Patients have taken a more active role in their healthcare journey, and with more digital options than ever before, their expectations have significantly shifted. More are taking their healthcare-related searches online –– an estimated 80 percent according to a recent report by Doctor.com –– and adopting a consumer-like approach, comparing and contrasting providers to find a practice that fits their needs to a tee. With patient consumerism on the rise, it’s become imperative for providers to
Read More
3 Ways Health Plans Can Leverage Lab Data Analytics
Payers have long realized the value of leveraging disparate data sets to gain greater insight on patients, with popular data sources including claims, electronic health records, and surveys on social determinants and behavioral health.
More recently, health plans have begun to appreciate another source of data that can help them avoid missed revenues, predict emerging conditions and improve risk management: laboratory data. This category includes data on critical health factors such as
Read More
Applied Analytics: Making the Dream of Cost-Controlled Population Health a Reality
Ninety percent of a solution is accurately defining the problem, however, in healthcare, much like nearly every other industry, more time and energy is spent on fixing perceived symptoms rather than identifying root caU.S.es.
Today we will explore the contribution that applied analytics has made and continues to make on bending the dramatic U.S. healthcare cost curve. To do this well we will first explore the primary cost drivers (i.e. root caU.S.es), as to why the U.S. spends more on care than
Read More
How Patients Suffer From The Worst Kept Secret in Health IT
Recently, articles in The Atlantic and Fortune highlighted a risk that plagues the healthcare system but is rarely talked about. The in-depth pieces uncover real-life patient stories resulting from mismatched and incorrect patient medical records. These tragic stories unfold in the articles and highlight scenarios that include permanent brain damage in a 5-year old; a cancer scare due to an incomplete radiological history; the missed diagnosis of a fatal brain aneurysm in a 47-year old woman;
Read More
How Hospitals Can Improve Patient Flow Through Location-Aware Healthcare IoT
Nearly every healthcare setting wants to improve their patient flow.Overcrowded emergency rooms. Convoluted surgery schedules. Clunky patient handoffs between departments. Delayed discharges. Ambulance diversions. Long wait times for care or, even worse, patients abandoning treatment due to long wait times.Disruptions in the patient flow need to be taken seriously.But what kind of data do hospital administrators need to make informed changes to their patient flow and where do they find it?Rich,
Read More
Mothers in the U.S. Are Dying: What Are We Doing to Save Them?
The maternal mortality rate in the United States is the highest of any developed country – and the rate is rising. The US is currently the most dangerous place to give birth in the developed world.
Few to none of these maternal deaths are due to medical mismanagement. Instead, problems of access, care coordination, and inequities in health care resources and social services are at the heart of maternal death rates.
Minority women, particularly those facing socioeconomic challenges, are the
Read More
3 Things Patients Want From Their Healthcare Financial Experience
In most healthcare organizations, basic automation is used to complete individual revenue cycle tasks. Seldom, however, is technology used to optimize entire revenue cycle management (RCM) processes and improve the patient financial experience.
The situation is dramatically different outside of healthcare in industries that have long competed for direct consumer dollars.
To book an airline flight, for example, consumers simply open up an app or a website. At their convenience — any time of day
Read More
Why An Integrated Healthcare CRM Is Critical to Patient Engagement
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the well-known backbone of commercial sales forces across the globe. But what many don’t realize is that CRM has a utility that extends far beyond relationship-building in a traditional business setting. CRM systems are now engaging more than customers. They’re engaging patients in a healthcare setting far more complex than any retail or B2B enterprise.
CRM applications are used to engage patients by providing them with a superior experience from their
Read More
3 Ways to Protect Hospital Data from Email Spoofing Attacks
Picture this: you are a first-year nurse with an unusual case that you and your colleagues have never seen at your hospital. To expedite the formulation of a treatment plan, you turn to a private Facebook group for nurses to which you belong. Since joining the 8,000-person closed group, you’ve witnessed your peers share information - with important details withheld - as to not break privacy laws, but as a means to generate group think on analysis and recommendations. You’ve seen first-hand how
Read More
4 Areas in Consumer-Driven Healthcare Ripe for Innovation
Consumer-driven healthcare (CDH) has become pervasive over the last decade as a powerful tool to help address the cost crisis in the American healthcare system. The success of CDH in reversing the cost trend – together with the recent rise in health savings account (HSA) adoption – confirms that CDH will continue to thrive into the future.
Despite its success, CDH, as we know it today, is far from perfect. Employers struggle to effectively design a CDH program (the combination of the health plan
Read More
