The past two years have been fraught with difficulties for the healthcare industry. Labor shortages have negatively impacted hospitals and health systems nationwide, intensifying the burden on healthcare workers already strained. In fact, the latest job report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has shown healthcare employment down by nearly half a million since February 2020. While a lack of sufficient staff has obvious implications on providing patient care, the labor
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
What You Don’t Know About Your Patients Could Cost You
Healthcare spending is projected to exceed $6 trillion by 2028, largely driven by rising costs of care for an aging population and the growing number of Americans suffering from chronic physical conditions such as pulmonary disease, diabetes and hypertension. To improve health outcomes while lowering cost of care, providers and payors increasingly are implementing value-based care (VBC) payment models. VBC contracts are structured to reward proactive and preventive healthcare, measurable
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With No End in Sight for COVID, Why Is Congress Not Acting on Telehealth?
Long gone are the days of physicians arriving at a patient’s bedside, medical bag, and stethoscope in tow. The idea of a house call is quaint, like something seen in an old movie. But during the COVID pandemic, this olden idea has received a high-tech upgrade in the form of telehealth. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services recently acted in the best interests of patients and health care providers by covering telehealth services through 2023. But unless Congress acts to expand coverage
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Top 5 Data Management Challenges Healthcare Organizations Face
In the United States, healthcare costs make up more than 17% of GDP. The data that healthcare organizations generate, collect, and manage is massive, having an ever-growing impact on the industry. RBC Capital Markets, a global investment bank, estimates that approximately 30% of the world’s data volume is generated by the healthcare industry. By 2025, the compound annual growth rate of data for healthcare will reach 36%. That’s 6% faster than manufacturing, 10% faster than financial
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Data Integrity, Security, and Confidentiality: The Building Blocks of Healthcare Data Management
Stethoscopes, needles, tourniquets, and blood pressure cuffs are what typically come to someone’s mind when thinking of items used to assess, diagnose, and treat patients in a healthcare setting. While these physical tools within a hospital or private practice are important, unstructured data also plays a critical, yet often understated, role in the overall care experience of a patient. Lab results, transcripts, radiology imagery, and physicians’ notes all fall under the category
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Why Value-Based Care Requires Value-Based Administration
Value-based care (VBC) is finally gaining steam among healthcare organizations as executives look to implement processes that boost patient outcomes and rein in elevated levels of spending. To that end, more than 90% of health system executives say they expect VBC contracts will continue to grow in the coming years. Despite the widespread popularity of the concept of VBC, making it work is something of an “all-hands-on-deck” approach. VBC relies on the collaboration between many
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How Healthcare Consumerism is Driving Integration in 2022
Healthcare consumerism is not just a buzzword. It’s a movement changing the reality of how it is delivered. Retailers and other industries like banking and travel with strong consumer strategies understand how to appeal to consumers through convenience and simplicity, two characteristics that healthcare is trying to emulate. A 2020 consumer experience study uncovered that the process of finding, accessing and paying for healthcare in the U.S. is so inconvenient that half of the consumers
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5 Trends Bringing Effective Intelligence into Revenue Cycle in 2022
5 revenue cycle management trends that will drive adoption of automation, data-first processes, employee effectiveness and virtualization Many physician practices are facing a harsh reality as they enter 2022: The revenue cycle processes and technology that have traditionally produced an acceptable bottom line are no longer delivering. Tectonic shifts in the way healthcare organizations are reimbursed are unearthing the shortfalls of reactive systems that don’t get ahead of claims issues,
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What the Crisis-Adoption of Telehealth Can Teach Tech Leaders
The pandemic disrupted many industries, but few experienced the level of change seen in healthcare. During the pandemic, the healthcare industry evolved from slowly adopting technology to implementing new technology strategies virtually overnight to continue patient care, most notably through telehealth. Moreover, during the pandemic, government deregulation helped drive a surge in virtual care, which was especially critical for patients with chronic conditions and at high risk if they were to
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3 Ways Conversational Insight Can Unlock a Positive Patient Experience
The healthcare landscape is changing, and not just because of the pandemic. Trends like consumerization and reimbursements tied to patient experience have pushed many healthcare providers toward an accelerated digital transformation – including the modernization of the contact center. Those that have embraced this transformation have started to implement solutions and structures like patient portals and a single contact center that handles every patient request, from appointment scheduling to
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