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
Top 5 Roadblocks to Population Health Management Adoption for Providers
The healthcare system is undergoing a transformation to restore the patient to the center of their care and to provide all patients with the highest quality care at the lowest possible price and with the best possible experience. Frequently the patient’s health journey is fragmented between multiple providers, an issue which must be addressed as a key part of any successful value-based care model.
Population health management (PHM) is an umbrella term that incorporates the multitude of payment
Read More
Why Playing Political Games Does Not Improve Patient Care
Now that it is the political season where divisiveness rules the day, the bevy of President wannabes’ interest in maternal health is suspect. After all, none of them have joined the many maternal health advocates who praised the President for signing into law the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act which gives grants to the states to help identify the causes of maternal mortality.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black and American Indian/Alaska Native women are about 3
Read More
3 Challenges of Healthcare Internet of Things (IoT) Performance Testing
There’s no doubt that the internet of things (IoT) creates a new technological ecosystem in healthcare, helping organizations manage bottlenecks in care and bridging the gap between patients and providers. The list of applications for connected devices in hospitals keeps growing from real-time staff tracking across facilities to ensuring preventive equipment maintenance and 24/7 patient vitals monitoring in ER and resuscitation departments.But care delivery doesn’t stop after discharge. A range
Read More
As More Americans Suffer from PTSD, Digital Health Solutions Offer Hope
With deadly attacks in our communities and schools becoming more commonplace, increasingly more common natural disasters, and a number of military conflicts in the last decade, it’s no surprise that 70 percent of U.S. adults have experienced a traumatic event in their lifetime. Of those, twenty percent go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental health disorder that affects a person’s thoughts, emotions, and even physical wellbeing.
PTSD—which occurs when people experience
Read More
5 Ways Health Plans Can Motivate Medicare & Medicaid Members to Complete Their Annual Wellness Visits
Despite the fact that Annual Wellness Visits (AWVs) have been offered as a benefit to Medicare Advantage and Medicaid members for several years, less than one in five members actually receive one. That number is even more surprising when you consider just how important AWVs can be for health plans, providers, and most importantly, consumers.
For example, Medicare Advantage members who complete an AWV are 4.2 times more likely on average to complete other high-value health care activities, such
Read More
