surgical services to launch a sustainable financial recovery.

Disruptions in the OR workforce, changes in the surgery market and other factors have complicated the path to recovery. To rebuild surgical services revenue, hospital executives need to plan and execute a complete OR reset.

This report details for hospital executives how to lead a post-pandemic financial recovery by reinvigorating OR performance and reworking OR strategy.

With more procedures now performed in the outpatient space than ever, it is critical for facilities to operate at an optimal level. With the right tools and expertise, simple changes to pack programs can boost cost effectiveness and eliminate waste.

This whitepaper offers quick insights into how one surgery center with 12,000 cases annually achieved $100,000 in savings through simple changes to their pack program.

Download to learn more.

When a provider manually runs a claim status check, it takes, on average, 19 minutes and costs providers $9.37.

In 2020, providers made 238 million claim status inquiries by phone, fax or email. Most payers still limit the number of inquiries allowed per call, which means more calls, more work for staff and more time wasted. And that’s before adding in the time it takes to update claim statuses in practice management or hospital information systems.

New financial performance demands are forcing revenue cycle, financial services and billing professionals to reevaluate their approach to claim monitoring. To unlock the cost savings and smarter workflows they need, it’s critical to deploy tech and tools that can easily automates the process. And not just any tech—you’ll need solutions efficient and flexible enough to meet the unique needs of your organization.

This whitepaper breaks down the most effective strategy for achieving smarter claim monitoring and shows you how to navigate the challenges you’ll face along the way.

Download this guide to learn:

• How providers handle claim status inquiries today
• Why current processes are inefficient
• How to solve claims status challenges

ASCs are revolutionizing the total joint replacement market. Current projections are that by 2026, as much as 51 percent of primary hip and knee joint replacement surgeries will be performed at ASCs.

The leadership team at the Beaverton-based Oregon Surgical Institute and their JV partner, Regent Surgical Health, anticipated the future back in 2016 and embraced what at the time might have been considered a risky and uncertain strategy. Ever since, OSI has been making good on its bet.

This whitepaper provides a look into OSI's total joint journey. Learnings include:

• Best practices for practice design
• Insights on building clinical teams
• How to make continuous improvements to TJR programs

Orthopedic spine interventions are associated with a higher risk of opioid dependence and overdose. It is pertinent that surgeons stay vigilant in opioid stewardship, explore ways to improve the patient's postoperative experience and lessen the use of opioids.

This study reveals how advancements in nano-surface technology on spinal interbody devices influenced a reduction in the postoperative opioid usage when comparing the same implant design with and without Nanotechnology.

Download this whitepaper to learn:

• Which factors were predictive of opioid use after surgery
• How interbody surface type was associated with postoperative opioid use

The UNiD™ Adaptive Spine Intelligence Clinical Brief is a summary of evidence around the benefits of UNiD™ Adaptive Spine Intelligence technology and sagittal alignment in general. The evidence summarized within covers adult deformity, degenerative and pediatric deformity patients, with an emphasis on rates of rod fracture and flattening, as well as the ability to predict and achieve sagittal alignment goals with UNiD™ Adaptive Spine Intelligence technology.

Key Points:

• Sagittal alignment is the most dominant radiographic predictor of outcomes in deformity patients
• UNiD™ Adaptive Spine Intelligence predictive models can successfully predict postoperative spinopelvic parameters in the instrumented and uninstrumented spine
• Degenerative patients have been found to be at 10 times greater risk for adjacent segment disease if their PI-LL mismatch is greater than 10 degrees

Cardiovascular health disparities are a major and growing problem in the U.S., particularly in rural communities. But new medical technologies and care moddels are emerging as a top strategy to expand access to advanced care and improve outcomes in all communities.

This report details the challenges and unique opportunities in rural cardiovascular care. Healthcare leaders will gain strategies on how to harness emerging technologies to support greater access to care, early detection and personalized treatment.

Key learning points:

• Top contributors of cardiovascular health disparities in rural areas
• Enable primary care physicians to play a greater role in diagnosing & managing the disease
• How advanced diagnostics and remote-first technologies are closing gaps in cardiac care

Provider credentialing and privileging are essential for ensuring safe, high-quality patient care. While healthcare organizations have access to enormous volumes of data that can support these processes, their healthcare operations are fragmented, so driving better patient outcomes requires synthesizing this information in meaningful ways.

During a Becker's Healthcare advisory call sponsored by symplr, hospital and health system leaders shared their organization's top challenges and opportunities related to credentialing and privileging, as well as how they are leveraging data to improve quality and safety.
Learn these lessons from this whitepaper:

• Many healthcare organizations are data rich, but knowledge poor. How do health systems remove the "empty calories" from their datasets?
• Organizational alignment is critical for effective credentialing and privileging. The need for data literacy can't be overlooked.
• Many organizations struggle with attribution. Health system leaders must learn how to hold providers accountable for the care they deliver.
• Standardized credentialing and privileging is essential. Strike the right balance between system- and industry-level standardization.

The 2.5 million patients in the US who develop hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs) every year cost the nation's healthcare system billions of dollars. However, a wearable device is significantly reducing the risk of PIs compared to standard of care.

A tiny, wearable monitoring device has demonstrated a 94% reduction in the risk of pressure injury, compared to the standard of care. This brief summary covers findings from a meta-analysis of nearly 4,000 patients.

Key learning points:

• An overview of the LEAF◊ Patient Monitoring System
• Why traditional, manual turn reminders are falling to the wayside
• Results from sensitivity analyses

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

Patients care about the clinical care they receive. And, increasingly, they're demanding more from their care experiences as well. With access to new technology and information, patients are eagerly vetting providers and practices for these organizations' ability to meet their needs and expectations.

Health systems must embrace these shifts to maintain their competitive edge now and in the future.

Learnings contained in this e-book include:

• The primary factors patients consider in selecting healthcare providers
• What the next generation of patient care means for security and compliance standards
• The reliable technology solutions health systems need most in this environment

A new study has found significant improvements in readmission rates and healthcare costs in ischemic stroke patients who were monitored with mobile cardiac outpatient telemetry, compared to those monitored with implantable loop recorders.

The research is based on an analysis of de-identified Optum claims data on patients who were hospitalized for ischemic stroke between 2017 and 2020. Download the full findings here.

Key findings:

• Patients monitored with Philips Mobile Cardiac Telemetry - MCOT were at 38% lower risk for emergency readmission for ischemic stroke than those monitored with ILR at 18 months.
• Patients monitored with MCOT following stroke had $27,429 lower average cost of care than those monitored with ILR.
• In the 18 months following the incident stroke, patient survival favored those monitored with MCOT compared to those monitored with ILR.

For infants in the NICU, the transition to independent oral feeding is a key milestone and often a last criterion before discharge. However, some infants need considerable support to develop the skill of non-nutritive sucking — one of the most complex and essential precursors to successful oral feeding. The effects of underdeveloped sucking skills can be profound for both the infants and their caregivers — including delayed transition to full oral feeds, increased length of stay in the NICU, altered neurodevelopmental outcomes and increased parental stress.

In this whitepaper, neonatal experts will share their experiences with feeding challenges for preterm infants and infants in the NICU, and they will recommend preventative measures that can be used in the NICU to address some of these difficulties.

Key discussion topics and takeaways:

• Why infants admitted to the NICU often present with underdeveloped sucking skills and the importance of developing strong non-nutritive sucking abilities.
• How underdeveloped sucking skills affect health or developmental outcomes for an infant.
• What challenges families or caregivers may face once an infant with feeding difficulties is discharged from the NICU.
• Resources, tools and preventative measures for hospitals and caregivers to address challenges with infants and feeding difficulties in the NICU.

A recent survey of consumers with a strong affinity to therapy commissioned by Thriveworks reveals that consumers are leaning into the hybrid world to seek and experience mental healthcare, with high standards for fit and quality care.

These key insights outline how consumers are most likely to seek mental healthcare, their preferences in delivery models and their expectations and desired outcomes in receiving care.

Key points:

• Consumers rely on a mix of the healthcare system and digital tools to guide them in mental health decisions
• Consumers want choice in how they participate in mental health, and they want covered services
• Consumers demand high quality care and are prepared to shop for best fit

When it comes to testing, many health systems limit their approach to focus on specific disease stages or cancer types. This strategy might be a way to fall behind as precision medicine advancements evolve.

To make personalized cancer care more accessible, organizations may consider effectively leveraging genomic testing, which can help identify potential clinical trial options and inform treatment alternatives.

This brief report outlines some ways organizations may make genomic testing more accessible to physicians and patients keeping cost-effectiveness and patient outcomes top of mind.

Key learning points:

Designing a comprehensive genomic testing program that could expand patients' access to cutting-edge care & improve financial results
Persistent challenges that prevent change and potential ways to address them
Good practices to integrate genomic testing into care pathways

Adequate feeding is essential to recovery from critical illness and for improved outcomes. Read this report to learn about a next-generation feeding pump that enables efficient collaboration for multidisciplinary teams, and is designed to support nutritional delivery across the entire continuum of care. Versatile and adaptable, it can feed and hydrate, deliver thick formula, offer multiple feed and flush combinations, and capture and transmit feeding history.

Key learning points:

• Risks of inadequate nutrition and malnutrition in patients
• Challenges of determining a patient’s nutritional adequacy
• How tracking feeding history supports adequate feedings at home

Many hospital pharmacy leaders focus on drug prices alone. But the total cost of a drug is influenced by many other factors. Leaders know this, but they're pressed for time and often unable to complete deeper calculations that fully capture the drivers of total value for drug purchases.

Consider this scenario: A purchase seems to initially offer savings based on a price, but in the long run, those upfront savings prevent more significant total value that may stem from volume discounts and other agreement terms.

Now, more hospital pharmacy leaders are tapping technology to help them identify the total value of purchases, identify systemwide purchase savings strategies and track the performance of those initiatives.

This report covers:

• The holistic drivers of total value on purchase price
•  solution to support time- and resource-strapped pharmacy teams in managing medication inventories
• How health systems are actually using the tool to affect total value

As the U.S. population ages, health systems are readying to care for more patients with Alzheimer's disease. Early detection and quick time to treatment are critical to improve patients' quality of life, but systems are up against key barriers in being able to do so at scale.

Health system executives participated in a roundtable sponsored by Eli Lilly and Company at Becker's 14th Annual Meeting in April to discuss how they're positioning themselves to handle the complexities of Alzheimer's care. This report features key takeaways from the session.

Key learnings points:

• Top obstacles in early detection
• The approaches systems are taking to improve detection & diagnosis
• How multidisciplinary teams and digitizing processes can enhance care coordination

Workforce concerns, capacity strains and heightened cybersecurity risks are underscoring an imperative for hospitals and health systems in 2024: driving efficiency — safely — with technology innovation.

At forward-thinking healthcare organizations across the U.S., clinical and administrative tools powered by automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning are showing promising results (think: increased capacity and patient satisfaction). And despite widespread financial challenges, clinical and IT departments are devoting significant time and resources toward innovation. They're confident these technologies will drive much-needed strides in care team efficiency, quality and patient safety, interoperability and streamlined operational processes.

These 10 recent articles highlight healthcare leaders' current concerns, tech investments and wins to date. They also shed light on where the industry is headed — and where organizations can't afford to fall behind.

Making determinations about observation care in a manner that is clinically appropriate can be challenging amid a lack of unanimity on the structure and duration of such care. However, there are standards and rubrics hospitals can utilize when making critical decisions concerning patients in the emergency department.

Download this whitepaper where William Rifkin, MD, Associate Vice President and Managing Editor at MCG Health, breaks down the general framework around observation care, which aims to help users employ such care correctly to ensure patient safety and reduce friction with payers.

Key learning points:

• Discussion of the intended duration of observation care
• Comparing utilization patterns for selected diagnoses
• Analyzing the stability of observation vs. inpatient rates (including a combined analysis of ED decision making for all potentially ambulatory diagnoses)

Like many health systems, Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Health was challenged with how to optimize drug spend without adding to their staff's already demanding workloads.

Seeking a more efficient and effective tool than their wholesaler analytics platform, Sentara opted to implement a new drug spend optimization platform. The decision helped detect overcharges, simplify the credit and rebill process and identify lower-cost alternatives. Within five months, Sentara eliminated more than $1 million in annual drug spend.

This brief report delves into how the system achieved such significant savings.

Key learnings:

• The advantages of utilizing a spend optimization platform
• Best practices behind the success of Sentara's software implementation
• Benefits of leveraging both a supply chain expert and software to optimize purchasing workflows and drive savings

Los Angeles-based UCLA Health is taking a digital-first approach to patient marketing, and the results are paying off.

The system's marketing team has collaborated with its Office of Health Informatics and Analytics for several years, using data and technology to personalize patients' lifelong health journeys. This white paper delves deeper into UCLA Health's marketing strategy and successful initiatives, including:

• What marketing channels the system uses to connect with consumers
• How the system navigates stringent compliance requirements
• Deployments of new marketing technology from Oracle

Healthcare is gradually becoming more proactive as consumers increasingly engage with remote patient monitoring technology and other digital experiences. Already, healthcare organizations are leveraging data to interact with patients and prevent health issues, but what will all this mean moving forward?

This Forrester trends report leverages analysts' insights to forecast how digital experiences — ranging from chats to the metaverse — will affect the healthcare industry across three key dimensions: revenue, cost savings and patient experiences.

Download the report to learn:

• Which digital interface will affect healthcare the most
• How invisible experiences will have a larger financial impact
• Ways proactive engagement prevents illness before treatment is needed

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

At Ascension, every piece of technology and process within its facilities has a critical role in supporting the mission of providing compassionate, personalized care to all, especially those who need it most. Medical equipment inventories can often be an overlooked resource within healthcare systems until a device is unavailable for delivering care.

Learn how, with TRIMEDX and a comprehensive clinical asset management strategy, Ascension identified and acted upon proactive opportunities that leveraged its medical equipment and amplified the positive impact the organization has on patients, staff, and communities.

 

Registered nurses with less than one year of employment make up as much as 83% of a hospital's total turnover. That's because the transition into practice for today's nursing graduates has never been more demanding. Patients have more complex care needs. Nurse-to-patient ratios are higher. Technological advances requiring ongoing training continue at a dizzying pace.

Faced with these challenges, healthcare organizations must take a proactive approach leveraging historical data to develop predictive analytics to manage nurse onboarding and retention. This whitepaper shares how nurse leaders can apply a quality improvement methodology to streamline the onboarding process while addressing work-life balance concerns to successfully retain new nurses beyond their first few years of practice.

Key takeaways:

• 7 questions to consider when assessing your onboarding strategy
• 4 strategies to streamline new nurse onboarding
• The benefits of a centralized onboarding model

Operating rooms are complex spaces. Staff are working in close proximity and are under pressure to minimize the overall time spent in surgery and the potential risk to patients. It's a delicate balance to make sure everything goes right, and physicians are now looking to an unexpected place to address longstanding challenges in the OR: the surgical gown.

With safety and efficiency in mind, two Mayo Clinic physicians have reimagined the surgical gown to reduce instrument drops and improve instrument accessibility. One of the physicians recently caught up with Becker's to share how a simple change can help minimize contamination risks, procedural delays and enhance overall convenience and efficiency.

Download this brief summary to learn about:

• How a gown redesign can address key complexities in the delicate choreography of surgery
• Simplifying communication among OR staff
• The science behind "an extra hand" in resource-constrained environments

The pharmacy supply chain is costly, complex and constantly challenged by technology gaps and manual processes. Baptist Health Chief Pharmacy Officer Nilesh Desai is, in his words, "taking the bull by the horns" and transforming his health system's pharmacy operations on an unprecedented scale.

Under Mr. Desai's leadership, the Louisville, Ky.-based system is centralizing, automating and optimizing pharmacy operational, clinical and regulatory processes across nine hospitals and 450+ ambulatory care sites. This whitepaper details Baptist Health's success story so far, offering insights into tackling top challenges pharmacies are facing today — rising costs, drug and labor shortages, pricing/reimbursement complexities, and increasingly stringent regulations.

Download the whitepaper to learn how to:

• Gain real-time visibility into and control over drug products to optimize inventory, reduce costs, and minimize waste and expiry
• Free pharmacists from manual inventory management tasks and allow more time for patient care
• Centralize oversight of regulatory requirements to maintain safety and compliance

In the face of sustained financial pressures on healthcare organizations, leaders should consider innovative approaches to cost savings. One surprising area that can yield positive results? Your outpatient pharmacy strategy.
 
Specialty drugs account for more than half of drug spending. As employee benefit costs continue to cut into hospital margins, transitioning your outpatient pharmacy strategy to filling employees' specialty prescriptions in-house can generate significant savings — with the added benefit of improving patient satisfaction and care quality through expanded resources.
 
This whitepaper examines how a critical access hospital drove $300,000 in additional value from its employee benefit plan in one year and extended community care.
 

You'll learn:

• How to drive additional value in employee benefit plans
• New ways to capture specialty prescription volume in your outpatient pharmacy
• Real-world examples of challenges and successes

Hospital-at-home care programs have grown exponentially in recent years, enabled by technological advances and regulatory changes. While widespread evidence points to their success in alleviating capacity issues, lowering costs and improving the patient experience, not every system has been able to realize these benefits.

This white paper shares five key lessons from Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor and Allina Health in Minneapolis, two systems that have built thriving hospital-at-home programs.

Key learning points:

• Important actions health systems have taken to plan for and stand up a hospital at home program
• Identify and overcome barriers related to launching a program
• Best practices and to grow and maintain a strong program

Innovation is essential to more effectively treat medical conditions, meet patient demand and ensure success for hospitals. However, getting buy-in for new treatments from physicians and raising awareness in the community can be a challenge.

The Hackensack Meridian Neuroscience Institute at Hackensack University Medical Center became the first hospital in New Jersey to offer focused ultrasound treatment for tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease and essential tremor in June 2021. The team knew that to build a successful program, they would need to develop a marketing campaign that targeted patients as well as physicians.

Download the white paper to learn how they built brand awareness, surpassed their goal for cases in the first year and maximized the campaign's reach to potential patients.

Medical technology has advanced exponentially in recent decades, dramatically improving healthcare delivery and outcomes. But patient access is equally important and vital to healthcare organizations’ operational performance and the patient experience.

However, organizations commonly struggle to find the right balance in these two areas. Organizations must maintain high operational maturity and a strong patient experience to strengthen patient loyalty and improve efficiency, build a positive reputation, and gain an edge over their competitors.

Download this e-book and see where your organization falls on the patient access maturity matrix.

Learning points:

• Common barriers to patient access and top areas of focus
• Ways for organizations to balance the patient experience and operations
• Steps to develop and execute a plan to improve patient access

Patients are consumers, too. Are you providing the experiences they demand?

Only 4% of U.S. residents feel consumer experiences have improved over the past year, according to a study by Customer Contact Week Digital. A staggering 57% feel they've gotten worse. 

As competition in healthcare intensifies, hospitals and health systems can gain a competitive advantage by crafting an exceptional consumer experience. The trends detailed in this e-book reveal what consumers crave from digital experiences. 

Learnings include:  

• How to align the digital experience strategy with consumer needs. 
• How to harness cutting-edge tools and other advanced consumer experience solutions.
• A breakdown of how AI is revolutionizing the consumer experience across industries.

 

The patient experience revolution is here. Across industry surveys, rankings and ratings, the message is loud and clear: Too many patients feel their healthcare needs aren't being met, and providers are lagging in offering streamlined and personalized experiences.

Patients are frustrated by poor communication, hard-to-solve billing disputes and — when they are able to get an appointment — feeling rushed. As a result, more providers are innovating and exploring possibilities in elevated care models, including personalized primary care via concierge medicine or membership-based healthcare.

In these five must-reads, you'll learn about:

• New wellness models being embraced by health systems
• Innovation in primary care
• Why patient experience scores are on the decline

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 health-at-home programs and outpatient procedures gain momentum, the need for effective communication with patients across diverse care settings becomes more crucial. Concurrently, the rising acuity of patients and the anticipated increase in inpatient volumes over the next decade pose new challenges.

