Ebbs and flows in the need for nurses and the number of students entering nursing programs are common, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused a more severe nursing shortage than has been previously experienced. At the height of the pandemic, nursing schools suspended in-person classes and were essentially closed. At the same time, many experienced nurses chose early retirement. These factors came together to create the global nursing shortage we are currently facing.
Simulation, the use of
Read More
SDoH: The Power of Proactive Social Care
As we emerge from a public health crisis that magnified and exacerbated health disparities, the need to address social determinants of health (SDOH) has reached a pivotal moment. In both social and healthcare, the pressure is mounting to address key drivers of health and amplify value-based care models.
To succeed, these models need to be effective and measurable as we work to build trust with all stakeholders (e.g., at-risk individuals, health plan members, community
Read More
Bridge The Health Literacy Gap for Your Patients With These Top Tips
According to the National Assessment of Adult Health Literacy, only 12% of adults in the U.S. have proficient health literacy skills.
Healthcare is a unique industry because it is wide-ranging yet highly personalized. Health literacy is important for patients, physicians and their communities. Each of these groups comes together to improve health systems and patient care, which is why mutual understanding and clear communication is vital to patient outcomes. Below, we discuss recommendations
Read More
3 Steps to Powering Data Innovation with Analytics & AI
A hot topic we see and hear a lot in healthcare is leveraging big data. Little known fact, we don’t yet have big data in healthcare, so the industry hasn’t had the opportunity to use big data. Healthcare has been in the “little data” game because much of the healthcare experience has yet to be digitized. In addition, interoperability issues leave much data siloed on disparate databases across the healthcare ecosystem.
This is all changing, and this change is accelerating. We’re quickly
Read More
How Health Systems Can Set A Robust Governance Strategy Over Clinical Taxonomy
Having a structured clinical taxonomy system in place is key to ensuring healthcare consumers are successfully finding care in the way they’re actually seeking it. The patient experience is enhanced when patients are able to find the right doctor and the right location for their individual health needs.
By their nature, taxonomies and their associations are dynamic, and so is the way people conduct digital searches. This article will explore a few ways
Read More
Digiceuticals: Driving Growth Through Digital Health Services
There was tremendous interest in telemedicine before 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic made it a reality triggering unprecedented disruption across the industry. For instance, digital-first healthcare aggregators had been testing programs for telemedicine but, since 2020, the demand for telehealth services has exploded across the globe. Despite stabilizing forces such as vaccine rollouts, telehealth utilization remains 38 times higher than it was in the years before the pandemic (1). Health
Read More
Cost Transparency Ecosystem in Healthcare
Cost transparency is a driving force in the American market. Whether consumers are looking to purchase a latte, a plane ticket, or surgery, they increasingly expect to pay an “out-the-door” price– something that includes all labor and materials as well as the finished product or service. When polled, 66% of Americans indicated that they would shop for care if prices were publicly disclosed. And in pursuit of competitively and transparently priced services, some patients attempt to shop locally;
Read More
Healthcare Data Lake: The Key to Operating a Data Informed Organization
Two decades ago, business priorities within a healthcare organization were largely driven by a select few executive visionaries. Today, the most successful healthcare organizations are using data to validate ideas and further refine them through advanced studies and predictive models.
The data-informed healthcare organization has come of age through recent advances in data technologies, a surge in artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities,
Read More
It’s Time to Give Patients “Admin Access” to Manage Their Healthcare
While the entire healthcare industry is inching toward giving people more autonomy to manage their care, we can’t seem to hand over the keys just yet.
The latest KLAS data on patient preferences shows that most individuals interacting with the healthcare system want greater control, especially over their care visits. That’s because the capabilities patients value most—including appointment scheduling, prescription refill
Read More
Physicians and Technology: A Blessing or a Curse?
Burnout is a growing situation that has been slowly undermining the productivity of physicians and their staff. And in recent years, it’s gotten worse as demands from patients, documentation, and regulatory requirements increase.
Adding to the situation are challenges related to added technology, the need to be virtual and to meet patients where they are, and the need to keep up with constantly changing information and landscape in terms of what our patients need from us.
Kirk Davis,
Read More
