Today's healthcare organizations spend untold millions of dollars on healthcare information technology.
It's all too easy to see this merely as an expense or an obligation to meet government regulations. What many people in the profession fail to see is the enormous marketing opportunity created by that very same technology. In fact, the money spent on healthcare IT can become an investment not just in creating higher revenues and broader network affiliations but even in improved patient care.
In short, your healthcare IT can become a strong competitive advantage—if, that is, you think like a marketer or an entrepreneur rather than an administrator. What's needed is a strategic point of view and the willingness to see possibilities with fresh eyes.
The Advent of Integrated EHR Systems
In the past, hospital administrators sought to create best-of-breed technology in isolated areas such as laboratories, imaging and others. This was difficult to accomplish. But with the advent of integrated electronic health record (EHR) systems, hospitals found that they could have best-of-breed technology that covered every aspect of operations.
Of course, one drawback was the enormous expense of integrated EHR systems. But government mandates made that expense necessary. What wasn't obvious to many were the many ways to turn the investment in IT into a competitive advantage.
Why not use this leading-edge technology to enhance your competitive position in the marketplace? Or at least improve operational efficiency in innovative ways? There are several ways to do this.
Sharing Technology Systems
One of the most important things you can do is something you learned in childhood: to share with others. Share the technology you've invested in with other providers in the community. The large EHR providers today offer ways to do this with relative ease.
In this scenario, the host hospital system makes the major investment in technology then shares it with other community providers, groups and perhaps even small hospitals. This opens several opportunities.
The first is the potential for patient crossover among the host hospital, community facilities and private-practice physicians. So even if you don't have anything other than a shared platform, you will create operational efficiencies in the emergency department and other areas where patients access your system.
Data on things such as patient medications, allergies, diagnoses, medical history and more would be available to all providers instantly. This scenario can mean higher revenue potential from increased patient accessibility, greater efficiency and lower costs—not to mention the improved care made possible because physicians will have the data they need to treat patients more quickly and effectively.
Maximizing Your Resources
Sharing technology in this way would also make your hospital easier to do business with while making more profitable use of your existing resources. For example, hospitals offer all the services that are routinely farmed out to third-party providers. Why not keep those within the technology framework that you know already exists? Rather than ordering MRIs from the local imaging center, lab tests from a separate facility or medications from a local pharmacy, physicians could much more easily and efficiently order those services from your hospital. Referrals to specialists in your system would also be simpler. In the end, overall care would become easier and faster, while all the data resulting from those activities would be added to the system for easy access by everyone involved in patient care.
Also consider that most hospital labs are utilized at a rate of only about 20 to 30 percent of capacity, especially during second and third shifts. The millions of dollars invested in expensive robotic lab equipment could be handling and processing orders from a community network of physicians who share the same technology platform. Yet many hospitals still let this potential business go to unaffiliated facilities and providers, abandoning the opportunity to utilize their own resources more fully.
The same is true for imaging and other departments. And because the overhead expenses for operating these facilities remain relatively constant, there is little or no additional investment needed to make them more profitable.
Sharing Workflows
Many healthcare organizations have spent countless hours, enormous energy and vast resources of experience to create customized workflows in a variety of areas. Workflows the hospital has created in cardiology, heart-lung transplants, invasive cardiology procedures and other areas have value not just to your own organization but to others as well. After all, hospitals have the ability to develop workflow documentation in a way that even the best EHR providers cannot.
Many renowned healthcare systems are now sharing their workflows for free with other providers to enhance their footprints and brand recognition. And because these customized workflows have great value, they also can be sold. Imagine if a small hospital were able to acquire the customized workflows of a larger, more prestigious hospital at a cost that is both reasonable to the smaller hospital and profitable to the larger hospital. It would clearly be a win-win situation.
This strategy leverages your clinical expertise, experience, trials, research and more to create a marketable asset that is valuable to others. This approach presents the opportunity to sell that asset, or at least create partnerships through the sharing of information that can enhance your reputation, your brand and your footprint.
It's about Vision
Most medical practitioners and administrators simply do not take an entrepreneurial view of healthcare technology. It requires vision and a strategic frame of mind. Too many see technology as simply an expense or an obligation, driven by the requirement to conform to regulations. But a more strategic approach can actually expand and grow your business while improving patient care at the same time.
Even if a healthcare organization doesn't want to make money on the sale or sharing of technology, why not do it to improve patient care? Why not create an environment whereby your investment creates opportunity? Why rely on phone calls and faxes in 2015 when the means are readily available to reduce costs, increase efficiency and access patient information immediately throughout the system?
Even if you deploy your technology to the community at no cost, you're going to gain from operational efficiency. You'll have the potential to save millions in the emergency department alone.
The vision required would look something like this: I'm a CIO at a reasonably sized healthcare system. I've spent millions on an EHR system, and it's up and running. I would then share that system with every healthcare provider in the community I could so we're all using data that makes us all more efficient. I'm now using that technology to connect my organization to places and people I haven't been connected to before. Some may bring revenue, some will just bring operational efficiencies, and others will bring community benefit. The next step is sharing medical workflow knowledge among all those in the network so we double down on both efficiency and clinical quality.
This kind of thinking may require a changed outlook and mindset, but it can be done. And it should be done. Go for it.
About the author: Scott Jacobs is Vice President of Community IT Outreach Services at the HCI Group. The HCI Group (www.theHCIgroup.com) is a global leader in healthcare IT consulting with headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, and international headquarters in the United Kingdom. It offers a broad scope of healthcare IT solutions in more than 10 countries from North America, Europe and the Middle East to Asia and Australia, helping healthcare organizations plan, implement, extend, and sustain enterprise information technology systems.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.