Hospitals and health systems are increasingly embracing communication technology to enhance the patient experience, address labor shortages and foster better collaboration among clinicians. However, the implementation of such technology requires careful consideration to avoid compromising patient experience.

This white paper outlines strategic approaches for healthcare organizations to thoughtfully implement communication technology to help — not hurt — the patient experience.

Key learnings:

• The rise of hospital 'smart' rooms
• Virtual communication 'don'ts' that can hinder patient experience
• The benefits of an integrated virtual communication technology strategy

Over the last decade, health systems have faced new and expanded challenges that undermine their ability to deliver cost-effective care. From rising demand to staffing crises and evolving economics, the current market environment has strained resources across the board. This strain is especially evident in mental health care, which is increasingly delivered in the emergency department, despite 62% of EDs lacking the services to effectively manage patients in crisis. At Brightside, we believe there is a better way to meet both the clinical and financial needs of acute mental health treatment by leveraging telepsychiatry solutions for post-discharge care.

Learn more in our latest whitepaper where we will:

Review the ongoing challenges health systems face providing mental health care in the ED today.
Examine why post-discharge care is so vital for higher severity patients and how technology-enabled telehealth solutions can help ease the burden.
Explore how health systems can partner with technology-enabled telepsychiatry solutions to improve access, outcomes, and ED throughput
Discuss the latest clinical outcomes from Brightside Health’s technology-enabled telehealth solution.

After more than 18-million hours on more than 150,000 hospitalized patients, independent analyses show the LEAF Patient Monitoring System helps prevent painful and life-threatening pressure injuries. In fact, several institutions reported reductions of up to 85% in sacrococcygeal hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPIs).

This whitepaper details how LEAF reminders sent wirelessly from the wearable sensor to a display at the nurses’ station, have been shown to exceed turn protocols from the national average of 48% to a turn adherence rate of 98%. If each HAPI represents an average financial burden of $21,767, reducing the incidence of avoidable cases could save the average hospital hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars each year.

Hospital pharmacy budgets have faced major challenges in recent years. While the procurement process is crucial for managing costs, too often, it's disjointed — resulting in supply delays and funds lost in inefficiencies and overpayments. Proactive systems like Indianapolis-based Indiana University Health are addressing the issue with added operational support.

In this paper, you'll access insights from a discussion with pharmacy leadership at IU Health and learn how they implemented a centralized service center (CSC) to improve hospital operations, clinical workflows, and patient and employee satisfaction.

You'll learn:

• How CSCs help with medication management and non-pharmacy supply chains
• IU Health's advice + best practices for other organizations planning to stand up a CSC
• Strategies for meeting established milestones and measuring success

Enhanced disinfection methods, such as UV-C and sensors, have gained significant popularity in the past few decades as an important component of disinfection protocols in hospitals, particularly in high-risk areas like operating rooms. Nevertheless, hospitals encompass a much larger space, and the requirement to minimize microbial contamination on surfaces and in the air extends far beyond the confines of the operating theater.

In this whitepaper, Look Beyond the Operating Room, you’ll learn: 

• How you can implement sustainable technology in your hospitals and healthcare facilities
• Cost-effective options for cleaning methods
• Ways to continuously clean surfaces and air in different rooms within healthcare settings

Hospital pharmacy work has grown increasingly challenging over the decades. This has led to a new era of pharmacy supply chain management – the rise of the consolidated pharmacy service center (CPSC), where operational, clinical and regulatory processes are centralized in one place using a robust supply chain or warehouse management solution.

In this insightful guide, Valerie Bandy, PharmD, MBA, BS, RPh, discusses CPSCs and dispels common misconceptions. Dr. Bandy highlights the broader benefits beyond cost reduction, including inventory optimization, staff redeployment and enhanced patient care.

Key takeaways:

• Identify the five CPSC myths that are top of mind for pharmacy supply chain leaders today.
• Recognize the importance of integrated pharmacy supply chain and warehouse management systems within CPSCs.
• Understand the strategic role of CPSCs in efficiently managing a wide range of services.
• Learn how CPSCs enable a sharper focus on critical operational and patient care requirements.

Efficiency is the name of the game for hospitals and health systems right now, especially when it comes to staffing. Yet, most hospitals' onboarding process takes months, is disjointed and costly — not to mention frustrates new employees.

To better support staff and reduce unnecessary spending, healthcare organizations must streamline clinicians' onboarding process, which sets the stage for retention and frees up time to focus on what really matters: patient care.

This white paper details how a streamlined, automated onboarding process can be a strategic differentiator. Download to learn more about:

• Current hurdles and inefficiencies in most onboarding processes
• The role of technology in simplified clinician onboarding
• How better onboarding supports regulatory, licensing and compliance needs

Nurses are leaving the workforce in droves with 800,000 expected to leave their roles in the next few years. This exodus is driven by retirement as well as key issues including high stress, COVID-19-related burnout, dwindling support staff and safety concerns.

If hospitals and health systems want to retain and attract nurses, they must reduce caregiver burden, enhance safety protocols, improve nurse well-being and remain patient-focused.

In this white paper, three nursing experts discuss the role new technology can play in addressing nursing-related challenges.

The experts include: 

• Annette Brown, BSN, RN, chief nursing informatics officer, Eisenhower Health (Rancho Mirage, Calif.)
• Marianne Hatfield, RN, DNP, chief nursing officer, Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center (Marietta, Ga.)
• Michael Williams, MD, chief medical information officer, UVA Health (Charlottesville, Va.)

  Key takeaways: 

• Why documentation is a significant burden for healthcare staff — especially nurses
• The importance of grounding efforts to unburden nurses in workplace safety
• How new technologies are driving safer, more connected care and reducing caregiver burden

Healthcare marketers must constantly work to balance patient privacy concerns with the need to engage with patients on digital platforms. Updated guidance from the HHS on web tracking technology and HIPAA have complicated this balancing act, making it difficult for healthcare teams to supply important data to their most critical marketing tools in a HIPAA compliant way.

In this guide for healthcare marketers, readers will learn how to bridge the gap between patient privacy and digital marketing quickly and cost-effectively.

Key learnings include:

• How to navigate HHS guidance around tracking tools and technologies
• How to make your most important analytics and marketing tools HIPAA compliant
• How to do digital advertising without sharing protected health information

Healthcare leaders don't have to feel helpless when it comes to addressing the rising rate of suicide in the U.S. With the right insights, organizations can quickly identify rising risk and intervene in the moments that matter.

This latest whitepaper from NeuroFlow explores how organizations can take a data-driven approach to suicide prevention and population risk management. It covers how real-time data provides greater visibility into previously overlooked populations, and how these insights arm care teams with the tools and confidence they need to prevent crises.

This white paper will answer key questions such as:

• What is the cost of suicide on the healthcare industry and society?
• What is the liability of suicide prevention programs?
• What are innovators doing to identify at-risk individuals at scale?

Precision oncology has made huge strides in recent years. Thanks to advancements in technology, bioinformatics and computer modeling, many providers are now able to incorporate precision oncology into their day-to-day practice, ensuring patients receive precise diagnoses and are then connected to the right treatment or clinical trial. 

But roadblocks remain. Health equity is a major concern, both because limited data could exacerbate health disparities and because many patients cannot afford care. Additionally, a large pool of patients is needed to ensure comprehensive data, and some payers still need to be convinced of precision oncology's value. 

During a Becker's advisory call, leaders from hospitals and health systems across the country discussed these challenges and how the field will continue to evolve, offering insights on how organizations of any size can find success utilizing precision oncology for treatment. 

Download the white paper to learn: 

• The biggest roadblocks to precision oncology today + strategies to overcome them
• How leaders are addressing health equity, reimbursement + more
• How to prepare for the future of precision oncology

Healthcare leaders are optimistic that generative artificial intelligence will benefit operations, staff and patients, but many are proceeding with caution in leveraging this budding technology.

In this article, you'll find a recap of an exclusive discussion with health system clinical and technology leaders, who candidly share their stance on generative AI, how they're currently using it and what's "keeping them up at night."

Download to learn more about: 

• Where health systems currently stand in generative AI adoption
• Key patient considerations (age, data ownership, etc.)
• How leaders are navigating challenges and concerns in accuracy, safety and unintended consequences

As precision medicine and genomic testing become increasingly accessible, more health systems are building robust programs to scale innovative, high-quality and personalized care. But with these exciting possibilities come myriad implementation challenges — from organizational alignment and data capabilities to simply knowing where to start. 

In this white paper, you'll learn how health system leaders are building their precision medicine programs, fueled by genomics, and tips for navigating common challenges along the way. 

Download to find more on: 

• Approaches to strategic partnerships
• Data and tech capabilities that drive successful programs
• The need for aligning incentives/payment models
• How to ensure equitable access in precision medicine

 

Achieving the Quadruple Aim — improving population health, cost of care, patient experience and provider satisfaction — requires innovation. While there isn't a silver bullet, many health systems are prioritizing tools and interventions that hit all four buckets at once. One such tool is point-of-care molecular diagnostic testing.

In this white paper, you'll learn how a decentralized PCR testing infrastructure supports all aspects of the Quadruple Aim, and how health systems are using technology to scale quick, accurate and accessible tests for better outcomes.

Download to learn more about:

• Benefits of decentralized testing, including reduced length of stay and readmissions
• How decentralized PCR testing data supports disease tracking + antibiotic stewardship
• How standardized molecular diagnostics helps health systems achieve the Quadruple Aim

With unrelenting staffing constraints, healthcare leaders are laser focused on the entering workforce. Effectively supporting workforce strategies requires a deep understanding of new practitioners’ preferences and desires.

In this report, you’ll have access to survey findings and perspectives of 13,000 medical residents in their final year of training. The report sheds light on the level of demand for graduating medical residents, as well as their practice preferences and plans. As a thought leadership resource, this analysis also is intended to help healthcare organizations recruit medical residents and assess the priorities of newly trained physicians entering the field.

Download for more insights on:

 

• The relative importance of various job features as residents evaluate practice opportunities
• The population size of communities where residents would most like to practice
• The types of practice settings residents prefer

 

The combination of rapidly evolving cancer treatment guidelines and constant FDA approvals and label expansions for new cancer treatments makes it difficult for cancer centers to keep up with the latest best practices for cancer care. With more treatment options comes more complex decision-making, leading to decision fatigue for clinicians who are trying to keep the most current information top of mind when choosing treatment plans for patients. On top of this, the increase in therapeutic options puts new demands on administrators responsible for achieving financial and operational goals.

  With customizable clinical decision support, cancer centers can: 

• Equip clinicians with evidence-based medicine, clinical research, and site-specific preferences at the point of care
• Streamline clinical and pharmacy workflows with clinical decision support embedded directly into the electronic health record (EHR)
• Standardize the delivery of high quality care across cancer center sites and patient populations
• Drive financial success by capturing and reporting payer-required data elements

In the transformative world of healthcare right now, one topic is at the center of all the headlines: the critical nursing shortage. This gap of over 1 million nurses nationwide is the culmination of years of declining nurse enrollment amplified by the pandemic. As hospitals must function with fewer RNs without sacrificing quality care, the use of virtual care has emerged as a potential savior to a dire situation.

Hospitals across the U.S. are dipping their toes into the world of virtual nursing, but many are unsure where to start and not making much progress. Yet Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth has been in the virtual care game for years and can be viewed as a roadmap for other facilities looking to cope with capacity challenges, staffing shortages and extended emergency department wait times.

Download the whitepaper to learn:

• Concrete strategies and starting points for implementing virtual care
• How virtual nursing can improve employee retention and patient outcomes
• Real-world results from a successful virtual nursing program

Health systems are increasingly tapping travel allied healthcare professionals to address urgent workforce needs. 

While permanent allied healthcare staff remain hard to find in local markets, travelers have proven a reliable supplement with geographical flexibility. However, the job market has become more competitive as demand for a flexible allied healthcare workforce grows nationwide.

This white paper outlines numerous strategies healthcare organizations can use to successfully staff allied healthcare travelers.

Key learnings: 

• The benefits of employing allied travel professionals
• Five ways to make allied travel assignments more appealing
• Workers' biggest pain points in the job search process 

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 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.

 

Nationwide value-based payment may become a reality in the next 5 to 10 years, and industry players need to be prepared. 

This white paper breaks down three possible scenarios for nationwide value-based care. In each scenario, industry experts describe what the future could look like, how it might unfold, and what that means for major stakeholders in healthcare — and what to do if this future doesn't look rosy for your organization.

Key takeaways: 

• See how three different scenarios catalyze value-based care
• Discover who gains the advantage and how each projected path forward affects major stakeholders
• Learn how to secure a place in a value-based care future

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

Sophisticated personalization has existed for more than a decade from companies like Amazon and Netflix.

And because of that, personalized experiences are what consumers expect.

But as of 2023, receiving a personalized experience from a healthcare provider is an anomaly.

Because of this, patients are increasingly disappointed with the experience their providers deliver (and are starting to look at alternatives).

This whitepaper explores the personalization journey of two leading health systems and provides steps you can take to implement at your organization.

Discover how:

• Leading health systems combat patient leakage and maintain a competitive edge
• Personalization can help you save anywhere from $6–40 for every call avoided
• Leading health systems achieve 95%+ patient satisfaction

Across the country, hospitals and health systems are adopting new technology with the same, ambitious double aim: to improve patient outcomes while managing skyrocketing costs. With an evidence-based, clinical decision support tool — embedded into their clinical workflow — Greensboro, N.C.-based Cone Health Cancer Center saw marked improvement in both of these metrics. 

This case study reviews the research performed and the impact researchers found on patient survival rates and contribution margins.

Read more for key insights on: 

• The value of reducing care variation
• The cancer center's clinical and financial successes, including enhanced patient survival rates and a 74 percent contribution margin increase
• Anticipated effects on provider efficiency and physician burnout

 

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

Increasing industry pressures are complicating hospitals' efforts to increase clinical productivity, cut costs and protect future growth opportunities. Reimbursements are universally declining, and value-based models are more prevalent in healthcare — making cost reduction a growing priority. At the same time, data breaches are on the rise and hospitals are being forced to make bigger investments due to the rising tech burden.

This whitepaper shows how hospitals are harnessing the power of technology and artificial intelligence to increase productivity, improve clinician satisfaction, and work anytime, anywhere.

Find out how your hospital can experience: 

• AI-driven GI documentation workflows
• Increased cybersecurity
• Robust enterprise reporting; and
• Advanced, always current medical content

Integrating behavioral health into physical care is a top priority for many healthcare organizations. However, building an integrated program or enhancing an existing one is a challenging task. Overwhelming demand for mental health services, ongoing financial challenges and escalating staff burnout create considerable roadblocks for organizations planning to integrate behavioral health.

Still, many leading healthcare organizations have identified and implemented evidence-based models that meet the needs of their populations with consistently positive outcomes. NeuroFlow has distilled that experience and advice into a helpful guide providing the tools your organization needs to develop an effective roadmap for integration.

In this whitepaper you'll learn:  

• How to advance integrated behavioral health programs based on your organization's unique needs
• Opportunities to scale integrated behavioral health programs and key considerations to achieve financial sustainability
• How leading systems have successfully launched and expanded integrated behavioral health program

Spending on specialty drugs grew to $301 billion in 2021 — and it's projected to surge even more over the next two years. Amid these projections, health systems are rethinking strategies to best manage the costs and complexities of their specialty medications.

In this interview, hear from Cardinal Health’s specialty drug inventory expert about inventory technology that enables providers to better manage specialty drug inventory and ensure these expensive products aren't going to waste.

Learning points:

• Prepare for unpredictable demand without incurring carrying costs for limited distribution drugs
• Optimize your specialty inventory spend by only buying products you use
• Eliminate waste due to expired specialty medications

The long-term care sector is emerging from COVID-19 wounded yet equipped with plenty of lessons learned in infection prevention. While improving quality and patient safety will take substantial, concerted efforts, there are small but powerful changes facilities can make today to promote better outcomes.

This guide offers a collection of updated, evidence-based guidelines for hand hygiene and surface disinfection to support your team as you navigate forward. You'll find actionable tips and insights on:

• Post-COVID revisions to infection prevention regulations
• Criteria for evaluating hand hygiene and surface disinfection products
• Resources that propel improved safety culture and infrastructure

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

The last half century has borne witness to a new paradigm in healthcare delivery. What was once unimaginable — namely performing surgery anywhere other than the hospital — has become commonplace. Today, more than 50 percent of surgeries are performed in outpatient settings, including ASCs and hospital outpatient departments. 

Despite the growth in outpatient procedures, challenges remain. Barriers to the continued expansion of outpatient procedures include differential payments for various sites of care, inadequate compensation for preoperative patient optimization, competing hospital priorities, and inequities in patient access.

This whitepaper provides a comprehensive overview on current trends in outpatient procedures and what  healthcare organizations must do to remain successful in the future.

Key learnings:  

• Current and future regulatory and financial trends 
• Key considerations for shifting procedures to lower sites of care
• How benchmarking tools can provide guidance

 

Stubborn workforce challenges brought to the surface the need for streamlined care coordination and augmented, unburdened staff. Innovative health systems are exploring what's possible via artificial intelligence-powered technology, not only to address these issues but also to meet patients' rapidly changing needs and preferences — whether inside or outside the four walls of a hospital room.

In this white paper, you'll see insights gleaned from an executive roundtable at Becker's Hospital Review's 2023 Annual Meeting in Chicago, where leaders discussed the role of automated intelligence and platform-based tech in these areas. Read more to learn about:

• Core tech features of the redesigned, modernized patient room
• How clinical care coordination centers address efficiency and patient needs
• Why leaders should think twice before fully outsourcing to an AI system

For hospitals and health systems to achieve long-term financial sustainability in the face of economic pressures, a one-size-fits-all approach to payments isn't going to cut it.

In an advisory call, leaders from NYC Health + Hospitals in New York City, Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh and Baptist Memorial Health in Memphis, Tenn., discussed the patient payment landscape, and shared strategies to improve payment processes and the patient experience.

In this e-book, you'll learn what these healthcare organizations and others are doing to create a culture that fosters positive financial conversations with patients.

Key learnings:

• Tips for increasing point-of-service collections
• Best practices for educating patients on financial responsibility and health insurance
• How to personalize payments for a better patient experience

Outstanding outcomes and lower costs are the hallmarks of ambulatory surgery centers. However, consistently delivering these results isn't easy, especially for complex procedures such as spinal surgery and joint replacements. To ensure high patient satisfaction and reduce hospital readmissions after such procedures, effective pain management is essential.

Becker's Healthcare recently spoke with four physicians about how pain management protocols in ASCs have evolved as more patients and procedures have shifted to outpatient settings and as the opioid crisis persists. Experts also shared the core components of a successful multimodal pain management program. The ASC surgical and pain management experts tapped for their insights included:

• Michael Briseño, MD, North Texas Orthopedics and Spine Center (Grapevine, Texas), Texas Health Orthopedic Surgery Center Heritage (Fort Worth, Texas)
• Jonathan Hyde, MD, Miami Spine Specialists
• Richard Teames, MD, BSN, Dallas-based Valiant Anesthesia Associates
• Shane Zamani, MD, Surgery Center at Doral (Fla.)

Healthcare facilities can't afford missteps in protecting their staff and patients — with 1 in 31 patients enduring a healthcare associated infection on any given day and hospitals spending $28.4 billion on this issue annually, leaders must prioritize the tried-and-true protocols that promote safety, including best practices for exam gloving.1

In this guide, you'll learn the key steps to properly select, store and use exam gloves to ensure the optimal health and well-being of your patients and clinicians.

You'll have access to resources including:

• An exam glove clinical application matrix to help you choose the right exam glove in every clinical setting
• An exam glove storage guide
• Step-by-step instructions for putting on and removing exam gloves for the best possible protection

Healthcare organizations face immense challenges, including staffing, financial and regulatory challenges. Success in this environment requires transformational leaders who can inspire teams and drive impactful change.

