Steve Jobs, quoted in Walter Isaacson's biography, described his company's goal: to maintain its unique position at the "intersection of technology and liberal arts." This vision allowed Jobs to capitalize on the tides of consumer activity and technological innovation that characterized the past decade.
Healthcare delivery, until recently, has not ridden this wave of activity. The healthcare industry is heavily regulated and slow to change; as a result, the industry lags dramatically in the race to embrace technology. Recent surveys of medical practitioners show, however, both willingness and enthusiasm to utilize hand-held technology in their practices. Many studies indicate that more than 80 percent of physicians and mid-levels now utilize smartphones in their professional activities. Apps were among the many uses physicians found for their phones, and yet smartphone apps remain a very early stage resource in the healthcare industry.
As a company specializing in healthcare apps and mobile tools, Novarus Healthcare often entertains questions regarding the efficacy of apps to address a number of healthcare challenges. Good apps have common characteristics: They offer simple and rapid answers to questions or information that users find valuable; they are intuitively easy to use; and, in most cases, answers can be found within two or three clicks within the application. While not an all-inclusive list, these characteristics can be said to make an app "sticky": Users are likely to utilize and repeatedly engage with the app.
The healthcare delivery system is ripe for the development and use of apps. Healthcare is filled with labor-intensive and paper-intensive processes. Moreover, healthcare delivery is not one system, but a whole subset of different systems. The entire care continuum is a hodgepodge of different providers often operating with different incentives. While many information systems are being developed to manage care or promote wellness across the different care settings, hundreds of opportunities exist within each care setting to improve connectivity, communication and patient outcomes by developing apps that solve focused opportunities.
Novarus Healthcare recently entered into a partnership agreement with Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston Salem, N.C., to identify and develop tools to address these focused niches. One of the first tools under development will be an app to support medical students and residents as they rotate on and off services during their various clinical rotations. Currently, students must acclimate to a new service via multiple web sites, emails and paper tools as they learn the call schedules, communication information, clinical protocols and resources associated with a new rotation. It is not hard to imagine the inefficiencies associated with this process.
Similarly it is not hard to visualize the benefits of having an app that staff can download onto their smartphones that will make all of this information available to them in one place. The benefits to Wake Forest Baptist and other academic medical centers are similarly significant: less staff time invested in the process, more rapid orientation and better patient care.
The following steps may help your organization identify areas where apps or similar technologies may help achieve a critical improvement and the process to undertake.
1. Establish selection criteria to identify processes or interactions where mobile technology can create a new paradigm around operational efficiency, communication or patient connectivity. For example, how can we enhance the ability of patients to find our physicians, communicate with us, find targeted patient educational materials or make appointments at our clinics?
2. In general, the following types of problems and process interactions lend themselves well to App solutions:
• Patient and provider interaction, including directions, wait times and other information
• Form automation and other redundant process steps
• Automation of certain clinical protocols
• Patient handoffs
• Patient education
• Creation of "virtual communities" for targeted chronic conditions
3. Shy away from Apps that have functionality that is primarily in-scope for electronic medical records. Also, stay away from apps that: address problems that can be better addressed by process redesign; primary functionality that would require extensive integration with legacy IT systems; require FDA or other governmental approval; may have complex HIPAA issues.
4. Once you have identified a promising and defined opportunity, develop an overview of the App that includes the following:
• The business or clinical rationale for the app
• The problem(s) the app will solve
• The target customer or user
• The value proposition for the user
• The user's current use of hand-held technology
• Competitive solutions to the app or other ways to solve the problem
• Other considerations or risk factors for the app to successfully address the problem
• Return on investment
5. Determine if the functionality of the app is synergistic with your organizations strategic and IT plans. Many of these plans contemplate timeframes of up to a decade. If the functionality of the app generates significant returns, positively changes a care paradigm and allows the organization to move rapidly toward an important objective, development of the app may be warranted as an interim solution to a larger problem.
6. Plan the app using basic quality improvement techniques. Use a flowchart to map the current process, as well as the process once the app is in use. This map will identify savings and efficiency opportunities and help others within the organization visualize the benefits of the investment.
7. Develop a launch plan to include the leadership of the departments whose business process will be impacted by the app.
The healthcare industry has traditionally been a slow adopter. The rapid changes occurring due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and other macroeconomic factors will force rapid change in the delivery system. Apps and other mobile tools have played a valuable role in the evolution of the financial, retail and other industries. Developing and implementing strategies for helping determine what apps can help you achieve your strategic objectives will be important for all healthcare organizations.
Novarus Healthcare is a Charlotte, N.C., healthcare firm that specializes in changing healthcare paradigms though the development of innovative technology tools.
Grace Lee Simmons is a student at Davidson College.