In the past few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken societies, economies, and human wellbeing to the core. While protecting public health and welfare are top priorities for hospitals, the harsh reality is that it takes cash to keep the doors open and serve patients effectively. Revenue is down significantly as a result of canceled elective surgeries, while the costs of medical supplies and in-demand personal protective equipment for workers have skyrocketed. Hospitals’ operating challenges
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
COVID-19 Infects Patient & Practitioner Demands, Unsettling the Future of Hospital Operations
Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the healthcare industry in the United States was in the midst of an intense refocusing on patient-centered care. This evolution was defined by a number of innovations, policies, and even federal reimbursement programs that prioritized emphasis on and impact on the patient experience. It led to changes in everything from the quality of hospital food, valet parking, and room amenities to fundamentally reimagined standards of care for even mundane procedures like
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How to Implement HIPAA-Compliant Video Conferencing for Healthcare Providers
Video-conferencing software like Zoom has been getting a lot of attention of late as more and more people turn to digital tools to communicate remotely, whether to stay connected with loved ones, keep work flowing, or communicate with clients.
Healthcare is certainly no exception. A global FICO study found that around 80% of people want to use their mobile phones to interact with doctors and other healthcare providers.
Digital healthcare solutions were already on the rise
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4 Ways Healthcare Organizations Can Establish Partnerships to Drive Innovation
With public and private healthcare spending significantly outpacing that of other countries, U.S. hospitals face intense pressure to find new ways to capture greater value. More and more, organizations are finding that partnerships with existing vendors can help unlock next-level performance gains in a transformative environment.
Take Nebraska Medicine, for example. In the early 2000s, the health system created multidisciplinary committees to boost revenue integrity and adopted new revenue
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Enhancing Patient Care With a Touchscreen EMR Interface
A clinician’s mission is to deliver the best possible care to his or her patients. However, when technology gets in the way of the workflow, clinicians are obligated to spend valuable time making sure data inputs are accurate and complete across disparate systems. Nowhere is this more prevalent than with electronic medical records (EMRs).
Dr. Peter Greene, MD, CMIO, with Johns Hopkins, said, “Efficiency is really at the heart of what troubles us most. Clinicians really want the EMR to make
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Post COVID-19: 3 Things I Hope Healthcare Won’t Recover From
The loss of lives and livelihoods from COVID-19 is almost too much to comprehend. And yet, slowly, conversations are emerging about the positives percolating from the pandemic.
It’s human nature to want to look for the positives in even the worst of situations, and I’ve noticed that in both my personal and my professional circles of late, people are talking about the things they hope we don’t lose when things go back to “normal.”
Chief among them, especially in my healthcare technology
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Hospital Wayfinding: The Next Frontier in Healthcare Design
Healthcare facilities and their sprawling campuses can be overwhelming and challenging to navigate. In fact, facilities lose close to $800 million a year due to missed hospital appointments, and many physicians blame a significant portion of this lost revenue on the problems patients have navigating these facilities.
Figuring out where to park and finding the correct office can be stressful and negatively impact the patient’s experience. Making matters worse, most hospital staff members work
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COVID-19: Why Designers Must Play A Larger Role in Healthcare’s Future
The coronavirus outbreak has brought epic casualties as more than 7.3 million cases have been confirmed globally and more than 413,000 people--and counting--are known to have died. In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown flaws in our medical system, from basic preparedness to the coordinated distribution of medical equipment. Within this global tragedy, there are stories of heroism and renewed mind power and energy addressing health care.
In reaction to shortages, we’re
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Post COVID-19: Medical Billing Finally Realizes the Value of Text-to-Pay
Contactless payments were on the rise even before COVID-19 hit. But now, health systems should see them as essential. Consumers are increasingly wary of touching a credit card terminal that others have used, a perfect conduit for spreading germs. For consumers, text payments serve as a convenient contactless way to pay, but there are other unique benefits when this method of payment is applied in a healthcare setting.
Let’s look at how text payments can fit into a health system’s revenue
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Top 4 Disruptions Healthcare Providers Should Prepare to Address
The past few years have been particularly interesting for the healthcare landscape. We’ve seen a surge in telemedicine and retail clinics, increasing use of personal healthcare devices such as watches and fitness trackers, aggressive attempts to dismantle the ACA, the growing influence of private equity investment firms, and massive mergers with disruptive enterprise market entries such as Amazon. As the ground beneath them continues to shift, many providers are venturing into new territory to
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