In healthcare, transformational leadership yields numerous benefits, including employee engagement and retention, patient safety and organizational achievement.

The key question is: how to develop truly transformational leaders?

This new white paper lays out exactly what transformational leadership is, what the benefits are and most importantly – how to become a transformational leader.

Download this white paper now to learn:

• The definition of transformational leadership
• Characteristics of transformational leaders
• The many ways that transformational leadership benefits an organization
• Four steps to become a transformational leader

 What trends are shaping the direction of the healthcare industry in 2023? We surveyed consumers to understand how they look for care, including how search, ratings/reviews, and other factors influence their choice of a provider. It’s clear that digital drives the patient journey – and 86% of patients say they read online reviews, up from 72% last year.

Our concise and hard-hitting trends guide shares concrete feedback that providers can use to become more patient-centric and successful.

You’ll learn:

• How patient feedback drives business results.
• How Google influences the patient journey.
• Why in-network retention is at risk.

No shows are a real problem for healthcare organizations, costing the industry an estimated $150 billion annually. In addition to higher costs to the care provider, patients who fail to show up for their appointments often require more expensive emergency care later on.

Understanding who is most likely to no-show for an appointment — and why — is important to determining how to best tackle the issue.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn:

• 3 strategies that don't move the needle on no show rates
• 5 common misconceptions about patient behavior and motivations
• 7 things that actually work to radically reduce the number of no-shows

Consumers today can have virtually any product delivered overnight, choose what to watch with the touch of a button, and look up any topic in seconds — and they expect the same level of convenience from their healthcare providers.

Online reviews, the expectation of price transparency and the popularity of wearable health-tracking devices are all influencing the way patients seek medical care. This e-book explores five trends in care delivery transforming the modern patient experience. 

Key learnings include:

 

• How patients are choosing healthcare providers today
• Why price transparency is a must
• What patients are looking for in the care experience

 

Staffing challenges mean it’s increasingly difficult to maintain on-time patient turning and prevent pressure injuries. Fortunately, the latest guidelines detail recommended prevention protocols and promote new technology that can remind staff of turning times.

In this paper, see:

 

• Highlights of the guidelines in an easy-to-read format.
• A comparison between auditory cueing and wireless patient monitoring technology.
• A case study showing how wireless patient monitoring improved efficiency for nursing staff and significantly reduced HAPI incidence in a 145-bed general hospital.

The first patient monitoring system designed to aid pressure injury prevention protocols is the LEAF◊ Patient Monitoring System, which 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

Research from Healthgrades shows that women are missing out on vital health screenings — around 55 percent of women skipped or delayed preventive care in the last year and were 48 percent more likely to do so than men.

But whether it’s navigating patients' post-pandemic perceptions or concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion, health system and pharma marketers can help female patients prioritize wellness and make confident healthcare decisions.

Download the special report to learn:

• Why women are missing out on care
• What obstacles prevent women from addressing health concerns
• The 3 biggest things women look for in a healthcare provider
• How marketers can enhance patient experiences and outcomes + 4 ways they can better serve women

In today’s digital landscape, anesthesia teams cannot document procedure details by hand or use AIMS software that doesn’t properly manage the entire perioperative encounter. These inefficient, outdated tools risk patient safety and can lead to staff burnout.

In this white paper, you'll learn about the perioperative AIMS software that led an anesthesia group in a Florida health system to success with EHR integration, mobile flexibility, and an intuitive user interface.

Discover the benefits through their eyes — from improved staff satisfaction, documentation, and patient safety to cost savings and streamlined OR processes.

Read more to find out how your facility could enable:

 

• Automatic charting of patient vitals with wireless data streaming from anesthesia monitor machines
• On-the-go documentation with a mobile tablet that allows for real-time patient check-ins
• Improved patient safety and compliant documentation from pre-op to post-op and billing
• Increased staff satisfaction within an understaffed workforce

 

When it comes to blood transfusions, there simply is no room for error. Despite advances in technology and process controls, incidents involving errors that could result in wrong transfusions are all too common. To see real improvements, a new approach to transfusion safety is needed.

Point-of-care blood management systems can help reduce transfusion errors while improving efficiency and lowering costs. Discover how the implementation of this system helped one hospital save $436,000 annually.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn:

• The problems hospital blood supply chains face today
• Why the role of point-of-care blood management systems is more critical than ever
• How point-of-care blood management systems help support transfusion safety, compliance and efficiency while reducing costs

Patient readmission rate is a key metric used to assess a hospital or health system's quality of care. High readmissions are a big indicator of a failure to properly address patient health management.

This white paper outlines how one health system successfully reduced readmissions for chronically ill patients by utilizing remote patient monitoring.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn:

• Best-practices for implementing a sustainable and effective remote patient management program.
• How Grand Forks, N.D.-based Altru Health System achieved significant reductions in readmissions for specific clinical case uses and expanded its remote patient monitoring program.
• How remote patient monitoring programs can increase patient-provider communication, improve patient engagement and encourage patient self-management.

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had profound, rippling effects on reproductive healthcare and access to contraceptive services — immediately. Industry leaders are bracing for change.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn how community health center leaders and their organizations are adapting to the rise in demand for contraceptive care and how they're addressing barriers to providing services for patients.

Read more for insights on:

• The emerging role of primary care providers as key figures in contraceptive counseling, service delivery and access, and how leaders can support them in this role
• Navigating barriers to contraceptive care, such as insurance challenges
• Empowering staff to make time for contraceptive counseling and education and patient-centered care

Are we doing everything we can for vascular patients? 

CAD and PAD patients have always faced roadblocks along their post-intervention care journey, from costly treatments to finding the motivation and time for managing their conditions. Additionally, there's a disconnect between physicians' and patients' views on the value of digital tools in adhering to care plans. 

This white paper from Year 3 of Abbott's Beyond Intervention research into the global state of vascular care contains key insights from over 2,000 patients, healthcare providers and healthcare leaders on how we might improve patient adherence and outcomes outside healthcare facilities. 

Key learnings include:

 

• The importance of a comprehensive care experience within the healthcare system
• The biggest challenges for patients in adhering to post-discharge care plans
• How healthcare leaders and providers can provide multiple touchpoints and leverage digital tools to make adhering to a care plan at home easier for patients

The 100-year-old Mantoux tuberculin skin test requires two office visits and a highly trained eye from the physician to make a diagnosis. Human error is inevitable, and it's common for patients to miss their second appointment, wasting office time and sending them back to square one. 

For nearly 20 years, the Interferon Gamma Release Assay — a simple blood test — has offered a more efficient, more accurate alternative, yet 3 out of 4 healthcare providers default to the century old method. In this white paper, Quest Diagnostics will explore the facts and debunk the myths and misconceptions that have surrounded IGRAs since their inception. 

Key learning points: 

• How IGRA blood tests use the latest field-proven medical technologies to yield a conclusive result 97 percent of the time
• How the IGRA saves patients and physicians time and stress
• Why the IGRA is ultimately the most cost-effective choice

Precision oncology has come a long way — equipped with new and better information gleaned from genomic testing, more hospitals and health systems are building comprehensive programs around this form of medicine. But it is no easy task: Leaders initiating such programs must be prepared with the teams, processes, workflows and partnerships needed to ensure success and standardized care.

In this white paper, Duarte, Calif.-based City of Hope shares five key lessons learned from building their precision oncology program, as well as the success they're seeing in patient engagement and earlier detection.

You'll also learn:

• How precision oncology has changed over time, and how the more recent "panoramic" approach is better positioning clinicians to choose the right treatments for patients
• Why standardization of care in precision oncology is critical for equitable care
• The benefits that a precision oncology program can bring to patients and communities + the infrastructure and processes organizations should consider in building a successful program

Diagnostic errors affect an estimated 12 million adults in the U.S. each year — compromising patients' well-being and facilities' bottom line, as these errors cost the healthcare system approximately $20 billion annually. Especially at organizations embracing value-based care, leaders must explore the root causes of these errors, which can range from unconscious biases to lack of clinical resources, and consider how clinical decision support tools may fit into their workflows.

In this white paper, you'll learn how clinical decision support tools can augment physicians' reasoning and enable them to visualize patient data, access specialist knowledge and identify trends to improve efficiency, accuracy and quality of care. You'll also find insights on:

• The dangers of unconscious bias in diagnostics
• The impact of inappropriate referrals
• Improving patient satisfaction and health equity

Supply disruptions to surgical drapes and gowns create frustration and additional work for operating room staff forced to hunt down alternatives.

Healthcare leaders shouldn’t underestimate the importance of supplying staff with the right operating room products to ensure they feel confidently protected to care for patients.

This eBook explores how supply reliability affects clinical teams and the solutions that can help mitigate surgical drape and gown challenges in the OR.

Please fill out the form to download the eBook.

Learning objectives: 

• Appropriate protection and comfort for any procedure
• The value of choosing the right drape and gown for each procedure
• How a healthy supply chain with state-side manufacturing can help keep shelves reliably stocked.

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

To tackle these challenges, Conway (Ark.) Regional Medical Center focused on patient monitoring to improve compliance rates and make doing the right thing easier for clinicians.

Read this case study to learn how Conway Regional: 

• Identifies patients with sepsis earlier with continuous alerts and reminders that guide care
• Improved SEP-1 bundle compliance by more than 20 percent over four months 
• Achieved cumulative savings of $384,000 in four months 

 

What would member satisfaction and business profitability look like in your organization if you could ensure patients consistently get the right care at the right time? When over- or underutilization occurs, the impact ripples to all patients/members and your business. Medical Review Institute of America (MRIoA) has modernized utilization management to ensure appropriate care. Find out how with digitalization, advanced analytics and evidence-based clinical guidance, and greater connectivity between health plans, patients and top medical specialists across the nation, independent clinical review has become the solution health plans, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), third-party administrators (TPAs), government, and self-insureds can’t compete without.

Key Learning Objectives:

• Learn how modern utilization management solves multiple challenges for healthcare organizations
• Understand the keys to empowering patients and reducing unnecessary costs by ensuring appropriate care
• Find out how modern independent clinical review works seamlessly with your organization to expand your capabilities

Facing long wait times, heavy administrative burden and rising physician dissatisfaction, leaders at Birmingham, Ala.-based UAB Hospital knew they needed to revamp scheduling at its Kirklin Clinic.

The so-called "superclinic" houses hundreds of physicians in nearly three dozen specialties and represents one of the busiest outpatient centers in the U.S.

During this webinar, leaders will share how the Kirklin Clinic implemented an intelligent room scheduling system to address these challenges and grow patient volume without expanding physical space. Learn how the hospital achieved:

• A 7.4 percent increase in patient visits and 4.7 percent increase in clinic session volume
• Shortened patient wait times
• Reduced administrative burden and higher physician satisfaction

Efforts to empower patients via digital tools accelerated amid the pandemic, as leaders worked to increase access to care. New data from more than 38,800 hospitals and health systems worldwide suggests these strategies are working — though there is still room for improvement.

CHIME's 2022 Digital Health Most Wired survey assessed healthcare organization's digital health capabilities and usage across eight key categories, including patient engagement. This report offers a summary of the survey's patient engagement key findings, including a look at how organizations have improved patient engagement and what the intersection of patient empowerment and digital health will look like in the future.

In this report, you'll learn:

• Which tools the majority of systems now have and consider table stakes
• Which tools are most underutilized by systems
• How to maximize staff and patient engagement

Providers making transformational investments to succeed in value-based care often face the challenge of doing so while still generating revenue in fee-for-service (FFS). To bridge the two worlds, providers must prioritize strategies such as growing chronic care management (CCM) billing and automated tech such as Deviceless Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM).

This case study features the journeys of four such Stratum Med provider groups that implemented Deviceless RPM as the catalyst to overcome staffing shortages while extending care to rising-risk patients and preventing avoidable utilization to generate shared savings.

• Discover how Deviceless RPM strategies can increase staffing efficiency by up to 15x 
• Learn from leaders at organizations in different stages of transitioning to value-based care
• Discover how Deviceless RPM can lead to improved chronic conditions outcomes and financial savings

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

With tuberculosis diagnoses falling significantly during the first two years of the pandemic, it's more important than ever that reliable TB testing is in place. Despite the availability of newer blood testing options that are easy to perform and deliver accurate results, the 100-year old TB skin test is still widely used.

In this whitepaper, Quest Diagnostics outlines the benefits of TB blood tests, including cost-savings, patient experience and more.

Key learning points:

• How TB blood tests reduce patient visits
• The objective, accurate results provided by blood tests
• How blood tests yield cost savings for both patients and providers

Manual flushing can be time-consuming for overburdened healthcare staff, but hospitals can safely minimize the amount of time spent on this critical task with automated flush delivery technology. 

This whitepaper summarizes five clinical studies that reveal how the KangarooTM feed/flush pumps with automatic flushing technology from Cardinal HealthTM are benefiting patients and hospitals. 

Key learning points:

• Potential cost-savings from automated flushing 
• The benefits of automated flushing vs. manual syringe flushing
• Solving for dehydration with automated flushing

Gundersen Health System receives hundreds of prescription refill requests daily — a time-consuming, manual process with redundant tasks and errors.

Now, Gundersen is using an AI solution to automatically transcribe data in its renewal requests. This solution cuts down on manual clicks and keystrokes that can lead to medication errors and contribute to clinician burnout.
 
Download to learn how Gundersen has used this AI solution to: 

• Improve "clean sigs" by 202 percent
• Automatically import 84 percent of prescription renewal data
• Save 100 hours of clinician data entry time  
• Improve safety and decrease risk of errors

Healthcare is complex, but that doesn't change the fact that patients expect simplicity, convenience and personalization in their healthcare experiences.

To get to a place where patients feel the level of convenience in their healthcare experience is on par with what they're used to from other industries, organizations need to craft a strategy that offers digital front doors, digital practices and personalized experiences.

This whitepaper features insights from Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health and Oracle Cerner on:

• Overcoming barriers in implementing digital solutions
• The features of a strong digital front door
• The difference between digital front doors and digital practices
• Building organizational culture into digital transformation

The simultaneous need to retain today’s nurses while preparing to support and nurture the nurses of tomorrow has never been greater. Only 50 percent of nurse leaders believe new nurses are ready to practice, according to a 2021 nurse leadership study conducted by Elsevier.

To learn more about how health systems are working to support veteran nurses and upskill new nurses, Becker's Hospital Review recently hosted an advisory call with several chief nursing officers and other clinical leaders. This report is based on that conversation. The topics covered included:

• Bridging information gaps to strengthen clinical judgement beyond onboarding
• Competency-based education focused on specific clinical environments
• Pre-skilling and immersion programs to transition nurses faster into leadership roles
• Emeritus roles for experienced nurses

Learn how leading organizations are improving nurse retention and preparing the next generation of high-performing nurses.

Tuberculosis(TB) remains a leading cause of infectious disease morbidity and mortality worldwide, but during the pandemic, there was a 20 percent decline in reported TB diagnoses.

Is your hospital and health system’s TB screening strategy up-to-date?

Learn how leading health systems are using TB blood tests for pre-employment screens in the hiring process and to prevent post-exposure contagion. 

In this new white paper, discover how new testing provide hospitals and health systems with shorter test times and lower false-positivity rates.

Key takeaways:

 

• Latest CDC guidance on workplace TB testing
• Benefits of IGRAs vs. traditional TSTs
• Best practices for pre-employment TB screening & post-exposure testing

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

Tailwinds from innovation in new care delivery models, streamlined technology, and a commitment to right-sizing healthcare spending have helped make a case for serving high-acuity patients at home. In-home care models complement facility-based care delivery by extending the reach to underserved or hard-to-reach populations in their communities.   As several forward-thinking health system leaders have found, partnering to provide high acuity care to patients in their homes has fast-tracked the ability to meet evolving consumer expectations. While at the same time helping to manage workforce challenges and capacity issues while protecting profit margins.

In this white paper, learn how innovative collaborations extend the system's service lines by serving high-acuity patients at home to achieve:  

• A Hedge Against Workforce Challenges and Margin Compression
• A More Cost-Effective Pathway, Solving for Repetitive Readmissions
• Appeal with Post-Covid Consumer Expectations

Patients can't get the right treatment without first being accurately diagnosed. But sometimes coming to an accurate diagnosis is challenging given clinician time constraints and the overwhelming amount of medical knowledge available. Diagnostic errors and delays impact everyone involved including healthcare leaders, clinicians and patients.

In this whitepaper, learn more about:

• Causes of diagnostic errors and delays
• Impacts of misdiagnosis
• How to help your staff be well equipped to accurately diagnose patients

Hospitals and health systems have access to a wealth of patient data, but market research is critical for interpreting that data from a patient’s point of view.

Central to insight-driven efforts is a consumer science known as psychographics that pertains to people’s attitudes, beliefs, values and personalities. It gets to the heart of consumers' motivations, priorities and communication preferences.

Experienced healthcare leaders know that being consumer-centric is more than shifting costs and granting patients more choice and options in their care. Consumerism means delighting patients and surpassing their expectations with personalized experiences so they want to come back when the time comes in which a hospital is needed.

Psychographics have been used for decades by consumer products manufacturers and retailers, which has conditioned consumers to have higher expectations regarding products and services. Healthcare leaders must learn to take a page or two from the "consumer playbook" and develop strategies that are informed by deep consumer insights.

This report covers:

 

• The first Moment of Truth, when the healthcare consumer is "shopping" for a hospital and is making a decision on where to receive care services.
• The second Moment of Truth, when the healthcare consumer experiences the hospital’s services.
• Touchpoints that strengthen or detract from that brand experience.

Masking emerged as a key tool to prevent the spread of COVID-19 early in the pandemic. While some hospitals have loosened facial covering rules amid periods of low community transmission, experts predict that masking will remain a permanent fixture in many clinical settings long after COVID-19's immediate threat wanes.

These eight must-read Becker's articles offer the latest updates on masking in the era of COVID-19, from both an infection control and supply chain perspective. Readings include:

The value of wearing a mask when others don’t
Why did flu, COVID-19 ‘twindemic’ never happen? 1 explanation
How 4 systems keep supply issues from affecting care

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

Health leaders and millions of Americans are feeling the disconnect in healthcare. Now is the time to create a holistic care approach that incorporates all facets of physical, mental, social and prescription health.

This whitepaper uncovers insights and actions leaders can implement to surround individuals with a holistic care ecosystem — one designed to address seen and unseen drivers of health.

Explore how to:

Seize the moment for a holistic approach
Embrace a people-first plan
Connect community and key partners
Connect care in meaningful ways
Align information, resources and incentives

Discover what it takes to implement a clinical communication and collaboration solution from project kickoff through installation and going live.

This guide, from Mobile Heartbeat, will take you step-by-step through the finer points of the implementation process so your clinical and operational teams are fully prepared and equipped with the necessary information for a successful deployment.

Guide topics include:

Understand the phases of implementation
How to align goals and objectives for successful implementation
Finding the right clinical communication and collaboration solution to meet your organizations needs

Now more than ever, health systems and regulators have had to heighten their focus on infection control and patient safety.

In the last three years, the FDA has released several updated safety recommendations regarding the potential for cross-contamination in endoscopy — first addressing duodenoscopes but now including other endoscopes.

A new, highly anticipated update to standards for reprocessing reusable endoscopic medical devices classifies flexible endoscopes as "high-risk," necessitating sterilization rather than high-level disinfection to rid the scopes of contaminants.

As increased attention is paid to infection control in hospitals, investments in single-use technology have surged. In this new report from Ambu, you will learn how sterile, single-use flexible endoscopes offer hospital systems the opportunity to provide every patient with the safest solution possible for routine, therapeutic, and emergency care.

The emergency department sits at the nexus of hospital-based care and the outpatient world. It serves as a front door for the hospital, providing over 70 percent of all hospital admissions.

