At the Becker’s Hospital Review 2nd Annual CIO/HIT + Revenue Cycle Conference in Chicago, Senior Healthcare Strategist at VMware Aivars Apsite gave a presentation titled “Next Generation Clinical Workplace.”
Physician engagement is critically important to health IT strategy because physicians are the ultimate users and hospitals want to make sure they’re satisfied with a sustained, simple, cost-effective workflow. Mr. Apsite has experience as a technology strategist at a health system in the past and learned to enable a positive work experience, which boosted physician retention.
“I truly believe we are entering into an age where our solutions make a difference for health systems,” he said. “Physicians that I speak to, they don’t want to know about your technology, they just need to be able to do their job. They want to get to the latest patient information as quickly and easily as possible, and interact with their colleagues, nurses and specialists that need to manage an episode of care.”
Mobility was one of the largest issues discussed; many providers are confused by mixing personal and professional devices. Some providers are using two different smart phones — one for work and one for personal use — and needing to sign-in into their records at different workstations multiple times per day. Some physicians are signing in 70 to 100 times per day, leading to frustration and inefficiency.
VMware Workspace ONE enables a Digital Clinical Workspace™ and can unify the user, desktop and mobile management. The solution allows clinicians to access patient information from “the right device for the right task at the right time.” This allows:
• Secure access to patient information from any devices, including personal devices
• Secure collaboration between providers
• Windows, web and native mobile application use to customize provider workflow
• Fast access to EMR, computerized physician order entry and electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS) by tapping a badge
The Digital Clinical Workspace ensures the hospital’s applications are securely accessible at any location: home, clinic, hospitals and surgery centers. This is effective for the physician working at all settings, as well as nurses between the settings. The technology can:
• Allow clinicians to review information — including imaging — at home
• Save time in the workflow leading to faster patient treatment
• Provides a consumer-like experience
• Improve work/life balance
The company did a study of time savings based on 1,600 users at a health system. The study reported time savings and ambulatory physicians said if they could save 35 minutes per day, they could see more patients per day.
“Our ambulatory clinics became more profitable because of the ability to use this technology,” Mr. Apsite said. “The challenge is what can you do with that time and how does it relate to the bottom line.”
Perhaps surprisingly, hospitals also can compete with other local hospitals for affiliated physicians by providing the most efficient and effective technology to them. Our technology can provide customized links for affiliated physicians and information. The Virtual Desktop capabilities can also add specific software these physicians use, such as QuickBooks, medical dictionaries and other applications in addition to the EMR.
“VMware can help you solve the difficult challenge to present an EMR and it’s full accompaniment of applications in one space that follows you as you move around the hospital and even at home. It can streamline your clinical and imaging workflows, as well as access email and other clinical content he said. “And it can be delivered in a way that’s always on helping to eliminate the risk component out of the picture.”
Hospitals continue to struggle with health IT implementation, especially when it comes to mobility within complex systems as well as interoperability and patient engagement. The technology can contextually differentiate between secure and unsecure networks, as well as if the user is a clinician versus non-clinician user. This enables the health system to choose which users can access PHI or confidential when the devices is within the hospital’s secure network and when it is not.
“VMware is enabling health systems to differentiate themselves from their competition and yet not adding more resources and costs to enable a Digital Clinical Workspace,” he said. Hospital executives and physicians are all engaged with a wide variety of devices and operating systems – VMware lets these hospitals create environment that gives providers choice without creating more work for IT.
VMware is helping leading healthcare organizations to address the challenges in healthcare technology workflow, including:
1. Patient engagement in hospital rooms and at home.
2. Provide clinician specific application permissions and customizations, including access to attached USB devices.
3. Making BYOD easier so physicians are less apprehensive of using the technology.