Interview/podcast with Carina Edwards, VP, Marketing at Nuance Healthcare where she discusses clinical documentation tech tools and it’s integration in clinical workflow including the following:
- ICD-10 Delay Client Impact
- Importance of CLU Tools
- CLU Integration in Clinical Workflow
- Nuance’s Future Market Opportunities
LISTEN BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
HIT Consultant: Now given the announcement of the 1 year delay for ICD-10, have you seen any change in clients actually scaling down or have you seen people saying we are going to go full steam ahead and actually business pick up as a result of that delay?
Carina: That’s a great question. We’ve seen actually business as usual and business picking up. The nice thing for us, is the MD Assist solution that we’ve developed how it works very well with ICD-9. You still need to get that behavior change at the clinical documentation starting point with the physician. This now allows us to get the physician used to, in their common language, with their common ICD-9 backend and coding queries, get them used to being prompted and getting questioned at the point of documentation so then as we roll to ICD-10 and the complexity of what needs to be addressed increases given just the level of specificity changes required, it gives them a head start because they’re already used to the system. But we also know that some customers want to set up those environments so they can also start modeling out what the revenue implications for the hospital may be. So as they’re looking at their programs, they’re wondering where they can do ICD-10 pilots as a sub process so clearly not impacting their current revenue stream but just to get the analysis of what’s going to happen when they do shift to the standard and so now these tools can help them do both.
HIT Consultant: Now how important are all these tools? I’ve been reading a lot about clinical language understanding technology, clinical language indexing, HLI, IMO, all of these tools. How important do you think going forward utilizing all of these tools to get more specificity in documentation is going to be helpful in this industry?
Carina: You know, I think technology can always bring efficiency to a current process. I think the key though is how the technology is integrated into the current workflow. [pullquote] key though is how the technology is integrated into the current workflow.[/pullquote] So as these solutions are coming to market, we really support customers in looking at what is the existing clinical workflow today? What would have to change with the new technology implementation? How much change management would be required from a physician workflow perspective? And we found the least disruptive. If we can keep the physician focused on patient care, focused on documenting in their current workflow and not disrupt them too much, you’ll get stronger adoption of these solutions.[pullquote]If we can keep the physician focused on patient care, focused on documenting in their current workflow and not disrupt them too much, you’ll get stronger adoption of these solutions.[/pullquote] So I think there’s always a place for technology. Technology helps us in so many ways in our lives. Imagine the whole online banking example. Ten years ago, did we ever think we could scanning in, taking a picture of a check and that’s our deposit form? There’s so much things we can do to drive efficiency, but really at the end of the day it depends on the impact to clinical workflow to drive that adoption.
HIT Consultant: Right. So for potential clients that are going through and looking at different tools, what are some best practices when doing this type of selection of these tools. There are a lot of competing companies out there. In your opinion, what is some of the best practices for going through this process in selecting the right product for that particular organization?
Carina: I really think you have to understand where the technology’s deployed today, where it’s actually in clinical use. Really look for those reference sites and get the feedback from others like you. I think that’s critical. As we see new technologies introduced, there is an adoption period for new technologies. I think when you look at the foundation of that company’s ability to integrate into workflow, make it seamless. So really the proven nature of the product is going to be critical for customers. We always help facilitate, best practice for us, is to facilitate others like this and customer reference site calls and visits and really talking to other department heads and other quality and clinical and CIO counterparts in the industry just to say how this has worked in the past, how it will impact change and how it’s going to be adopted by physicians.
HIT Consultant: Any final thoughts or closing comments?
Carina: The closing comment I would leave everybody that’s listening to this podcast with is it goes back to for HIT consultants in general, we’re driving towards adoption of new technology and really understanding an architecting plan that both take into account the clinical workflow, the requirements of all the different regulatory needs, and then the tools and technology that can help support that transition and make it the easiest and simplest as possible. I really think they have to look at holistic solutions, deep partnerships, and RND integration efforts with these electronic health record vendors. It’s going to be critical because it’s with that interactivity and that connectedness that you’re going to get the most seamless experience for the physician practices.[pullquote] It’s going to be critical because it’s with that interactivity and that connectedness that you’re going to get the most seamless experience for the physician practices.[/pullquote] We’re excited about the market opportunity for Nuance. We see through our relationship with the EHR vendors and the deep RND relationships that we have, a lot of momentum into cloud, into mobile, that ability to truly capture that patient’s story anywhere and know with clinical language understanding, understand what is captured and use that information across the healthcare enterprise for reimbursement, for Meaningful Use reporting, for quality reporting. It’s a fun time and Nuance is excited to be in this space and great to be at this intersection of all that’s coming together.
HIT Consultant: Thank you.
About Carina Edwards:
Carina is responsible for Nuance Healthcare’s marketing strategy and has direct line of authority for managing the solutions marketing efforts of the individual lines of business including HIM, Diagnostics and Dragon Medical. Prior to joining the company in January of 2011, Carina was the Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Zynx Health. In this role, Carina transformed the marketing and product management capabilities for the Corporation, as well as redesigned the infrastructure, organization, and governance to achieve the organizations aggressive growth goals. Prior to Zynx Health, Carina held global marketing, product management, and business development leadership roles at Phillips Healthcare, Sapient, and Impact Innovations Group. Carina holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Boston College, as well as a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Management Information Systems and Decision Sciences from George Mason University.