From the ED’s unique vantage point, it is clear there is an unaddressed Care Gap costing the U.S. health care system, and all its stakeholders, dearly. Many return ED visits are preventable and involve patients who may struggle to fill new prescriptions or follow a new care plan. A recent analysis of more than 1 million patient encounters at 300 EDs nationwide found that 50 percent of hospitalizations occurred within 7.5 days of an ED discharge.

In this white paper, Randy Pilgrim, MD, FACEP, FAAFP, enterprise chief medical officer of SCP Health, identifies solutions and enumerates the benefits of narrowing and filling the Care Gap, including:

Improved patient outcomes
Decreased cost and risk
Increased capacity and optimized resources
Better performance in value-based models

With surgical site infections (SSIs) accounting for about 20% of HAIs1, it is vital to prophylactically use products that can help prevent SSIs. In this article, we’ll explore:

The prevalence of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs)
Why infections occur
Current trends in infection prevention
Iodophor vs. chlorohexidine gluconate (CHG) use cases

Healthcare's workforce shortage crisis is poised to worsen. Early this year, USA Today reported that one in four healthcare workers are likely to leave the field in the near future. This is occurring in an industry where excessive workloads and burnout have become commonplace.

In healthcare, the stakes are high. Workforce shortages can translate into poor outcomes patients and intense psychological duress for nurses. Unless health system leaders find better ways to support clinicians, employee dissatisfaction, patient length of stay and the risk of missed care will increase. Leaders must pull all available strategic levers to help address these challenges. Technology can help.

This whitepaper examines strategies and tools to help mitigate the harm of critical staffing shortages. Key learnings include:

• 4 ways to decrease length of stay and address the staffing crisis
• How a seven-hospital health system reduced emergency department visits for high-utilizers by 20 percent
• How to reduce the workloads of bedside providers

Many healthcare organizations name population health as top priority, yet few are leveraging sufficient data on health determinants needed to advance it.

Without a whole-person approach, population health will never reach its full potential of better targeting health interventions and preventing care episodes in the first place. A panel of senior healthcare executives recently convened to discuss how their organizations are considering the whole-person and opportunities to advance population health and equity goals.

This brief whitepaper presents three key takeaways from their discussion.

Key learning points:

How organizations are going beyond claims data to enhance preventive care
Improving risk stratification to address social determinants of health
Role for genomics in population health beyond cancer centers

Please fill out the form to download the whitepaper.

Ensure your team is protected with the right PPE today.

There are many myths surrounding personal protective equipment (PPE) today. Work with trusted experts who have the industry knowledge to help keep your staff protected at every step of the way.

Download the infographic to discover the answers to important questions including:

• When is PPE required in my facility?
• Is one piece of PPE all that is needed?
• Where can I get the PPE I need?

Staffing challenges mean it’s increasingly difficult to maintain on-time patient turning and prevent pressure injuries. Fortunately, the latest guidelines detail recommended prevention protocols and promote new technology that can remind staff of turning times.

In this paper, see:

Highlights of the guidelines in an easy-to-read format.
A comparison between auditory cueing and wireless patient monitoring technology.
A case study showing how wireless patient monitoring improved efficiency for nursing staff and significantly reduced HAPI incidence in a 145-bed general hospital.

The first patient monitoring system designed to aid pressure injury prevention protocols is the LEAF◊ Patient Monitoring System, which 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

KSB Hospital took a hard look at their patient access department and realized that the status quo had to go. Read this case study to learn how KSB prevented $800,000 per month in denied charges, saving the organization $20 million in revenue.

Using AccuReg EngageCare Provider for automated quality assurance, real-time eligibility and benefits verification, and price estimation and payments, KSB did the following:

• Reduced denials from 21 percent to 7 percent
• Prevented an average of $800,000 per month in denied charges—a savings of $20 million in revenue
• Improved first-pass initial accuracy rates from 63 percent to 95 percent and final accuracy from 80 percent to 99 percent
• Reduced staff turnover from 42 percent to 25 percent

Hospital leaders are reimagining traditional care models to maintain quality while mitigating a mounting workforce shortage. According to a recent Vizient study, remote monitoring programs are a trending solution for many hospitals, particularly in the form of virtual inpatient nursing.

Virtual nursing poses a variety of benefits for both clinicians and patients. This paper provides analysis and first-hand insight from prominent hospital systems that have successfully implemented this model. While these programs currently take place in an inpatient setting, opportunity exists to expand to outpatient and eventually home care as well, as research indicates sites of care will continue to shift toward these settings into the future.

This clinical whitepaper covers:

Survey results identify current and future trends in reimagining care delivery
The rise of the virtual nurse and how two hospitals implemented it differently
Shifts in site of care with growth in outpatient and hospital at home
Leveraging technology to reimagine who delivers care and how they deliver it

Please fill out the form to download the whitepaper.

Patients finally feel comfortable resuming routine healthcare. That's the good news. The bad news is clinicians already burnt out from the mental and physical stress of the COVID-19 pandemic are now up against more waves of patients being diagnosed with cancers and other conditions that could have been found and treated earlier had it not been for pandemic-related disruptions.

Download this report to learn more about the impacts of delayed care and how healthcare navigation can help.

Key learning points:

• Timing matters — preventative care is critical to employees to maintain wellbeing and catch any underlying conditions early on
• The effects care delays have on both patients and clinicians
• Real-world examples of how healthcare navigation mitigates the effects of delayed care for patients.

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.

MedHxSM, 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 MedHxSM 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

Healthcare is riddled with costly inefficiencies, and laboratory utilization is no exception. This analysis of more than 3.4 million tests ordered between September and November 2021 found nearly 8 percent were deemed inappropriate. Before healthcare organizations can address inefficient laboratory utilization, they must first identify where it's most likely to occur and what improvements will have the greatest impact.

This report examines ~3.4 million provider ordering transactions to offer healthcare leaders a unique glimpse into laboratory utilization trends and opportunities to decrease clinically inappropriate laboratory ordering and unnecessary spend:

• Review ordering trends that are the driving sources of inappropriate laboratory utilization
• Understand the effect of inappropriate ordering on the laboratory's financial health
• Learn how to identify large financial and clinical wins across the spectrum of testing from genetics to daily labs.

Administrative burdens, heavier workloads, and stress from labor shortages are all driving pandemic burnout, turnover, and declining job satisfaction for both clinical and administrative staff.

These challenges threaten hospital finances, the patient experience, and quality of care. However, an often overlooked factor that plays a crucial role in ensuring success in each of these areas is the effective management of medical devices. This white paper outlines five approaches to medical device management that can positively impact patient safety and clinician satisfaction.

You will learn:

• How the effective management of medical devices can improve nurse satisfaction
• Innovative technologies that are easing administrative burdens and improving efficiency
• The consequences of non-clinical staff shortages, and recruiting and retention strategies to combat them

Before a major health system overhauled its preadmission testing process, its PAT Department was functioning like an H&P clinic — minimal personalization, significant administrative burdens, and decreasing revenue.

Click here to find out how NorthStar Anesthesia transformed the health system's preoperative processes and improved patient experience, from the leading physician anesthesiologist’s perspective.

You will learn:

• Why implementing modern preoperative processes can save time and money
• How to tailor the preadmission testing process to the procedures performed
• How an efficient preadmission testing process can improve collaboration and communication

Bloodstream infections are a significant cause of sepsis, which costs the U.S. healthcare system an estimated $62 billion annually.

Quick and effective antibiotic therapy in patients with sepsis can reduce the risk of death 8 percent per hour. Achieving both timely and optimal therapy hinges on a single variable — the speed at which organism identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing is produced by the clinical microbiology laboratory.

This whitepaper outlines how five health systems improved antibiotic stewardship metrics for patients with bloodstream infections and decreased length of stay by one day using rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing.

There have been tectonic shifts in recent years that have already changed healthcare and the patient experience forever. These changes are forcing providers, payers and collectors to change the way they engage with patients at every physical and virtual touchpoint.

In this whitepaper, you'll learn about six key trends in patient experience, as well as how data that is already housed within your organization can be used to enhance patients' experiences, improve quality scores and increase revenue.

Download the whitepaper to learn more about the following trends:

• Growing consumerism
• Rising competition
• Reimbursement becoming tied to patient experience
• Declining reimbursement and increasing denials
• Hospitals carrying significant bad debt
• Centralized communication

When a system scorecard highlighted weaknesses within the hospitalist and specialty departments of a 500-plus bed Kansas medical center, it signaled a need for change. TeamHealth worked hand-in-hand with the facility to create and implement targeted strategies to stabilize performance metrics and improve overall quality of care.

Download this white paper and learn how to sustain successful hospital medicine programs. Discover:

• Improving quality of care through enhanced team culture and collaboration.
• Boosting key metrics including pre-discharge follow-up and sepsis compliance, while reducing barriers to care such as high length of stay.
• Creating facility-wide improvements through purposeful partnerships with hospital leadership and other specialty clinical departments.

Understanding residents and fellows' experiences with work-life balance and wellness is of profound importance, especially amid the pandemic, as medical training can be a peak time for distress among physicians. This knowledge is vital to creating a positive residency experience that helps physicians prioritize work-life balance objectives throughout their career.

National findings from the American Medical Association's recent survey of more than 1,000 residents illustrates the key stressors of today's residents and fellows. Download the summary report to learn more about these insights and discover organizational well-being resources available through the AMA Health System Program.

Key learnings:

• Do care teams feel valued by their organization?
• How is workload, work pace and EHR stress affecting residents?
• How is burnout affected by other residency experiences, like sleep and peer support?
• What organizational resources are available for improved resident well-being?

Healthcare-associated infections have a negative impact on patients, economic performance, and community image.

Tactically deploying newer cleaning technology that supplements established methods, can assist in the task of keeping an ultra clean healthcare facility.

Download the whitepaper to learn how Disinfection Done Right (DDR) helps implement a clever adjunctive method that is safe, requires little-to-no down time, minimal human involvement, and relatively minimal investment for air and surface pathogen reduction in hospitals, surgery centers, nursing homes, and medical offices.

As healthcare organizations place renewed focus on strengthening safety practices, ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2022 Special Report is a must-read. The report identifies imminent patient safety challenges experts believe deserve the greatest focus this year, and offers systems-based approaches to eliminate these risks.

Metrics tracking healthcare-associated infections and other forms of patient harm indicate multiple patient safety measures have significantly deteriorated amid the pandemic.

Key learning points:

• How persistent issues, such as staffing shortages and clinical staff behavioral health, can affect patient safety
• How bias and racism can undermine perceptions, behaviors, and outcomes related to safety
• How pandemic-related challenges affect care, including issues such as supply chain disruptions, products subject to emergency use authorization, and operationalizing telehealth
• Recommendations for systems-based approaches to eliminate risks and achieve total systems safety

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

Health systems' dual focuses of providing patient-centric care and achieving financial sustainability can create tension within an organization. At times, billing and revenue cycle goals can be at odds with healthcare organizations' commitment to provide patient-centric care and remove financial barriers to access. Health systems must find a way to balance these priorities, while meeting patients' expectations for convenience.

During a session at the Becker's Hospital Review 9th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable in November, Pat Basu, MD, president and CEO of Boca Raton, Fla.-based Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and Alberto Casellas, executive vice president and CEO of CareCredit, shared observations about current financial challenges in healthcare and the importance of making the patient payment experience more modern, frictionless and user friendly.

Key learnings:

• What patients want from the healthcare payment experience
• Key payment challenges for health systems
• How Cancer Treatment Centers of America offers flexible and convenient financing options for patients

Mobile and digital strategy is critical to delivering outstanding patient care and driving revenue, but healthcare technology is plagued by inadequate digital apps that offer a limited scope. Hospital mobile apps often fail, but Gozio Health CEO Joshua Titus has strategies to reverse this trend.

Download this white paper and learn:

• The urgency to offer highly engaging digital experiences
• Where patient engagement falls short
• The key to successful mobile strategy

When it comes to primary care, health systems are in a challenging place. Patients won’t tolerate waiting weeks or even days for an appointment, and many are taking money from their health savings account or other sources to pay providers outside the health system network. At the same time, physician burnout is a bigger concern than ever, and filling open positions at healthcare organizations has become challenging.

This white paper outlines patients' and physicians' biggest pain points in primary care — based on a recent survey from MDVIP — and how health systems can address them through innovative primary care models.

Key learnings:

• What patients value most in a primary care experience
• Primary care physicians' top obstacles
• How health systems can better address their community's needs with patient-centered primary care solutions

Cardinal Health understands that clinicians in all settings are facing extraordinary challenges in the safe provision of care.

Increased patient loads combined with clinician burnout and severe supply chain disruption can erode your culture of safety for routine procedures, such as injections.

The Cardinal Health Monoject Sharps Safety product division, in collaboration with Becker’s, have created an eBook depository of articles to raise awareness and provide actionable insights to enhance the culture of safety within your facility during the pandemic, despite ongoing labor shortages and vaccination administration.

Cardinal Health strives to be an industry leader and trusted partner committed to proactively delivering education and awareness as it relates to promoting a culture of safety.

Diabetes and depression are rising in tandem, and a diagnosis of one will substantially increase a person's likelihood of developing the other. This paper defines the problems healthcare organizations face regarding diabetes care. It also provides clinically validated reasons why treating mind and body together within one seamless experience can help improve outcomes, drive down costs and sustain member engagement. 

Download this whitepaper to discover: 

• The four challenges facing payers in delivering diabetes care
• How Integrating mental and physical health can save 16-28 percent of all costs
• How patient-centered care increases member engagement and satisfaction

Enhanced recovery after surgery programs have promoted patient safety and faster post-surgical recovery across specialties, but due to the complexities of heart and vascular care, such programs for cardiac care have been unsuccessful — until now.

North American Partners in Anesthesia worked with Raleigh, N.C.-based WakeMed Health to develop the nation's first ERAS cardiac program. In one year, the groundbreaking protocol has increased patient and surgeon satisfaction and saved the hospital nearly $2 million. Superior clinical outcomes achieved with the program also earned WakeMed Heart & Vascular the number one ranking in CMS' national outcomes listing for heart bypass surgery, and designation as the first U.S. ERAS Cardiac Center of Excellence.

This case study describes how NAPA's anesthesia leadership at WakeMed drove the clinical research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and education that inspired 100 percent participation by the medical staff and more.

Key learning points:

• How WakeMed’s cardiac ERAS program reduced patients’ ICU and hospital length of stay, opioid use, GI complications, reintubation rates, and ICU readmission rates
• How outstanding clinical outcomes increased patient and surgeon satisfaction, and produced operational efficiencies that contributed to better financial performance, including fewer patient-bed days, increased case volume, and an approximately $5 million reduction in cardiothoracic ICU insurance payments
• How NAPA’s anesthesia-driven, value-based approach promotes safer patient care and a stronger hospital balance sheet.

Harm events can be a devastating and heart-wrenching experience for physicians and care team members. In many situations, healthcare teams may be able to mitigate unintended painful consequences by reporting harm events earlier.

This report offers insights on the clinical and financial benefits of early reporting, based on an analysis of more than 31,000 national malpractice claims.

Dive into the data to learn:

• Why reporting harm early is so important
• How early reporting influences both expenses and the life cycle of a case
• The elements of a successful communication and resolution program
• How to foster a workplace culture that promotes reporting

Missing secondary diagnoses can hurt patient outcomes and lead to costly readmissions. However, requiring staff to read over every patient's chart for any additional diagnoses can contribute to burnout. Workflow-integrated, artificial intelligence-driven computer-assisted physician documentation systems help clinicians document and code all secondary diagnoses while still focusing on the primary clinical problem, enhancing documentation integrity and reducing readmissions and costs.

Read how AI-driven CAPD solutions helped healthcare organizations, including Ardent Health Services and Halifax Health:

• Analyze relevant notes to identify undocumented diagnoses and comorbidities, and document them to withstand audit scrutiny
• Reduce severity of illness score by 41 percent and risk of mortality score by 49 percent
• Reduce retrospective severity queries to physicians by 63 percent

Research indicates as many as 1 in 10 people experience lingering symptoms for weeks or months after their initial COVID-19 infection. And with the pandemic still raging, the number of people who may go on to become long COVID-19 patients could have significant implications for public health.

Arcadia worked with the COVID-19 Patient Recovery Alliance to analyze a massive real-world data set to identify potential drivers of the wide range of symptoms that make up long COVID-19.

Download this whitepaper to learn:

• How vaccination affects the likelihood and severity of long COVID-19
• How to use data sets to understand complex interactions and drive hypothesis creation that supports clinical research
• Recommendations for further investigation and policy work

Healthcare providers are striving to deliver better experiences, all while dealing with a variety of interconnected pressures. But to quickly adapt to the changing world around them while delivering excellent experiences, providers must face challenges—and digital solutions—in a more holistic way.

Find out how ServiceNow® can help provide the connectivity and flexibility providers need to improve patient experiences from end-to-end, work efficiently, and securely leverage data to create value.

A host of factors contribute to the growing problem of clinician burnout. And while some of them — such as long hours and the inherent stress of the profession — are beyond the scope of a technological solution, others are perfect candidates for health IT interventions.

Although it might seem counterintuitive to solve technology struggles with more technology, sometimes it’s exactly the right fix. For example, tools that can help organize the problem list or make it easier to find pertinent patient information can enhance the EHR and decrease the amount of time spent clicking around in search of the right data.

So, what are some solutions that can help? Download IMO's latest eBook, "An unlikely remedy: How technology can alleviate the clinician HIT burden" to learn more.

Key learnings:

• How to effectively leverage the right IT solutions to lessen clinical burden
• The internal and external stressors contributing to clinical burden, and how to minimize them in meaningful ways

The digital behaviors that gained momentum in recent years have been hard-coded into the patient journey. In the wake of COVID-19 and with 2022 on the horizon, healthcare organizations must commit to a digital- and consumer-focused strategy to shape the patient experience.

In September 2021, Press Ganey surveyed 1,000+ consumers to unlock insights into how they approach their journey to care. The findings provide a roadmap for accelerating digital transformation in 2022 and converting more care seekers into happy, loyal patients.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed bright light on numerous challenges in healthcare — from reducing the burden of strained medical staff to increasing patient access and health equity. Sustainable solutions to these challenges require operational changes to how people work combined with cultural changes to how organizations embody their values.

See how organizations across the United States and United Kingdom have used this approach to achieve measurable results and fuel a commitment to improvement that never stops. Highlights include:

• Defeating burnout with a culture of respect.
• Reducing wait times and optimizing technology by analyzing what truly adds value for patients.
• Improving equity by consistently weighing the social dimensions of policies, programs and services.

Nurses are at the heart of clinical communication yet are often left with disconnected or outdated communication solutions. Empower nurses with next generation solutions that connect them with providers, nurses and patients in one location to reduce communication errors, improve care team coordination and reduce their workloads.

In this white paper, you’ll learn how to:

• Improve speed to care by reducing time needed to manage communication
• Instantly receive critical results, code alerts or patient communications
• Embed into the EMR, integrate with nurse call or alarm middleware

Develop a strategy for getting shared devices to nurses and equip them with the tools needed for today’s healthcare organizations.

Only 14% of healthcare organizations are currently operating close to elective surgical capacity. The urgent need to recover patient volumes sits in stark contrast to a staffing crisis, making digital tools and automation a productivity must-have.

With insight from more than 85 surgery leaders, this report takes a fresh look at perioperative leadership challenges, opportunities and priorities, including how to support a return to sustainable surgery volumes.

Key learning points:

• How to benchmark surgical productivity
• Identify the most impactful areas for improvement
• Why digital preoperative readiness is essential

Readmissions are a significant challenge with a high price tag — amounting to over $26 billion annually for Medicare patients alone.

Many factors contribute to readmissions, but a common thread among them is the increasing complexity of healthcare. Providers are taking on additional patients. At the same time, documentation requirements are growing, as is the need to interact with more systems and tools. The average health system has multiple different EHR systems in place across their network.

The result is cumbersome data integration and access, which creates care coordination challenges.

