Leveraging technology in the right ways can make or break the future of healthcare. One of the ways that healthcare will become more efficient, more affordable, and save more lives is through the use of big data.
What is Big Data?
Big data refers to a large amount of information being digitized, consolidated, standardized, analyzed and modeled. In healthcare, big data uses specific statistics from a population or an individual to research new advancements, reduce costs, and even cure or prevent
Read More
Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Why Healthcare Is Finally Moving To The Cloud
When I started in this industry, the idea that we would put patient information in the cloud was an absurdity. How on earth could anyone justify putting the most sensitive information in our personal lives somewhere other than a locked cupboard, in the safety of a hospital? We would never dream of letting paper patient charts leave the hospital or clinic, so why would we let them leave simply because they are electronic?
Historically, security was tied to proximity and direct control, nowhere
Read More
Helping VA to Combat Infectious Disease Across the Full Continuum of Care
VA hospitals and clinicians face challenges not present in commercial hospitals, which is that they provide Veterans with 100 percent of care services throughout their lifetimes. With a focus on the full continuum of care, this includes specialty care at VA clinics for chronic conditions, acute hospital admissions and/or ER visits, all prescriptions filled at VA pharmacies, and end-of-life care in a VA community living centers/nursing homes. In VISN4, there are nine VA Medical Centers serving
Read More
5 Steps to Achieving a Mature Enterprise-Class Quality Program
The game is changing faster than ever as more payer contracts and regulatory programs adopt risk-based models. To be successful, payer and provider organizations know they must increase quality scores and revenue while reducing avoidable medical costs. Yet, the providers who are critical to that success are burned out. According to a recent survey, nearly one-third of providers say their biggest frustration is constant “busy work,” such as electronic health record (EHR) data entry and prior
Read More
How Will FY2020 IPPS Proposed Rule Affect Hospital CDI Programs?
In April, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the fiscal year (FY) 2020 inpatient prospective payment systems (IPPS) proposed rule. The proposed rule notably includes approximately 1,500 complications or comorbidities (CC)/major complications or comorbidities (MCC) designation changes and 324 changes to International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10-CM codes, along with several other updates. The designation changes are an effort to respond to the notion that the
Read More
Are Your Clinical Leaders Empowered to Make Data-Driven Changes that Impact Labor Spend?
Using data to drive decisions seems like an obvious choice when managing labor. However, selecting the most appropriate data to analyze is easier said than done, as healthcare systems continue to collect more and more information throughout the patient stay.
Collecting, validating, and sharing actionable information is critical in supporting healthcare executives and department managers to make data-driven decisions that maximize labor savings opportunities without negatively impacting care at
Read More
4 Ways Health IT Can Improve Patient Engagement & Cost Transparency
Imagine having to make a large purchase, but not having any insight into how much it will cost or if you will be able to access it after you have purchased it. Most consumers wouldn’t make an investment like that; they would demand information into where their money is going and what they would be bringing home with them. But as patients, this is a scenario that can be all too familiar: we aren’t sure what we’re going to have to pay and then don’t have much if any, understandable information to
Read More
Patients Are Not Consumers. Healthcare Is Not A Typical Business
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I have an extreme Diet Coke emergency. (I never have, but that’s beside the point.)
At 2 AM on a Wednesday I awake with an unforgiving need to drink Diet Coke. I dress and head out to find the nearest 24-hour convenience store, where I can satisfy my damnable craving by paying a bit more for Diet Coke than I would at a grocery store.
I pay slightly more for a few reasons related to the cost of convenience, the lack of more affordable options at 2 AM, the
Read More
10 Considerations for Success In A Post-MACRA Value-Based Healthcare Reality
The first two years of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) Quality Payment Program (QPP) are in the books and many organizations are wondering if their strong performances will ever be met with a significant upside adjustment.
Year 1 (2017) enjoyed very high participation levels, 95% of eligible clinicians, but very low upside adjustments. Between the Test Pace option, artificially low bar (3 points) for an upside adjustment, and numerous opportunities to score
Read More
How Tech Giants are Helping Providers Reinvent Patient Care
Healthcare costs are on the rise, and they show no signs of leveling off. According to the latest data available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, healthcare spending in the United States reached $3.5 trillion in 2017, or $10,739 per person. Those costs are projected to rise by about five percent year-over-year.
As expenditures continue to skyrocket, healthcare providers are looking to new technologies and care strategies that can help them treat patients more effectively at a
Read More