Many readmissions occur when patients move between care settings. Given the fragmented healthcare landscape, information can fall through the cracks, leading to suboptimal care transitions that put patients at risk.

But readmissions can be reduced by using the right care coordination tools that enable real-time data sharing and care collaboration.

The solution lies in the adoption of technology and processes that help providers at the point of care make safe and appropriate treatment decisions while providing meaningful insights to care managers monitoring patients across the continuum.

Precision health has the potential to dramatically transform healthcare delivery, offering lower risk, better outcomes and more efficient, less wasteful, care. However, precision health at scale is still largely a vision.

During the 2021 Precision Health Virtual Summit, a diverse group of thought leaders from health systems, providers, payers, employers, universities and start-ups reflected on the core lessons they've learned on their journey to precision health. Organizations represented at the summit included Cleveland Clinic, Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger and Danbury, Conn.-based Nuvance Health.

Download this eBook to learn:

• How to move past barriers to precision diagnostics adoption
• Approaches to leverage pharmacogenomics expertise
• How Precision Health Insight Networks are helping healthcare organizations bring precision health to scale.

Most U.S. hospitals rely on clinician education, auditing and chart reviews rather than real-time, patient-generated data to remind staff to turn patients in order to prevent hospital acquired pressure injuries. However, these methods have proven ineffective.

Halting HAPIs in American hospitals demands attention. Recent reports from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality indicate that the incidence of many hospital-acquired conditions is falling. However, pressure injuries rates continue to rise despite being a top priority for health systems.

A recent survey conducted by Frost and Sullivan was designed to better understand the persistent rise of pressure injuries and examine potential solutions to the problem.

This report is based on those survey findings and in-depth interviews with 20 healthcare professionals.

Hospital financial performance and clinical outcomes are frequently compromised by unwarranted variation in care, which accounts for at least 25 percent (and possibly up to 65 percent) of costs. Care variations come from diverse sources, but the net result is increasing waste in healthcare spending and decreasing quality of care and outcomes.

Unwarranted variation can lead to inefficiencies, adverse events, increased lengths of stay, and higher mortality rates. Basically, all quality indicators are affected.

How you approach unwarranted variability can either help or hinder your efforts to improve patient care, rein in costs and thrive in this highly demanding healthcare environment. We examine decision points along the care continuum where unwarranted variability is most likely to happen and recommend actions you can take to drive sustainable and effective care.

Most health plans define success as delivering member-centered, high-quality care, while reducing costs. These are excellent goals, but payers can't achieve them in isolation.

Collaboration is essential and critical care insights frequently come from outside the payer organization. Healthcare is delivered across a wide continuum of nodes, ranging from hospitals to ambulatory surgery centers, federally qualified health centers, home health providers, skilled nursing facilities, and more. To drive optimal clinical outcomes across the complete continuum of care, stakeholders need access to real-time information sharing, as well as easy-to-use in-workflow care collaboration tools.
Collective Medical believes shared success comes from those collaboration tools used in combination with data and technology sharing. 

This whitepaper will cover:

• The importance of a partnership perspective
• Using care insights to drive success
• Collaboration and care insights in the real world
• How clinical collaboration groups improve stakeholder engagement across the care continuum

CMS is adding two new electronic clinical quality measures for severe hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia to the Hospital Inpatient Quality-Reporting Program, and healthcare organizations must start collecting data on these measures in 2023.

This move is making it clear that severe hypoglycemia related to insulin should be a never event that hospitals must actively work towards that goal by prioritizing the optimal treatment and management of severe hyperglycemia.

These measures will create the incentive for hospitals to prioritize glycemic management, which can be difficult without the proper support and technology. There are challenges to achieving optimal glycemic management, but it’s a must-have given that it benefits patients' safety and helps reduce costs for individuals, hospitals and the public.

In this whitepaper, you will:

• Learn the typical driving factors of poor glycemic management in the hospital.
• Understand the correlation between uncontrolled blood glucose and increased length of stay, cost of care and readmission rates.
• See real results from real hospitals that are using an eGlycemic Management System to reliably and consistently reduce the incidence of hypoglycemic and hyperglycemia in your healthcare system.

Each healthcare leader has a role in the solution. We need to work together to evaluate our cultures, practices, products, and services to identify root causes of inequity, design the interventions and support services that improve health outcomes for everyone and improve levels of inclusivity, diversity, and health equity.

This new C-suite toolkit includes role specific, actionable guides with steps to help CEO’s, CFO’s, and CMO’s better understand the strategic, financial, and clinical implications of implementing health equity initiatives including:

• Defining your workforce equity goals
• Building equity into your leadership plan
• Ensuring equitable care across a diverse set of patients
• Making equity a part of your purpose and mission
• Building the business case to support resource allocations
• Addressing root causes of inequity in the broader community
• Enabling a diverse, inclusive workforce
• Activating your community relationships

Clinicians' careers are defined by dozens of moments each day that determine patient outcomes. As medical knowledge continues to expand and care becomes more complex, how are your clinicians keeping up with the latest evidence-based practices?

In this guide, discover how to empower your clinical staff to:

• Diagnose and treat patients efficiently and effectively
• Enhance patient outcomes
• Develop advanced critical thinking skills

In the fall of 2018, Carle Health began working with Change Healthcare to focus on low-value testing. The health system implemented CareSelect® Lab, a clinical decision support (CDS) tool that integrates with leading EHRs to provide point-of-order guidance on the appropriateness of every unique lab, pathology, and genetic test order in real time. In the first 30 days after rolling out a non-interruptive intervention, Carle Health saw significant reductions in targeted orders.

Learn how Carle Health and Change Healthcare:

• built a lab stewardship program that relies on CareSelect® Lab to address lab overutilization and low-value testing
• gained access to an aggregated view of its data to decide which undesirable ordering behaviors to target—and where and how to target them
• leveraged evidence-based guidelines authored by Mayo Clinic and provider communication to significantly reduce inappropriate ordering

Chronic opioid use is the most common post-surgical complication — a poor long-term outcome that affects one in every 16 patients in the U.S. after surgery. Besides harming individuals and communities, excessive opioid prescriptions can also affect hospitals' profitability.

While multimodal pain programs attempt to reduce opioids, their “one size fits all” approach is inefficient for physicians and may cause sentinel events or adverse side effects that prolong a patient’s recovery.

This case study describes how a new inpatient pain management protocol using pre-defined patient risk categories yields meaningful clinical, operational, and financial
results.

Key learning points:

• Why traditional multimodal pain programs that attempt to reduce opioids are inefficient
• The benefits of an updated inpatient pain management approach that relies on pre-defined patient risk categories
• How leveraging anesthesia expertise in this new approach to perioperative pain management saves time for busy hospitalists while improving patient safety and satisfaction

There’s no question that the Covid-19 pandemic forced us all to take a hard look at our supply chain strategies. While demand for critical PPE surged, supply dwindled and the global supply chain crumbled. We’ve learned it’s essential for organizations to take proactive steps to diversify their supply chain and mitigate the risk of potential disruptions.

Now, it's essential for organizations to take protective steps to diversify their PPE supply chain and mitigate the risk of potential disruptions in the future.

In this white paper, you will learn:

• How the pandemic exposed PPE supply chain issues
• The importance of diversifying suppliers to increase resiliency
• Key considerations in selecting a PPE supplier

In order to deliver effective, individualized treatment, providers need to start with a comprehensive 360-degree view of every patient, which includes clinical and nonclinical data, along with relevant social determinants of health.

Download this e-book to see how you can:

• Connect care teams and proactively reach patients at home
• Empower every employee to address patient needs efficiently
• Personalize patient engagement using data insights  

Clinical confidence can lead to better, more predictable outcomes by getting diagnoses right the first time, ensuring timely treatments, and enhancing patient management across care settings. Now more than ever, health systems must deploy technologies that streamline workflow and relieve clinicians of growing and unnecessary burdens.

Clinical confidence may be the antidote to clinical burnout. The team at Philips aims to design technologies that increase clinical confidence by providing correct and complete information, as well as support caregiver collaboration.

Download our clinical confidence guide to:

• Bolster clinical confidence by focusing on purposeful innovation.
• Address the five leading factors that contribute to clinical burnout.
• Improve patient care, using lessons from other health systems that have leveraged technology.

NAVIFY® Tumor Board demonstrated positive impacts in the preparation and conduction of a tumor board during a multiyear study with the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center at Missouri Healthcare.

Data was collected prospectively before the use of NAVIFY® Tumor Board (phase 1) through stable integration with the platform (phase 4). Data was collected across the breast, GI, hematopathology and ENT tumor boards looking at the following user groups across the institution: nurse navigators, pathology residents, radiologists and geneticists.

In this whitepaper you’ll learn:

• Positive impacts that NAVIFY® Tumor Board had on case preparation, case discussion time and case postponement rates at the test site
• Potential operational benefits seen at test site, including additional cases discussed and working days saved

The number of outpatient surgeries has grown dramatically over the last 40 years and with this ongoing shift, patients recovering at home run the risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a serious complication of surgery.

However, mechanical prophylaxis, including intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC), can mitigate the risk for patients recovering at home.

Key learning points:

• Implications of the shift from inpatient to outpatient procedures and more patients heading home sooner
• Opportunities to implement at-home compression therapy for VTE risk reduction 

In the past year, the shift in the delivery of patient care from hospitals to other settings has accelerated — a trend that healthcare executives expect to continue.

To better understand what this shift means for healthcare supply chains, Becker's and Cardinal Health surveyed 100 C-suite and supply chain leaders from health systems nationwide in the first quarter of 2021. This research report outlines five key takeaways that emerged from leaders' responses. 

The healthcare system is mobilizing to promote and manage distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. Consumer demand for the vaccine is high; however, not everyone is receptive to a COVID-19 vaccination. 

Read this whitepaper to learn:

• Who is most (and least) likely to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
• Why healthcare consumers might avoid a COVID-19 vaccination.
• How psychographic segmentation can facilitate uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Integrated Care Coordination Readiness Report is a first-of-its kind analysis, providing useful insights on data from more than 140,000 post-acute episodes, across 15,000 skilled nursing facilities and 4,000 hospitals to reveal opportunities for health systems to strengthen organizational outcomes, improve patient management and reshape their post-acute network relationships.

Easy-to-use technology enables providers to simply be providers.

By augmenting patient care with technology services, healthcare providers can focus on treating their patients and rely on outside experts to provide reliable communication assistance and cultural brokerage.

Here are key takeaways from this report:

• When it comes to treating LEP, Deaf and HoH patients, providers need a fast, easy-to-use solution to effectively communicate.
• Just as providers are committed to effectively treating patients, medical interpreters are committed to facilitating meaningful understanding between healthcare providers and patients from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
• The use of professional language services has been proven to improve the LEP patient experience and reduce the likelihood of readmissions.

COVID-19 has made dramatic changes to care delivery and cross-industry partnerships. It has exposed the human and financial costs of the nation’s health inequities, forcing shifts to virtual health care delivery, flexible staffing models and more in-home care.

But many questions remain. In this report, Optum surveyed more than 161 health care leaders from health plans, providers and life sciences and asked:

• Where are we making progress?
• What challenges still exist?
• Which areas do you prioritize for investment?

To make 2021 a year of recovery for clinicians, healthcare leaders must have a deep understanding of the resources and support tools needed to help providers do their jobs while making their own wellness a priority. This e-book features 10 must-read articles on what healthcare workers want their leaders to know, strategies for addressing burnout and ways to safeguard clinician well-being amid a crisis.

There’s a phenomenon called “AI-washing,” in which it is purported that a tool is powered by artificial intelligence when it is actually heavily reliant on humans for its capabilities.

In this whitepaper, you’ll learn:

• Key AI technologies used by clinical digital assistants and what is technically possible today
• Five stages clinical assistants must go through to evolve
• Technical milestones needed to ultimately achieve a truly ambient clinical digital assistant

After months of shutdowns and quarantines, we can now take steps toward a healthier tomorrow. Finally, the vaccines are ready, and we all need to be too.

Find out how ServiceNow can orchestrate vaccine management, connecting workflows from distribution to monitoring, and help meet one of the most significant challenges of our lifetime.

As our country’s healthcare labor shortage looms, the need to ensure the safety of residents of all states has never been more acute.

Download this white paper to learn more about:

• The impacts of the current nursing shortage
• How a national license could improve healthcare
• Implementing a national model

Enterprise-owned mobile devices have enormous potential to streamline and simplify clinical workflows. But many healthcare organizations are currently struggling to harness that potential due to operational, security and usability issues. These issues often lead to workflow disruptions, productivity loss, high costs and low acceptance by end users — ultimately putting patients' health at risk.

During a recent advisory call hosted by Becker's Hospital Review, tech experts and Christine Yang, vice president and chief technology officer at Alameda Health System (Oakland, Calif.), led a group of health system leaders in discussion about the challenges and opportunities associated with deploying mobile devices in healthcare. This report examines the key takeaways from that conversation.

Learnings include:

• Why mobile devices applied in clinical workflows have shown promising results.
• The challenges associated with driving adoption across teams.
• Why the future of clinical workflow support is mobile.

Despite improvements in nurse turnover and vacancy rates, hospitals' and health systems' longer-term concerns for this workforce persist.

To improve operational efficiency and maintain the quality of patient care, healthcare leaders are reexamining how nursing is done. Becker's Healthcare and Microsoft recently conducted a survey among healthcare C-suite leaders, including chief nursing officers, to learn more about the nursing challenges hospitals and health systems are facing and how organizations are navigating these issues.

This report summarizes key findings from the survey and includes commentary from a vice president and chief clinical information officer from a health system with more than 30 hospitals serving the Mountain West region of the U.S.

Key learnings include:

• The top three nursing challenges faced by survey respondents
• The opportunity to mitigate some of these challenges with emerging technologies
• Why healthcare needs "rapid change" to support nurses and meet the changing demands of the profession

 

Workforce shortages, financial pressures and increasing patient demand for care necessitate that healthcare organizations maximize capacity by unlocking the value of existing resources.
Innovative technology that leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics and more have shown that it's possible to improve capacity and patient flow without hiring additional staff or building more space. The results are greater efficiency, higher levels of patient and provider satisfaction, reduced costs and increased access to care in the communities health systems serve.

These were among the overarching themes during two recent virtual summits: Transform Hospital Operations and Transform Infusion Center Operations, hosted by Becker’s Healthcare and sponsored by LeanTaaS on June 4 and 5.

For healthcare to overcome its most vexing and long-standing challenges, advancements in both clinical and operational innovation are necessary. However, in the healthcare C-suite, there is no shortage of competing priorities. How are leaders navigating these priorities? Where are they seeing progress toward innovation, and where has progress stalled?

To learn more about where innovation ranks among hospital and health system leaders' current concerns and strategic initiatives, Becker's Healthcare and T-Mobile for Business conducted a survey among senior healthcare leaders. This report assesses the findings.

Key learnings include:

• A breakdown of health system leaders' innovation priorities
• Why a lack of resources is hampering advancement in innovation
• Why most health systems want to enhance connectivity

Healthcare is on the brink of a tech-driven transformation, and government healthcare organizations are at the forefront of this change. While much of the conversation about transformation in healthcare focuses on delivering new therapies and curing previously incurable diseases, it's important to remember that biotech and pharma are not the only parts of the healthcare ecosystem benefiting from new technologies. Government healthcare organizations are leveraging technology to transform patient experiences, from the frontlines of patient care to the offices of hospitals and call centers across the country. IT leaders in government healthcare are harnessing innovations in healthcare IT to streamline each patient-care touchpoint, from routine communications to care delivery, while also alleviating the workloads of their teams on the backend. At the heart of this transformation is the desire to improve the lives and well-being of patients, and to provide them with the best possible care.

Healthcare leaders face a dilemma: They must innovate to increase care access, improve outcomes, deliver better patient experiences and stem rising costs; at the same time, they also must contend with capital constraints and limited resources to devote to innovations that will move the needle.

During Becker's 14th Annual Meeting, hospital and health system executives from across the country discussed the need for innovation, challenges that hinder these efforts and best practices to foster necessary advancements within their organizations.

This report contains key takeaways from the session. Areas of focus include:

• The most prominent constraints hindering innovation and how to overcome them
• The new models health systems are embracing to drive and fund innovation
• The areas of healthcare operations most primed for transformation

Artificial intelligence can revolutionize healthcare, with its potential to enhance diagnoses and treatments and drive needed efficiency at hospitals and health systems.

However, before AI can be widely implemented and fully embraced, the significant ethical, social and legal challenges this technology presents must be addressed. During a recent virtual fireside chat hosted by Becker's Healthcare, David Rhew, MD, global chief medical officer for Microsoft, discussed how responsible and trustworthy AI health networks can offer an objective and transparent assessment of AI models.

Learnings include:

• Why ethical AI is an imperative in healthcare
• How AI can help address healthcare's most intractable challenges
• New guidelines for the ethical AI from the TRAIN consortium

Launching or expanding a telehealth and remote patient monitoring program can be an intimidating task. From establishing goals and determining your financial plan, to choosing a technology partner and building clinician and patient buy-in, there are many essential factors to consider to ensure your program is successful.

This guide will serve as a resource for your organization as you start the telehealth implementation journey.

Key learnings:

• Tips for defining your RPM program goals, including a financial plan and patient outcomes
• An overview of different care delivery models
• 15 questions to ask your telehealth partner

Hospital-at-home initiatives and remote patient monitoring are top priorities for healthcare organizations nationwide. These programs gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering numerous benefits, such as improved bed capacity, increased access to care and reduced readmissions.

Learn more about the current state of care-at-home programs and what the future may hold as two leaders from York-Pa.-based WellSpan Health shared their perspectives.

Key learnings:

• Why programs are considering switching vendors
• The future of care at home
• As the care at home model matures, health systems need enterprise solution vendors that can serve the entire care continuum

Implementing virtual care comes with a unique set of challenges. CIOs must implement reliable virtual care technology to support the bedside teams while controlling the cost of the technology – a difficult task when IT leadership is already short-staffed and under pressure to tighten their budgets.

Download the guide to learn:

• Top 3 use cases for a virtual care platform
• CIO’s checklist for choosing a virtual care vendor
• The virtual care adoption model for a successful rollout and future proofing

Nearly 75% of hospitals and health systems have automated at least some part of their revenue cycle ― but as economic, workforce and efficiency constraints continue, leaders must be able to show real return on investment.

This whitepaper explores the multiple ways AI can help generate net new revenue for hospitals and health systems with a careful, strategic approach. It offers use cases and best practices, and breaks down whether to consider novel pricing structures, such as contingency-based pricing, to increase ROI.

Download to learn more about:

• Improving RCM efficiency, including pre-bill review
• Identifying and remediating claims errors
• Innovative pricing models

Organizations across the healthcare industry are grappling with the difficult task of managing an ever-increasing volume of patient data. These efforts are often complicated by hazards such as incomplete and unreliable information – resulting in "dirty data lakes" that can hinder effective patient care and operational efficiency.

This eBook delves into the challenges of poor data quality and offers insights on how to overcome them with natural language processing and normalization.

Key learning points:

• The potential of AI-powered autonomous coding to improve data reliability
• The effect of data inaccuracies on analytics and revenue cycle management
• How quality data underpins effective reporting and healthcare delivery

At most health systems, demand is on the rise, staff shortages are a chronic problem, reimbursements are down — and asset utilization isn't what it should be. The result is a poor patient experience and worsening hospital economics. However, AI technology can help health systems manage assets and human resources more effectively to unlock enormous amounts of capacity and value.

These were among the overarching themes of the recent Transform Hospital Operations Virtual Summit held during Becker's 14th Annual Meeting. Real-world case studies were presented with results that included saving OR staff 25 hours per week and achieving a $45M ROI.

In this whitepaper, you'll find key takeaways and insights from the event. Organizations represented at Transform included:

• CommonSpirit Health (Chicago)
• Oregon Health & Science University (Portland)
• NewYork-Presbyterian (New York City)

Choosing the right technology solution can be a challenging process for hospitals and health systems — especially when artificial intelligence (AI) is involved. When selecting an AI technology partner, leaders must consider crucial factors such as ethics, equity, data privacy and security.

This whitepaper contains real-world lessons in AI vendor selection from Cooper University Health Care (Camden, N.J.).

Key learning points:

• Why internal stakeholder engagement is key
• Why selecting the right AI vendors requires careful evaluation
• How healthcare organizations aim to leverage AI responsibly

Technology's role in enhancing patient care and reducing provider burden is top of mind for nearly all leaders in healthcare. However, questions related to oversight, responsible use and potential consequences linger.

Executives from Houston Methodist, Berlin, N.H.-based North Country Healthcare and Elsevier, a scientific publishing and data analytics company, discussed current challenges within digital health and AI as part of a panel session at Becker's 14th Annual meeting.

This report features key lessons from the session, including:

• Determining the best governance approach when adopting digital technologies
• Best practices for interdisciplinary collaboration & change management
• Keeping the workforce engaged as AI's role in healthcare grows

In 2021, North Kansas City Hospital started automating vaccine scheduling. Over the course of three months, NKCH and Meritas Health administered over 97,000 vaccines and achieved a 99% patient satisfaction rate.

Since then, they’ve integrated automation into their entire digital front door—everything from patient access to population health—and they’ve learned a lot along the way.

In this whitepaper, you’ll learn:

How NKCH and Meritas Health has approached automating workflows across registration & intake, authorizations, and population health to augment Oracle Health
How automation has helped them maintain their independence in a competitive market
The real patient and staff outcomes they’ve achieved over the past two years

To adequately meet the healthcare needs of this patient population — while managing capacity and keeping costs down — hospitals and health systems are embracing remote patient monitoring technology.

Learn what two experts have to say about deploying remote patient monitoring technology and how RPM can help patients manage cardiac-related conditions, while reducing care costs for health systems.

Key learnings:

The costs of heart disease and related comorbidities
How remote patient monitoring can help to reduce hospitalizations and healthcare utilization
How using remote patient monitoring leads to clinical efficiencies and improved health outcomes

By and large, healthcare leaders are optimistic about the potential for artificial intelligence-powered tools to address a wide variety of operational and clinical issues. The first step in getting there is establishing governance and aligning with industry regulations — a significant challenge given how quickly the technology landscape evolves.

At Becker's 14th Annual Meeting, CDW sponsored a roundtable discussion with executive leaders on how organizations can stand up effective governance for AI initiatives within their organizations. This brief report highlights key insights from the conversation.

Key takeaways:

Determining when an AI tool will actually deliver value
Keeping data at the core of AI governance
Top areas where organizations are using AI

In the complex world of healthcare, where every decision affects patient safety and privacy, navigating the maze of regulatory compliance isn't just essential – it's a critical lifeline for maintaining trust, safeguarding data, and ensuring the highest standards of care.

In today's world of constantly changing and complicated regulations, technology stands out as a reliable ally, offering efficiency and effectiveness. Gain insights into the benefits of centralized platforms for showcasing compliance evidence, transforming how healthcare organizations demonstrate adherence to regulatory standards and cultivate a climate of outstanding patient care and data protection.

What to expect:

• Unlock a practical five-step checklist for effortless compliance.
• Gain a deeper understanding of the dynamic healthcare regulatory changes, including pivotal standards like HIPAA and their impact on compliance efforts.
• Gain insights into the benefits of centralized platforms for showcasing compliance evidence, revolutionizing how healthcare organizations demonstrate adherence to regulatory standards.

Virtual care has exploded in recent years, but not all delivery models hold equal value. As healthcare leaders weigh options that drive efficiency, provider well-being, cost savings, care access and patient satisfaction, it's critical they consider key differences in synchronous and asynchronous telemedicine.

This research-based guide demonstrates how embracing hybrid care and asynchronous telehealth can help to solve healthcare's greatest challenges — like provider burnout, delayed/avoided care, health equity and more — and outlines important use cases.

Download to access:

• The basics on asynchronous virtual care and how it reduces clinician burnout and administrative burden
• Opportunities for improving patient experience and acquisition, downstream revenue and greater access for rural and non-English-speaking populations
• The largest case study on this care modality from the COVID-19 pandemic

Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform healthcare.

In this whitepaper, learn how healthcare organizations across the country are deploying AI-powered technology and opportunities to improve clinical, operational and financial performance.

Key learning points:

• Three criteria for effective AI integration
• Overcoming implementation barriers
• Maximizing ROI with smart AI selection

Last year a Bain & Co. survey found that only 6% of health system executives had established a generative AI strategy.

Today, we’ve moved well beyond hype to the hope that advanced AI will be able to reshape the healthcare industry.

At Notable, we’ve spent the past eight months deploying conversational AI at patient care organizations throughout the United States, and we’ve learned valuable lessons along the way.

In this whitepaper, you’ll learn:

• Why an AI-readiness audit and strategy are essential first steps
• How conversational AI can deliver better experiences for patients and staff
• How leading healthcare organizations are putting the technology to work
• How AI is enabling organizations to rapidly iterate and optimize their workflows
• Successful approaches to programming conversational AI to meet specific outcomes

Hospitals face inpatient bed capacity constraints from extended stays, staffing shortages and overcrowding.

This article examines how care-at-home solutions alleviate strain by facilitating early discharges, transitional care, chronic disease management and resource optimization. Provider insights and outcomes along with market data demonstrate these programs improve capacity while enhancing patient care delivery.

Key learning points:

• Uncover the underlying challenges that are leading to constrained inpatient bed capacity
• How innovative care-at-home solutions can help unlock hospital capacity
• Insights from leading health systems about successful care-at-home programs

Healthcare's adoption of artificial intelligence is accelerating rapidly. Many health systems are starting to derive real value and return on investment from the technology, prompting plans to expand use cases and build innovation into many strategic areas.

Becker's Hospital Review recently convened hospital and health system leaders from across the country to discuss current sentiments on AI adoption. They discussed factors driving adoption, barriers and challenges, and expectations for sustainably advancing the technology. This whitepaper offers a summary of the discussion.

Key insights:

• Health systems are taking a 'measured approach' to AI
• Advancing AI requires intentionality and metrics
• A shift is underway toward 'sustainable AI'
• Leaders expressed cautious optimism about the road ahead

In critical care, time is crucial and always in short supply.

However, new technology can empower clinicians to make the most of every moment by delivering real-time, data-driven insights to the bedside. Having a digital view into each patient's clinical story as it's happening can support swift, effective decision making in the moments that matter most.

Read this white paper to learn more about the potential of these technologies to reshape critical care.

The operating room is a crucial area of the health system. What happens in the OR has significant implications for patient care as well as the entire organization's financial performance.

Increasingly, ORs are outfitted with robotic surgical systems. When managed effectively, these systems can support efficient care delivery and quality surgical outcomes. However, they are significant investments — a single robot can cost as much as $2.5 million to purchase, while maintenance, supply, and leasing fees can mount up over time. To maximize the return on investment for surgical robots, hospital leaders must use a data-driven and strategic approach to optimize their efficiency. This playbook details the "magic equation" — of AI-powered automation, integrated workflows, and change management — needed to achieve that goal.

Learnings include:

• How to leverage data, AI-powered automation, integrated workflows, and change management to drive improved robot utilization and ROI
• A checklist of exactly what health systems need from an effective robot utilization solution
• Case study: How Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville (Fla.) delayed spending on additional robots

Healthcare government organizations face numerous challenges in meeting their healthcare mission, including the need for secure and compliant sharing of personal health information across multiple devices, users, and locations. In this eBook, learn how partnering with Lumen can provide your healthcare agency with the talent, expertise and infrastructure needed to unlock the full potential of your data and rapidly adopt game-changing technologies. Take advantage of the full range of capabilities needed for success in a digital-first business landscape, delivered in a simple platform approach that makes it easy to manage IT operations while also potentially reducing costs.

Key learnings:

• Unlock the keys to a winning digital transformation strategy across multiple business locations
• How to optimize omnichannel and deliver exceptional digital and physical healthcare experiences
• Explore ways to mitigate supply chain and cybersecurity risks

Effective clinical decision-making and treatment plans often hinge on data from diagnostic laboratories. But for many healthcare organizations, the patient data clinicians need is fragmented and siloed, making it difficult to integrate or match to the right patient — which can have severe consequences.

This whitepaper highlights Sonora Quest Laboratories' digital transformation journey to drive interoperability through identity data management. Sonora Quest Laboratories is a large, integrated diagnostic lab and joint venture between Phoenix-based Banner Health and Quest Diagnostics.

Download to learn:

• Challenges Sonora Quest faced in data identity management, per their CIO
• Four key takeaways from Sonora Quest's digital transformation + real results they achieved
• Best practices for improving patient matching technology

The mindset toward health IT is changing for many healthcare leaders. Organizations benefit by steering away from the “necessary expense” perspective to consider IT as a strategic asset. When this mindset is embraced, health IT is a powerful enabler for truly scaling and achieving operational efficiency across the enterprise.

This brief report discusses how leveraging health IT through comprehensive managed services can achieve sustainable growth.

Key learning points:

• Leveraging IT as a true asset to transform how care is delivered and overall operations
• How providers should strategize through partnerships to secure the greatest possible total value for their systems over time, instead of prioritizing the greatest short-term savings
• Examples on how a comprehensive managed services strategy provides opportunities for scale that aren't typically possible when IT delivery is solely handled in-house

Despite AI's meteoric rise in popularity across industries, healthcare has lagged behind on adoption, with 60% of leaders reporting their company is not moving quickly enough. At the same time, 86% of leaders believe the ability to effectively leverage tech, data and AI will define success over the next five years, meaning organizations need to bridge the gap quickly.

With healthcare's privacy, regulatory and security concerns adding a layer of complexity to AI implementation, the right third-party AI partner can offer a path forward — but healthcare organizations need to know what to look for. This whitepaper uses findings from a survey of healthcare leaders to examine AI adoption, barriers and factors for a successful AI partnership.

You'll learn:

• Where other organizations are in their AI journey
• How to lay the groundwork for successful AI adoption
• How to choose long-term partners to support AI growth and ROI

 

By now, healthcare leaders are familiar with AI's potential to alleviate documentation burden, lighten clinicians' cognitive load and streamline operations overall, but only 6% of organizations currently have a generative AI strategy in place.

Many leaders have been overwhelmed by how quickly the technology has burst into the public consciousness and the hype surrounding it. Hospital leaders need clarity on generative AI’s risks and use cases if they’re to create a successful strategy, and apply the technology safely and effectively.

In this guide, we look beyond the hype to explore five key areas every healthcare organization should consider when developing an AI strategy and assessing potential vendors’ solutions.

Key learning points:

• Criteria to look for in a vendor to ensure their solutions fit daily practices in healthcare
• Crafting a responsible approach to AI
• How to prioritize solutions that can be deployed effectively in real-world environments

 

Transforming the Cerner patient intake and registration process is not just an option, it’s a necessity.

63% of patients say their provider’s digital tools have not met their expectations and 41% of patients have switched providers due to a poor digital experience.

This guide provides a detailed look at the strategies other organizations use to deliver exceptional digital experiences with Cerner.

Why this guide?

• Innovate with confidence: Learn from a comprehensive analysis of successful Cerner-based digital transformations in patient engagement, distilled into actionable insights.
• Drive efficiency and enhance satisfaction: Uncover secrets to reducing administrative burdens while significantly improving patient and staff satisfaction.
• Stay ahead of the competition: From using AI and automation to integrating patient feedback loops, discover the approaches leading Cerner-based healthcare organizations are taking and the results they’re driving.

AI has incredible potential to unlock insights from medical imaging data and support healthcare organizations in delivering on the promise of precision healthcare for improved outcomes.

But there are significant challenges to tackle in order to get there, especially surrounding data ingestion, model training and validation. This white paper shares how healthcare organizations are deriving useful insights from complex imaging data.

Key learning points:

• Potential use cases for medical imaging AI
• How to build reliable, scalable solutions for managing complex data
• How analysis-ready data repositories promote rapid AI development

Data analytics in healthcare has exploded and improved the potential for strategic planning and service line growth analyses to provide real insights. But the grouping of healthcare procedures has lagged behind this explosion.

With over 100,000 procedure codes from three different coding systems currently in use, having consistent and complete mappings is critically important. This white paper details the best way to get the most out of your coding data.

You will learn: 

• What service line groupers are available in the market today
• The types of coding systems
• How better grouping can help your system harness growth opportunities, target consumers and conduct market planning

As healthcare organizations strive to satisfy, retain and attract patients in a competitive environment, effective engagement and communication is rooted in the details — message length, timing of appointment reminders and even tone.

This guide provides six actionable strategies that enhance patient access, communication and readiness based on insights from more than 700 million data points collected across 650 healthcare organizations like Fairview Health Services (Minneapolis) and UW Medicine (Seattle). It also covers improvement opportunities for critical areas such as self-scheduling, rescheduling, response rates, care follow-up and referral outreach.

Download to learn how to:

• Implement user-friendly, self-scheduling options that significantly improve patient access to care and reduce administrative workload
• Simplify the rescheduling process and use direct communication methods like SMS to greatly increase patient engagement and reduce no-shows
• Gather and act on real-time patient feedback to be able to improve patient satisfaction and enhance the overall healthcare experience

Healthcare organizations generate vast and increasing amounts of operational and patient-level data. Yet, the processes and methodologies commonly used to leverage this data for care improvements, cost efficiencies and research discoveries are not fully optimized.

Becker's spoke with leaders from Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health and Ottawa (Ontario) Hospital about how they're using a one-stop-shop data infrastructure to quickly get answers and action items for critical operational, research and innovation-related questions. This whitepaper offers a summary of the discussion.

Key learnings:

• The advantages of a comprehensive, real-time synthetic data platform
• Real-world case studies from Intermountain and Ottawa Hospital

In 2024, AI is not just an advantage in healthcare, it’s a necessity.

But how prepared is your organization to harness its full potential?

Discover the roadmap to not just surviving but thriving in the age of AI.

• Combining insights gleaned from leaders at dozens of health systems with the experience of deploying AI to thousands of care sites, this guide covers:
• Why AI’s moment in healthcare is now
• 10 essential elements for building and deploying an enterprise-wide AI strategy
• How to ensure your AI efforts remain aligned with your business strategy

As health systems grapple with staff burnout, capacity issues and rising costs, telehealth is quickly becoming the standard for supporting care delivery and transformation efforts. Leading hospitals and health systems are embracing tools that break down technology silos, reduce fragmentation and address digital literacy of the constituents they serve. In fact, 91% of health system leaders now report having a telehealth program in place — a 6-percentage-point jump from last year — and 71% report expanding their offerings.

This whitepaper uses responses from recent a survey of healthcare CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, virtual care leaders and other decision-makers to detail three valuable insights on the current state of telehealth and how organizations can maximize results from their offerings.

You will learn:
How other health systems are using telehealth to overcome today's challenges
Where telehealth is headed in the future
How to overcome obstacles like user adoption, payer alignment and technology infrastructure

In an industry hungry for greater efficiency, automation has become table stakes in healthcare. Leaders are refining and deepening their automation strategies as more opportunities and applications for this technology arise.

In this white paper, you'll learn four key components — which emerged from a roundtable discussion with hospital and health system CEOs and CFOs — to drive sustainable improvements with automation and ensure return on investment.

Download for more insights on:

• Trends in automation investments and complexity
• Opportunities for improvements in clinical quality, productivity + revenue integrity
• Four critical components of an effective automation strategy

Persistent workforce shortages, high-acuity caseloads and ever-increasing requirements are taking nurses farther and farther away from patient care. To help unburden nurses and keep them at the bedside, its crucial health systems reimagine care delivery and clinical workflows.

In this white paper, top clinical leaders from Salt Lake City, UT-based Intermountain Health and Durham, NC-based Duke University Health System share how their systems are embracing new technologies to support nurses while improving operational efficiencies and the patient experience. 

Key learnings: 

• Why systems are increasingly investing in technology that aids nurses
• How AI technology can support multiple aspects of nurses' jobs and roles
• Key considerations for thoughtful technology implementations

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are opening exciting new horizons in health care. Health systems that take advantage of these technologies can improve the availability of clinical resources for patient care, optimize efficiency across their organizations, and even combat safety and security risks. Yet any new technology comes with significant risks in such a crucial industry where functioning tools are a matter of life and death. Our white paper looks at some of the most promising opportunities for enhancements to clinical operations with AI as well as how health systems can apply strong governance to avoid the pitfalls that can plague early adopters of evolving high-tech tools.

  Learning points:  

• One of the most promising potential applications is streamlining important, but time-consuming, administrative responsibilities of health care workers. Health systems can benefit their staff and patients by focusing on AI adoption that enables clinicians and technicians to focus more time and energy on activities with the greatest impact on direct patient care.
• One of the top priorities evaluating the role AI in health care is scalability. With technology tools that effectively handle large volumes of data, health systems can increase efficiency for rapidly expanding areas of responsibility, such as tracking and managing large medical device inventories.
• The rapidly evolving capabilities of AI and growing number of software products emphasize the need for strong process governance, especially in fields such as clinical engineering which already engage with complex, critical technologies. 

 

Now more than ever, patients expect simple, streamlined interactions with their providers. Whether it's the digital front door, a contact center or hospital room, leveled-up digital experiences across the care journey are now table stakes.

In this white paper, you'll learn how hospitals and health systems are leveraging a single technology platform to enhance patients' care experiences across all settings, as well as save costs, reduce burden and drive innovation.

See how this approach enables:

• Value across each step of the patient journey, from at home care to the patient room
• Improved daily workflows with apps and integrations
• Innovation with new technologies like artificial intelligence and more

In a healthcare environment where staffing shortages and financial pressures are commonplace, healthcare leaders are seeking new ways to optimize resources, unlock value and improve access to care.

With technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics, over 1,000 hospitals and centers have discovered that it's possible to know what's coming and align healthcare assets with staff and patient demand. The result is increased efficiency, improved provider satisfaction, reduced labor costs and fewer delays in patient care. These were the major themes that came to the surface during two recent virtual summits: Transform Hospital Operations and Transform Infusion Center Operations, hosted by Becker's Healthcare and sponsored by LeanTaaS.

This recap examines the key learnings from these five virtual summit sessions:

• Increase ROI Through AI: Unlocking Scarce Capacity and Staffing
• Make AI Work for the Workforce: Empowering Staff and Systems to Thrive
• Optimizing OR Flow: How Data-Driven Insights Help Anesthesia Groups and Hospitals Work Smarter, Together Featuring UCHealth
• Transforming Performance: Uniting AI, Automation and Change Management Featuring Baptist Health Jacksonville
• Resilience in Action: Infusion Centers as Catalysts for Innovation, Featuring Duke Health

From clinician and patient frustration to care quality risks, disjointed communication and scheduling systems underlie numerous issues in healthcare today.

Healthcare organizations are now ramping up efforts to consolidate scheduling and communication functions by reducing their vendor footprint. The result? Lower IT burden, lower costs and better clinical outcomes.

See why hospitals are turning to a single platform to make scheduling, communication, and patient care workflows easier. This paper covers:

• The key roadblocks organizations face when it comes to communication and technology
• How 1 standardized platform enhances clinical collaboration, scheduling and patient engagement
• Navigating seamless integration

Unpredictable weather events and technology outages can disrupt care at crucial moments. Health systems with well-developed disaster management plans and solid communication strategies can seamlessly prevent missed visits by leveraging an easy-to-use, scalable telehealth platform.

Preparation efforts paid off for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. The system saw an 187% increase in telemedicine activity after a severe weather event impacted local patients and providers. Through proactive communications, UAMS shifted all in-person patient visits to virtual, resulting in zero missed appointments during the period of severe weather.

Download this case study to learn:

• The role telemedicine plays in safeguarding health systems when disruptions happen
• The importance of proactive planning and communications in disaster management
• What capabilities and features providers should look for in telehealth tools

Organizations have ramped up their investments in AI over the past few years to alleviate the burden of staffing shortages and inefficient workflows. But with countless solutions promising to improve patient care, clinician experience, and workflow collaboration, it can be hard for healthcare execs to cut through the clutter and identify tools capable of making an impact on clinical, operational, and financial initiatives.

This white paper covers key insights from a recent advisory call where AI and health system leaders discussed the most important factors that must be considered when applying AI-powered tools to different areas of healthcare.  

Learning points: 

• Healthcare organizations are adopting AI to improve clinical and operational workstreams
• The set of key criteria organizations should keep in mind when evaluating potential AI partners
• C-suite leaders' thoughts on painting tools that will make real improvements

As 30% of rural hospitals in the U.S. face the risk of closing their doors, it has become increasingly challenging to deliver quality, patient-centric care to these communities. However, technology like telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) — combined with innovative care models — are leading some hospitals to achieve increased patient engagement, better adherence to care plans and improved medication management. 

In this white paper, you'll learn how RPM, when implemented as part of a value-based care (VBC) approach, can effectively address obstacles to care and social determinants of health (SDoH).

Download to learn more about:
 

• The opportunities RPM and VBC offer federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), rural health centers (RHCs) and critical access hospitals (CAHs)
• The range of benefits (health, social, financial, organizational) that are possible for care providers and patients through the use of RPM and VBC models
• What healthcare policymakers and providers can do to promote wider adoption of telehealth and RPM services to better care for patients beyond in-person care settings

 

Demands on IT service desks in healthcare have grown immensely over the last five years. They're supporting higher volumes of applications, a constant stream of new technologies and myriad new devices that require IT maintenance. At the same time, the resources, headcount and budget provided to IT are constricting.

To better understand the challenges facing IT leaders, as well as the most promising solutions for addressing them, Becker’s Healthcare took a look at how the role of automation in optimizing IT operations and how, with the right platform, the benefits of IT service management (ITSM) modernization can span the enterprise.

Read this short report to learn:

• The types of solutions CIOs should look for to address IT challenges and alleviate resource strain
• Best practices to determine where AI has the most potential to transform operations and optimize efficiency
• How IT teams can leverage conversational AI to reduce service request burden

 Hospitals commonly grapple with an array of operational challenges that significantly impact overall efficiency and staff satisfaction. Poor block utilization leads to underutilized operating rooms, inefficient resource allocation, and difficulty accommodating large surgical volumes. Staffing challenges remain a persistent issue as it becomes challenging to align personnel with fluctuating demand. Surgeon dissatisfaction may arise from scheduling conflicts and a lack of trust in data.

Health systems such as CommonSpirit and Novant Health are now tapping into predictive & prescriptive machine learning analytics to address these challenges. Using a new data-driven and strategic approach, these organizations are able to enhance block utilization, streamline scheduling processes, optimize resources like staff and robots, and accommodate varying surgical volumes to improve overall perioperative performance.

Download this case study booklet to learn how 100 health systems from across the country are using this strategy to optimize OR performance and achieve the following results:

• Perform 30-50 more cases per year
• Increase block utilization by up to 20%
• Increase robot utilization by 45%
• Increase case volume by 10% or more without opening additional rooms
• Generate 5-20x ROI based on contribution margin

This white paper explores recent innovations in data management and artificial intelligence that are driving an evolution toward new frameworks of care delivery, such as value-based care. It explains the indispensable need for a health-specific trusted platform to harmonize disparate sources, and the potential of AI in managing and utilizing information for insights.

It also demonstrates how adaptable data systems can support VBC by facilitating the delivery of higher-quality care, while mitigating the burden of soaring healthcare costs.

Key takeaways:

• Recent innovations in health data management are driving the evolution towards emerging models and frameworks for healthcare integration and delivery
• How AI can optimize and future-proof data by enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of healthcare processes
• The importance of choosing a trusted health-specific platform that focuses on data unification

For all the workforce, finance and operation challenges hospitals and health systems are facing, community hospitals are feeling them two-fold. IT systems and processes are key to addressing issues like staffing and efficiency, but community hospitals must carefully consider value and how they're distributing resources.

In this white paper, you'll learn how information and technology executives at El Segundo, Calif.-based Pipeline Health — an independent network of community hospitals — revamped the health system's IT department to better support the workforce.

You'll learn more about Pipeline's approach to:

• Getting value out of IT investments without compromising performance, amid rising costs
• Pulling cross-departmental teams together to problem-solve
• Empowering IT teams by bringing in clinical experience, support + a customer service mindset

Nearly 30% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2021, but less than half received treatment. These vast, unmet needs in mental and behavioral health have a "ripple effect" on the well-being of individuals and communities at large. Healthcare leaders are facing a pivotal moment: the chance to build new resources, teams and systems to move from crisis to prevention.

In this white paper, you'll learn how to overcome common barriers in this area of care with strategies to lead, collaborate and invest in a new, proactive approach that better supports current mental health needs. 

Download to gain a deeper understanding of: 

• Cost of the mental health crisis in all areas of society
• Importance of aligning financial incentives
• Required investments for a new experience
• How healthcare stakeholders can take new action

Healthcare leaders are facing increasing challenges, and things are only getting more complex with an ever-changing industry landscape. While patient demand for care is high, providers struggle to keep up amid staffing shortages, high labor costs, and administrative burdens. Many systems are turning to technology to streamline processes and reduce costs. Additionally, cybersecurity is at the top of the list of healthcare leaders' competing priorities. 

It's not viable or realistic for healthcare organizations to tackle today's complex problems alone. This whitepaper report breaks down some of the top concerns from healthcare leaders today and details how the right partner can improve outcomes through greater access to person-centered care and reduce costs by accelerating the digitization and utilization of healthcare data.

You'll learn:  

• The top four issues healthcare leaders are focusing on right now
• Strategies and outcomes from leading healthcare organizations
• What to look for in a strategic technology partner

Traditional digital front door investments have not met expectations.

Patients are still frustrated with roadblocks to accessing care, and staff are doing more data entry and other manual repetitive tasks than ever before.

Digital transformation was supposed to bring healthcare into the modern age, but the industry is still burdened by processes like clipboards, faxes, and never-ending manual work queues.

But, there’s a shift happening - thanks to AI and automation. This guide covers: 

• Key indicators of an ineffective digital front door.
• Proven strategies from top healthcare organizations for an efficient, AI-powered digital front door that benefits patients and staff.
• How conversational AI is revolutionizing patient navigation in healthcare.

More accurate diagnoses, predicting health risks and highly tailored treatment plans. Today's patients expect all of this, but to truly move the needle on personalized care, healthcare organizations need to get serious about harnessing the right data.

This whitepaper explores 5 key industry trends driving the shift to more personalized care, how companies can respond, and the role technology plays in that response. It covers what it will take for the industry to make good on its promises to deliver better outcomes and more cost-effective care, and the steps individual companies can take today to accelerate progress on personalized care.

Learning points:

• 5 key trends amplifying the importance of patient-centric care
• How healthcare companies can respond to deliver the experience patients expect and improved outcomes
• How integrating technology and data-driven insights is revolutionizing the patient-provider relationship and setting the course for the future of healthcare

It’s widely agreed that generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to transform many industries, including healthcare. But how exactly this transformation will unfold remains unclear. As health systems look to capitalize on this new technology, leaders must evaluate what pressing business challenges they need to address and whether the technology can truly help solve those challenges.

  In its current iteration, there are three components of healthcare that can immediately be improved by the integration of generative AI. These are:  

• Patient Experience: Generative AI can be used to create personalized and conversational experiences for patients. This includes answering questions, booking appointments, and providing care guidance.
• Care Team Efficiency: With generative AI at their side, health providers can automate tasks such as note-taking and patient outreach, freeing up care teams to focus on more important tasks.
• Care Guidance: Generative AI can be used to provide patients with personalized care guidance, such as medication reminders and disease management tips

This report examines how to overcome barriers to technology integration and realize the promise of generative AI sooner rather than later.

Tumor board conferences play a crucial role in the comprehensive management of cancer patients. Yet, without the support of a digital platform, multidisciplinary teams can face challenges in communication, collaboration and decision-making, potentially resulting in care delays, errors and diminished outcomes.

This report explores how healthcare organizations can adopt new technology to improve tumor board workflows, optimize care decisions and prevent treatment delays. 

Learning points: 

• Best practices for the successful implementation and use of digital tumor board solutions
• Key benefits of the solutions based on real-world implementations

Atrial fibrillation patients discharged from an emergency department have a 2.7 times greater risk of stroke, death or AF re-presentation within a year1. To improve outcomes, some hospitals are leveraging connected cardiac ambulatory monitoring, which also streamlines ED workflows and shifts care to more suitable, cost-effective settings. 

In this paper, you’ll learn how this monitoring technology leads to improved care coordination, more efficient patient workflows and throughput, reduced care costs and better patient outcomes for AF and stroke. 

1. Wei M, Do D, Tang P, et al. Optimal disposition for atrial fibrillation patients presenting to the emergency departments. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2018;71(11):A509. doi:10.1016/S0735-1097(18)31050-7

Facilities management is integral to the overall success of healthcare organizations, but many leaders are sleeping on a key opportunity to help these teams reach their full potential. 

Most facilities management teams at mid-sized or large healthcare organizations rely on various technologies to mitigate risk and boost facility performance. But despite the advantages these technologies deliver, it's impossible for facilities management professionals to fully excel without intensive training.

Wherever your organization is on its technology journey, take steps to achieve a better return on investment from your facilities management technology. Download the guide for key considerations on optimizing your technology to: 

• Achieve facilities compliance, maintain accreditation and reduce risk
• Boost performance and reduce costs
• Enhance the employee experience

As hospitals and health systems lean into technology innovation, many are striving for the "digital first" badge. But creating a culture where agility, transparency and innovation are woven into organizations' DNA is far from simple. 

In this paper, you'll learn four takeaways from an exclusive discussion with hospital and health system leaders, where they candidly shared how they're navigating challenges and lessons learned at various stages of digital transformation. 

  Key points:  

• Components of a true digital mindset
• The foundation hospitals + health systems need to meaningfully innovate
• The role of technology in access-to-care disparities
• Opportunities in patient engagement

Technology-driven innovation is a common goal among healthcare leaders. Most want to see their organizations embrace innovation, nurture it and benefit from it.

A persistent challenge that has emerged for leaders, however, is change management — and whether they have the required expertise to allow the capabilities and culture of innovation to take root and spread broadly across clinical, revenue cycle and other operations.

In an executive roundtable at Becker's Health IT + Digital Health + RCM Meeting, Daryle Abrahams, a change effectiveness consultant and leader at DXC Technology, moderated a discussion with three healthcare technology leaders: 

• Edward Kim, MD, physician-in-chief and senior vice president, City of Hope Orange County (Irvine, Calif.)
• Marty Sheetz, vice president, business implementation and operations, Delta Dental
• Paul Williams, associate vice president, infrastructure technology, Penn Medicine (Philadelphia) 

The panelists discussed how hospitals and health systems can successfully implement new technologies, as well as the strategies and capabilities organizations need to overcome internal resistance, support user adoption and upskill and empower their staff.

In this white paper, you'll learn: 

• Why behavioral change is often necessary to drive user adoption of new technologies
• Why technology-driven initiatives face multiple challenges, both old and new
• How intrapreneurship can spur innovation

From unfilled positions to fewer write-offs and denials, this longitudinal study examines the effect of automation over two years at North Kansas City and Meritas Health. 

Today, the system has implemented digital scheduling, automated registration and intake, automated care gap outreach, and more, with far-ranging effects across patient and staff experience, as well as financial and care outcomes.

This whitepaper: 

• Reveals how performance metrics changed over the course of two years
• Details how frontline workers and clinic managers have responded to the new technology
• Shares the real, human impact of AI and automation on care outcomes

Continuing financial difficulties have made it more crucial for hospitals to improve their resource management and bolster their workforce to manage costs without compromising the quality of care or patient access.

The operating room is a powerful place to begin on this journey, as ORs can generate up to 70% of a hospital's revenue and up to 40% of its expenses. The potential to drive further revenue in the OR through increased case volume, while optimizing resources and staff, is enormous.

This whitepaper offers healthcare leaders a roadmap to identify OR inefficiencies and address them using a "magic equation" of artificial intelligence, automation and change management. The roadmap also includes case studies from Baptist Health Jacksonville (Fla.) and The University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City.

Key learnings:

• 10 ways to identify OR inefficiencies
• Best practices for using AI, automation and change management in the OR
• Real-world results from Baptist Health Jacksonville and The University of Kansas Health System

As healthcare undergoes a digital transformation, rural and community hospitals with limited resources must embrace new digital strategies and tools to enhance their clinical and financial performance. But that's easier said than done for community hospital CEOs with limited budgets.

The challenge requires community hospital leaders to ensure they're adopting technology solutions that are strategic, cost effective and efficient.

This whitepaper offers a roadmap for IT infrastructure investment to help leaders identify and implement solutions that will support their organizations' clinical, business and security needs.

Key learnings:

• How to evaluate evaluate potential IT investments
• The business case for replacing legacy systems and other outdated IT solutions
• 7 steps to a successful IT transformation

The prevalence of healthcare cyberattacks is rapidly growing, posing significant threats to health systems and patients alike. 

Healthcare organizations experienced 1,426 cyberattacks per week in 2022, a 60 percent jump from the year prior, according to data from Check Point Research. As of July, the average cost of a healthcare data breach was $10.9 million — the highest of any industry, a separate report from IBM Security found.  
This whitepaper offers a state of the union on healthcare cyberattacks in 2023, examining their rising prevalence and how health systems can work to prevent them.

Key learnings:

 

• The prevalence of healthcare cyberattacks
• 5 ways to protect against cyberattacks
• The role of cyber insurance 

 

The healthcare industry loses an estimated $430 billion annually to increasingly complex fraud, waste and abuse. Only 10 to 15 percent is ever recovered.

With artificial intelligence, anomalous billings can be flagged or auto-denied, enabling investigators to focus on high-value, complex cases.

What if you could continuously monitor provider behavior and risk levels, manage daily billing fraud risk in real time and access pre‐pay analytics to identify FWA before claims are paid? AI for healthcare fraud detection can do all this and more.

Read this e-book to learn:

• How AI optimizes workflows by triaging good, bad and suspicious claims
• Why higher detection rates and fewer false positives helps teams focus on more complex FWA schemes, resulting in substantial savings
• How models are continuously trained, evolving with schemes as they arise

Traditional nurse staffing models aren't going to cut it amid today's healthcare labor crisis. Faced with significant staff shortages and high turnover rates, many healthcare leaders are adopting creative approaches to streamline nursing workflows.

This white paper explores how hospitals can use automation to reduce stress on nurses, while also improving patient experience and outcomes. See how a blended nursing strategy using bedside nurses, virtual nurses and documentation automation can increase team members' efficiency, reduce procedural errors, and give patients more facetime with caregivers. 

Learn how this approach can:

 

• Shrink length of stay by 90 minutes
• Cut patient sitting hours by 48 percent
• Reduce patient falls by 60 percent 

 

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

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)

 

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

In many cases, addressing the most pressing, stubborn challenges in healthcare today has become synonymous with digital transformation. While technology is evolving quickly and holds promise for driving efficiency, better patient outcomes and smoother operations, leaders are confronting a host of implementation issues like budget constraints and too few staff — which can mitigate or halt transformation efforts altogether.

Becker's Healthcare and AWS Marketplace collaboratively surveyed 115 healthcare leaders on their organizations' journeys to better technology offerings and capabilities, as well as where key barriers and opportunities lie.

Download to learn:

• The top three areas where leaders are hoping to make the biggest impact via digital innovation
• Planned investments in enterprise applications over the next year and beyond — and what this trend indicates
• Progress, challenges and outlook on artificial intelligence

If health systems want to expand access to care, leaders must think outside the box amid ongoing economic and operational challenges.

In this vein, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and other technologies are showing promise. To successfully transform their organizations, however, healthcare leaders must also identify the right sources of data, get key stakeholders excited about the possibilities and identify projects that will deliver quick wins. This white paper explores how systems such as CommonSpirit Health and Intermountain Health are doing just that.

Key learnings:

• How leading systems are reimagining hospital operations with AI
• Three key elements for a successful capacity management improvement effort
• The future of capacity management

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

Reducing health disparities is on most leaders' strategic agendas — but too often, competing day-to-day priorities and the complexity of this issue can leave organizations' progress stalled. To build momentum here, many are adopting creative, collaborative pathways. 

This white paper features insights from an exclusive discussion with hospital and health system leaders on their respective journeys to achieving health equity via community partnerships, data and technology.

Read more to learn:

• Why organizations should strive to advance health equity and health justice
• How an equity lens should be applied to the use of technology in healthcare delivery
• The data and interventions some hospitals + health systems are using, such as local partnerships and patient advisory councils, to narrow health disparities

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?

Most providers believe their cloud infrastructure is secure, but research shows they are significantly unprepared and overconfident. Many still have a long way to go to effectively protect against increasing cyberthreats.

This white paper shares findings from a survey of over 200 IT, security and compliance leaders in the healthcare industry. 

Learning points:

• Truths about healthcare providers' cloud cybersecurity hygiene and investments, revealing an industry that is significantly unprepared and overconfident
• Top barriers to cloud adoption for healthcare providers who prioritize cybersecurity
• Proactive steps taken by healthcare providers to increase cybersecurity budgets, protect patient outcomes and remain compliant with evolving regulations

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

The COVID-19 pandemic institutionalized collaborative technology in hospitals and health systems, as it quickly became a staple — out of necessity — for telehealth and clinical meetings. But other areas of healthcare, like biotech, drug and medical device companies, have realized equally compelling benefits of the same technology.

In this Zoom white paper, you'll learn how collaborative platforms are increasingly supporting clinical and business operations at life sciences organizations, including how one pharmaceutical company is seeing success in staff engagement and physician education.

Read more to discover how this technology:

Enables organizations to fast-track vaccine and drug development
Addresses some of the biggest challenges that life sciences organizations face, like connectivity, data sharing, clinical trials and staffing
Promotes innovation and go-to-market, and advances research

 

In healthcare, collaborative communication is critical for success. Members of a care coordination team must work together closely to ensure positive patient outcomes while staying compliant with HIPAA regulations. Using noncompliant channels for communication between care teams can result in heavy fines and damage a provider's reputation.

However, HIPAA isn't static, and maintaining compliance requires staying up to date with changes in the law, which creates an additional burden for providers who should be focusing on patient care.

A secure cloud communications platform is key to fostering collaborative communication between providers without fear of violating HIPAA. Download the white paper to learn how to:

• Connect care teams and patients on-site or via telehealth
• Reduce costs through better collaboration with payers
• Keep patient data secure and care team communication HIPAA-compliant

The era of AI is here, and the potential of this technology to address stubborn, industrywide issues is becoming increasingly clear. 

This white paper details a conversation with a group of healthcare leaders about their approach to AI, the benefits they're seeing in leveraging technology and what they think other leaders should consider before implementation.  

You'll read about:

• Why investing in technology — despite budget challenges — is important
• The AI frameworks and capabilities that are still missing across the industry
• How some technologies are unburdening staff and enhancing patient care

Telehealth and other technology integrations have proven to be more than a pandemic fad — they are here to stay. 

Healthcare organizations today are reimagining their digital strategy to better support the increased demand for telehealth, and ensure it is accessible to as many patients as possible. 

As healthcare technology continues to advance rapidly, it is crucial to stay up to date with the latest telehealth and technology integrations while still maintaining patient privacy and information security. 

Key learnings: 

 

• Why future iterations of telehealth technologies must be simplified 
• How an increased demand for telehealth caused organizations to reassess their digital strategies
• The importance of a laser-sharp focus on data security and compliance 
• Technologies that can propel the patient journey forward 

 

Social determinants of health account for most of the modifiable contributors to healthy outcomes. But hospitals, health systems and health plans haven't had the tools or technology to effectively close the loop on SDOH-related challenges — until now.

Technology advancements are enabling the healthcare industry to sooner identify and break SDOH-related barriers to care, quickly connect individuals to appropriate resources and optimize engagement to ensure individuals receive the support they need.

This report outlines the many benefits of implementing tech-enabled SDOH interventions to improve health outcomes and reduce hospitalizations, readmissions, emergency department use and costs.

Read more to learn how to: 

• Proactively identify SDOH risk factors and connect individuals with appropriate resources sooner.
• Get a more complete picture of an individual's health by leveraging integrated, tech-first tools.
• Track referral status in real-time to close the loop on SDOH referrals and measure the impact of your efforts.

In 2023, the vast majority of appointments are still booked by telephone. This isn’t what patients want. It’s also labor-intensive and incredibly inefficient.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There’s now a proven playbook for moving beyond the call center to something far better for patients and providers.

This whitepaper:  

• Examines findings from a nationwide survey of patient access leaders on scheduling 
• Unpacks the differences between what providers provide and what patients want
• Details how two health systems have increased appointments, slashed staff time spent on scheduling, and improved patient satisfaction through intelligent automation 

Too often, new technologies are deployed too rapidly across clinical and administrative workflows. When this happens, the entire purpose of the technology's potential is defeated and employees are left more frustrated than they were in the first place. 

Most technologies in healthcare aim to make things easier for workers and patients, and lower costs. But it's up to organizations to take a thoughtful implementation approach in order to realize these benefits. 

Read takeaways from a workshop at the Becker's Hospital Review 13th Annual Meeting where two experts shared how organizations can approach tech investments in a manner that will actually alleviate pressures, not add to them. 

Learning points:  

• Avoid haphazard tech implementation
• Engage clinicians in the tech investment + implementation processes 
• Define and tracking success metrics 

With healthcare accounting for 30% of the world's data volume, unlocking its potential has been a long-standing goal for many health systems. With the evolution of technology, this is no longer a distant dream - it's a reality.

This whitepaper explores how leading health systems are leveraging intelligent automation, large language models (LLMs), and generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) technologies to finally realize the potential of patient data.

Discover how:

• One health system reduced no-shows by 8%, leading to $2M in annual cost savings
• Another health system deployed advanced technology to deliver a 50% decrease in eligibility and registration-related denials
• Yet another health system drove $840K in annual cost savings from a 23% reduction in no-shows and cancellations

Internet-connected medical devices can be a boon for patients and healthcare organizations, improving the quality of care while reducing cost and complexity. But they're not designed with cybersecurity in mind, making them especially vulnerable to cyberattacks, which can put patient lives at risk. 

Securing the internet of medical things requires a new strategy and coordinated approach as more devices hit the market and health systems continue to consolidate. 

In this whitepaper, you'll learn:

• What defines IoMT and how it is shaping the future of healthcare
• What cybersecurity risks to expect from internet-connected devices
• Why the IoMT requires a unique approach to security
• The five steps you can take to implement an effective cybersecurity strategy for the IoMT

The proof is in the numbers. After implementing cognitive AI solutions and other digital tools to traditional healthcare operations, clinical and non-clinical practices saw a 35% to 40% improvement in health care digital workforce use. What's more, organizations saw 30% to 40% efficiency improvements and 25% cost reduction through handling peak call volumes without additional staffing.

These drastic improvements allow employees to work the way they prefer: In a sensitive, effective nature caring for patients. In this white paper, EXL thought leaders discuss how applying automated, digital solutions to streamline processes, simplify clinical workflows and eliminate manual administrative tasks, companies can improve patient and employee satisfaction at the same time.   More so, you’ll learn how adding digital:  

• Engages the members most likely to benefit from specific programs.
• Optimizes clinical resources’ scope of practice.
• Improves member engagement and health outcomes.
• Drives down health care costs across populations.

 

As adoption of value-based care snowballs, healthcare leaders are eager to invest in digital initiatives that close care gaps — but knowing when, where and how to apply these tools can be the difference between an intervention that drives patient engagement and better outcomes and a one that ignores social determinants of health, staff buy-in and human connection.

This white paper recaps an exclusive discussion between nine healthcare executives from systems like Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.), Baptist Health South Florida (Coral Gables, Fla.) and Sentara Healthcare (Norfolk, Va.), who shared their thoughts on the promise of digital and automated care tools for closing care gaps and how-to's for successfully implementing them.

Read more to learn:

• How staff shortages are impacting care gaps
• Patient-centric tools that promote preventive care and help manage chronic conditions
• Common missteps in implementing digital interventions and how to avoid them

Unknown data silos can be detrimental to healthcare organizations.

All along the continuum of care, hidden data silos prevent health systems from achieving the goals of interoperability, namely, the ability to put the right information in the right hands at the right time for better care. Without a clear idea of where data silos exist, achieving true data integration is impossible.

The stakes are high: Lack of data interoperability results in inefficient, disconnected care and undermines value-based care and population health. 

Download this white paper to learn how to:

• Overcome top data sharing and access challenges in health systems
• Unlock trapped data in healthcare's 9 billion faxed documents sent each year
• Implement three strategies to eliminate data silos in healthcare

The benefits of cloud adoption aren't disputed, but many healthcare organizations are still determining which adoption strategies best address their technological, cultural and operational challenges.

During a recent peer-to-peer discussion hosted by Becker's Hospital Review, healthcare information and technology leaders shared their own experiences and common challenges they've faced in adopting cloud strategies. Download the white paper to see their insights on best practices, goals, criteria and metrics for integrating cloud technology.

Learn how to:

• Make internal cultural shifts to overcome cloud adoption concerns
• Guide your decisions about implementation and integration strategies
• Understand the impact your cloud strategy has on care quality

To reimagine care delivery and meet patients where they are, hospitals and health systems must embrace a strong culture of innovation. This means being customer-obsessed, enabling leaders to make fast, data-driven decisions, and learning to be agile in making those decisions.

During a session at Becker's 10th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, healthcare leaders from across the country discussed how their organizations are engaging in innovation and lessons they've learned. This report offers a summary of the discussion and features insights from:

Houston Methodist
UC San Diego (Calif.) Health
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (Seattle) 

Most healthcare organizations embrace the idea of using digital technologies to improve the quality of care, enable clinicians and increase efficiency.

However, organizations are often held back in their digital transformation efforts by legacy IT systems and disconnected point solutions.

There's a better way. Healthcare organizations are discovering the transformational benefits of a single application platform that provides a unified, connected view of their data, patients and clinicians.

Download this white paper to learn how innovative healthcare organizations are leveraging this single platform to:

• Accelerate the speed to adapt to changing care requirements
• Improve clinician and patient management
• Dramatically heighten patient satisfaction
• Achieve seamless governance, risk and compliance management

 

To understand how healthcare organizations are using cloud technology to deliver smart, efficient, and cost-effective care, Becker’s Hospital Review and VMware brought together a panel of Health IT experts for an advisory call to discuss their experiences and share best
practices.

Download the white paper to learn key takeaways with valuable, first-hand insights on how to
incorporate cloud into healthcare operations in the most effective way.

Key Points:

• Learn how to control security risks by limiting cloud provider and integrations
• Create criteria to evaluate cloud hosting providers for your organization’s specific needs
• Adopt a “why not cloud” approach to assessing cloud investments

During the pandemic, the role of telehealth technology has expanded greatly. According to Becker’s, about 80% of Americans believe that the quality of telehealth could match that of in-person consultations – up from 43% pre-pandemic. Now, emergency medicine could be the next frontier for telehealth to improve timely access to treatment and provide vital follow-up care.

Explore further possible uses for telehealth such as:

• Field emergency responses connecting unskilled responders to medical help
• Providing support to smaller hospitals in underserved communities
• “Tele-triage” to help relieve ER overcrowding and screen patients awaiting treatment

Healthcare organizations are wrestling with the ability to deliver high-quality, complex care while dealing with rising labor costs, clinician burnout and staffing shortages.

The growing complexity of care increases the communication and documentation burden on staff. This is why clinical workflow automation is gaining momentum — and why its adoption is expected to double from 2022 to 2024.

In collaboration with Becker's Healthcare, OmniLife Health conducted its inaugural clinical workflow automation benchmark survey, which elicited responses from 99 C-suite, clinical, transplant leaders and other decision-makers about where their organizations stand on implementing this critical technology.

Key learnings:

• How clinical workflow automation software can help improve efficiency and save staff time
• How the software can improve revenue capture by providing documentation needed for reimbursement.
• How healthcare organizations can use the software in a variety of clinical areas

Health system margins are shrinking and 50 percent are operating at a loss. To boost revenues and margins, organizations are expanding their ambulatory care footprint. In fact, many health systems are actively looking to develop a portfolio of ambulatory care channels.

While ambulatory care is an important strategic move to expand patient access, increase revenue and improve margins, there are critical challenges to navigate.

This eBook – based on an advisory call of health system leaders from across the country with significant ambulatory care expertise – covers keys to successful ambulatory care expansion, such as:

Why understanding the local market is critical
Prioritizing the patient experience when designing sites of care
Different management skills needed for ASCs vs. inpatient care
The need to focus on ambulatory reimbursement models

As the market rapidly shifts to more ambulatory care, it is essential to understand and act on the keys to ambulatory success.

In times of tight budgets and staffing challenges, technology such as artificial intelligence empower hospitals to run more sustainably.

AI patient monitoring helps hospitals minimize falls, cut costs and reduce the need for full time employees. Now it's time to bring digital nursing into the acute environment for truly flexible nursing teams.

Explore how AI and other digital care tools are making care more efficient in this white paper.

Key learnings:

• How digital care tools can reduce average sitter hours
• How AI patient monitoring can reduce patient falls
• How digital care tools can decrease fall alert response time

Technology can help reduce costs with automation and increased operational efficiency.

Get ready for next-level growth, productivity, and patient engagement with Health Cloud and Tableau CRM. The solution helped MIMIT get a holistic view of patient data with a single source of truth — and a 459% ROI in less than three months.

According to Nucleus Research, MIMIT Health:

Boosted productivity by 30%
Raised patient engagement
Reduced procedure scheduling from two weeks to two to five days
Cut inventory costs by 15%, or $150,000 a year

Patient-facing teams are all too familiar with referrals ending in a futile game of phone tag. While seemingly innocuous, not closing the loop means fewer visits, frustrated staff and patients, compromised health outcomes and lost revenue. This has become the unfortunate norm as healthcare trends toward consolidation and health systems that have complex provider networks — which are most prone to referral gaps.

This white paper explores the steps health systems can take to upgrade manual patient engagement to digital processes for closing referral gaps.

Read more to learn about:

• The inefficiencies in the referral management process + impact on patients and practitioners
• Opportunities for automation in patient engagement for referrals, like SMS or phone-based notifications, and how health systems can get started implementing these
• The success Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin realized in using its EHR-embedded patient engagement platform to create a closed-loop referral management workflow

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.

This report outlines a clear strategy healthcare organizations can implement to improve patients' financial literacy and retain them amid an increasingly competitive marketplace.

You'll learn:

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

Accessing clinical patient data can be like drinking from a fire hose. From diagnoses and labs to genomics and social determinants of health, the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming. Yet despite all this available data, painting an accurate picture of an individual’s health can be a significant challenge.

So why is it so difficult to create a patient's "digital twin?"

In this insight brief, we explore some of the common obstacles to gathering, integrating and leveraging clinical data, such as:

• Siloed information within the EHR and between health IT systems
• Varied data accessibility
• Inadequate capture of detail or specificity
• Inconsistent data structure; and
• Variations in clinical terminology

Telehealth adoption skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, propelled by the urgency of finding solutions to the restrictions imposed on in-person healthcare encounters. As hospitals and health systems scrambled to meet demand for care under those limitations, the benefits and value of telehealth were magnified. Now, as the healthcare industry emerges from the crisis, organizations are thinking about the future of telehealth — looking beyond its pandemic-fueled adoption and growth to more strategic considerations.

This e-book highlights findings from Becker's-Teladoc Health's 6th annual telehealth benchmark survey, which elicited responses from healthcare CEOs, CFOs, virtual care leaders, directors, CIOs and other decision-makers about their organizations' stance on virtual care and plans for it going forward.

Key learnings include:

• What the survey findings reveal about the future of virtual care and health systems
• Some of the barriers holding back telehealth expansion and the resources healthcare organizations need to surmount those barriers
• How staffing models need to evolve to continue delivering the benefits of telehealth adoption amid persistent workforce shortages

Matching supply and demand for expensive, constrained resources, such as operating rooms, inpatient beds and clinical staff is among healthcare's most difficult and important challenges. Many healthcare organizations have traditionally managed these issues by using informal knowledge or staff privileges to determine how OR blocks, patient beds and nurse schedules are allocated.

However, with advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and insights gleaned from other industries, hospitals and health systems are now better equipped than ever to more efficiently manage scarce resources.

This report outlines how health systems –including Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health and Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Novant Health — are using technology to tackle staffing shortages and optimize capacity and resources management, resulting in:

• Increased access to care for patients
• Higher revenues for provider organizations
• Improved clinician satisfaction

The Sanford Health Fargo (N.D.) Sterile Processing team is leading an effort to optimize physician preference cards, in collaboration with the Supply Chain and Perioperative teams, resulting in a 90%+ preference card accuracy rate. To date, they have achieved $1.4 million in savings through on-hand inventory reduction alone, not including labor and productivity gains.

With the help of Tecsys’ Elite™ Healthcare POU technology, Sanford Health has automated and systemized data capture, closed the data loop on preference card picking cycles, eliminated redundant processes and driven down on-hand inventory value.

This success story documents their journey at each step of the way. 

Key Takeaways:

• Understand how an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement can increase cost savings, drive operational efficiency and reduce waste.
• Measure inventory performance with accurate analytics and analyze real-time data using the right technology.
• Identify the financial impact of unused materials resulting from out-of-date surgeon preference cards.

When it comes to member experience, the pressure is on. Every health plan cares deeply about their members’ journey, but many lack the technology and still provide a fragmented, disjointed member experience. Health plans must reexamine how they engage with members to deliver seamless, personalized, retail-like experiences.

In this new white paper, discover how leading plans are leveraging data and artificial intelligence to turbocharge the member experience, transform member interactions and drive engagement across all channels.

Download to learn how health plans can:  

• Use existing data and AI to turbocharge the contact center 

• Create a holistic view of members to transform their experience 

• Drive personalization with existing member data 

• Overcome barriers to technology adoption and build greater trust with members

Profound advancements in medical imaging are poised to dramatically shorten time to diagnosis and treatment. However, with more sophisticated imaging comes more data and the need for more computing power to support high-speed information sharing across the care continuum. Additionally, healthcare technology leaders will have to find new ways to achieve more dynamic cybersecurity amid rising rates of malware and ransomware attacks targeting healthcare organizations. 
 
Maintaining, growing and securing on-premises data storage presents major challenges for hospitals and health systems in such an environment. This white paper examines why cloud storage and computing will become essential supports for hospitals and health systems keen to make the most of medical imaging technology advancements.
 
In this eBook, you will learn:

 

• How health systems are reaping the benefits of cloud technology for medical imaging
• The four pillars for optimized medical imaging data use and storage

Healthcare leaders feel better equipped to handle future crises.

That’s a key takeaway from Becker’s survey of 102 hospital and health system leaders. This survey revealed lessons from the pandemic about increased resilience for future health crises. Among the key lessons is an increased focus on technology to improve clinical efficiency and staff effectiveness.

Gain insights from this survey on how coping with the last crisis (COVID-19) can help organizations be better prepared for the next one. Learn how health systems leaders are addressing points of failure and building on successful technology-driven strategies from the pandemic.

Key takeaways include:

• Why healthcare leaders feel better prepared for the next crisis
• How technology can augment staffing – before and during a crisis
• Why connecting point solutions to the IT infrastructure for specific use cases can have tremendous value
• The importance of smart technology investments

Maximizing capacity of finite resources, such as operating rooms, is one of the biggest business imperatives for health systems. Growing demand for healthcare is putting pressure on all resources, including staff, patient rooms, ORs and other infrastructure. Meanwhile, it's becoming more expensive to raise capital to build more capacity. The best solution is to use existing resources more efficiently.

Becker's Hospital Review recently spoke with five healthcare leaders about the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to enhance capacity management. This report offers a summary of the discussion.

Download the report for insights from:

• Brian Dawson, MSN, system vice president of perioperative services at CommonSpirit Health (Chicago)
• Ira Martin, DNP, RN, former assistant chief nursing officer with HCA Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.)
• Patrick McGill, MD, executive vice president and chief transformation officer of Community Health Network (Indianapolis)
• Cindy Russo, BSN, president of Trumbull Regional Medical Center (Warren, Ohio) and former COO of Steward Health Care's Ohio/Pennsylvania region
• Lori Wightman, vice president of nursing/chief nursing officer of SCL Health (Broomfield, Colo.)

The pandemic amplified long-standing pain points of both patients and employees.
A lack of access, ease, empathy, and partnership have real impacts on individual and
organizational wellbeing. Addressing these issues will require healthcare leaders to
listen, understand, and act. In other words, to adopt a holistic approach to empathy.

The reasons to operationalize empathy at scale are compelling. Not only is it the moral
approach, it makes business sense. Organizations across industries have seen
improved financial performance, increased patient and employee satisfaction, higher net
promoter scores…etc.. With so much at stake, empathy in healthcare is imperative.

In this guide you’ll learn:

• The cost of empathy deficiencies – and how to avoid them
• Three ways to foster human-centred experiences throughout your organization
• How to leverage real-time data, closed-loop processes, and AI to modernize your experience programs

The amount of data in healthcare makes the creation of actionable business strategies challenging.

But leading organizations are using data to fundamentally reimagine their offerings and operating models. Data is driving better clinical care, better patient experiences and better performance.

A new ebook from Becker’s Hospital Review shares insights on the "data journeys" and lessons learned from three leading healthcare organizations: Kaiser Permanente, City of Hope and Quorum Health. Each organization has overcome barriers and is now deriving enormous value from data.

Download the ebook to learn:

• How COVID-19 uncovered data challenges and accelerated the need for data-driven decisions
• The change in mindset to treat data as a product
• New data architectures, standards, metrics and technologies
• How organizations envision using AI and natural language processing

The future of healthcare relies on data. Discover how three healthcare leaders are turning their data into business value.

Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health was spending more than $27 million a year on patient sitters before the pandemic hit. Several weeks into treating COVID-19 patients, Trinity's leaders knew they'd need to rapidly accelerate a three-year plan to implement virtual monitoring across its 89 hospitals.

In just nine months, the health system deployed a nationwide virtual care platform with zero latency, resulting in significant cost reductions and improved quality of care.

Download this whitepaper to see how the system:

• Replaced costly 1:1 sitters with 1:12 virtual monitoring solutions
• Saved $23 million in labor costs
• Decreased patient fall rates systemwide

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

Five CIOs met with DrFirst and CHIME CEO, Russ Branzell, to discuss the great resignation, staff burnout, and how clinician productivity and job satisfaction are contributing to the industry’s 6.4% and rising departure rate. 

See how these leaders are improving their teams' workloads and quality of life while making patient care more efficient.

Download the brief to see the strategies and tactics healthcare leaders are using to address:

• Repetitive tasks within EHR workflows

• Nursing shortage and the rising cost of contract staff

• Recent resignation and retirement trends

Recognized as a technology leader among Massachusetts healthcare organizations, South Shore Hospital in Weymouth recently prioritized efforts within its emergency department to reduce costly adverse drug events and readmissions with innovative technology and a three-step process.

This three-page case study explains how the hospital improved ED processes for patients and clinicians with a combination of new tools and strategy.

Download the report to learn about:

• The hospital's three-step approach to managing high-risk patients
• How to prevent medication errors and readmissions among ED patients
• How to achieve greater 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.

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.

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

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