Nine healthcare industry leaders respond to the question, "What is the smartest thing or things hospitals can do this year to ensure success?"
Want to share your response? Comment below or email Lindsey Dunn at lindsey@beckershealthcare.com.
Oleg Bess, MD, CEO, 4medica: For hospitals struggling to find an affordable and easy-to-use EHR in time to qualify for Stage 1 incentives as well as support success for accountable care, I recommend investing in a cloud-based SaaS EHR model. Cloud solutions can be rapidly deployed in both inpatient and ambulatory facilities, minimizing expensive labor, hardware and software costs. A SaaS EHR leverages the current IT infrastructure and requires only a standard browser. It aggregates laboratory, imaging, pathology, e-prescribing, and inpatient and ambulatory data from multiple sources into a single, patient-centric record. Physicians can exchange the data easily with providers across the continuum to enhance continuity of a patient's care.
Jay Deady, CEO, Awarepoint: The single smartest thing a hospital can do this year is invest in a real-time location system (RTLS) for workflow automation. In additional to tracking medical equipment, patients and personnel, RTLS also enables facilities to tackle the most complex clinical and business challenges they are facing as the health system undergoes fundamental change. Facilities can leverage the technology to enhance quality, workflow, efficiency, safety, outcomes and cost effectiveness of care. They also can use the application to monitor hand hygiene compliance, which is key to preventing hospital acquired infections. Despite enabling hospitals to address many of the inefficient processes that delay care, place patients at risk and drive costs higher, RTLS remains one of the most underutilized technologies in the healthcare industry: Just 10 to 12 percent of hospitals in North America have deployed RTLS, meaning that facilities are missing an excellent and easy opportunity to drive dramatic clinical, operational and financial efficiencies across their enterprise. For example, the average U.S. hospital owns or rents at least twice as many pumps, ventilators, wheelchairs and other equipment as is needs. Up to 25 percent of those mobile assets are not properly cleaned between patients, resulting in hospital-acquired infections that Medicare and many private payers have stopped paying for. RTLS generates alerts to the appropriate person before dirty equipment can reach a patient or clinician and provides the information users need to identify and fix the procedural breakdown to prevent a recurrence.
Matthew Holt, co-chairman, Health2.0: Learn about the new technologies that are going to help hospitals extend their roles from being focused on maximizing service-line revenues to also being partners supporting care teams which provide overall care management to the chronically ill.
Gary Kolbeck, President, LodgeNet Healthcare, Inc.: Invest in a patient engagement solution that educates, empowers and encourages patients to become active participants in their medical care. Research shows that involved patients are far more likely to follow treatment recommendations, use preventive services, take medications appropriately, pursue follow-up treatment and choose healthier lifestyles. These actions positively impact a hospital's bottom line via reimbursements tied to clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction and preventable readmissions.
Adam Lynch, Vice President, Principle Valuation: An unidentified health system created a M&A department given the level of activity taking place in the market.
Eric Muller, President, WPC Services: Prioritize 5010 transition projects to accomplish two goals: prevent serious disruptions in early 2012 to revenue cycle and patient service operations, and incorporate ICD-10 planning into all testing. 5010 is both an 'operations' and 'technical' issue and affects nearly every aspect of a hospital's revenue stream — from the point of patient entry through discharge and legal collections. Educate billing staff on 4010 and 5010 differences, know the changes to top revenue cycle business processes, and prepare for the unexpected. Failure to realize accountability for compliance can result in huge financial consequences.
George Schwend, president and CEO, Health Language: Both providers and payors must convert to the ICD-10-CM/PCS code sets by the Oct. 2013 deadline. While conversion processes are in full swing at most payor organizations, providers are still focusing their IT efforts on Meaningful Use initiatives. Although there are no incentive payments directly attached to the ICD-10-CM/PCS migration, healthcare providers unprepared for the conversion risk losing reimbursement dollars to rejected claims, less than optimal mappings between ICD-9-CM and procedures to ICD-10-CM/PCS, and poor collaboration with payers. I strongly encourage hospitals to start assessing the business impact of the ICD-10-CM/PCS conversion on their enterprise now, so that they can make strategic purchasing decisions to complement their MU initiatives.
Anu Singh, Senior Vice President, Kaufman Hall: 1) Model their five-year plan such that by year five, all payors converge to Medicare rates, in order to quantify the gap they would need to fill. 2) Formulate an opinion on what form or components of partnership would be attractive to their organization, in advance of such pursuit. 3) Evaluate each and every business unit, segment or line of service in the organization to reconsider what they define as their "core" operations.
Peter Witonsky, President and CSO, iSirona: Hospitals should plan to integrate medical device data into their EMR. They should do this as a part of their patient safety initiatives and their nursing satisfaction efforts. Integrating medical devices into their host EMR is the easiest way to promote clinical adoption of the EMR.
Want to share your response? Comment below or email Lindsey Dunn at lindsey@beckershealthcare.com.
Oleg Bess, MD, CEO, 4medica: For hospitals struggling to find an affordable and easy-to-use EHR in time to qualify for Stage 1 incentives as well as support success for accountable care, I recommend investing in a cloud-based SaaS EHR model. Cloud solutions can be rapidly deployed in both inpatient and ambulatory facilities, minimizing expensive labor, hardware and software costs. A SaaS EHR leverages the current IT infrastructure and requires only a standard browser. It aggregates laboratory, imaging, pathology, e-prescribing, and inpatient and ambulatory data from multiple sources into a single, patient-centric record. Physicians can exchange the data easily with providers across the continuum to enhance continuity of a patient's care.
Jay Deady, CEO, Awarepoint: The single smartest thing a hospital can do this year is invest in a real-time location system (RTLS) for workflow automation. In additional to tracking medical equipment, patients and personnel, RTLS also enables facilities to tackle the most complex clinical and business challenges they are facing as the health system undergoes fundamental change. Facilities can leverage the technology to enhance quality, workflow, efficiency, safety, outcomes and cost effectiveness of care. They also can use the application to monitor hand hygiene compliance, which is key to preventing hospital acquired infections. Despite enabling hospitals to address many of the inefficient processes that delay care, place patients at risk and drive costs higher, RTLS remains one of the most underutilized technologies in the healthcare industry: Just 10 to 12 percent of hospitals in North America have deployed RTLS, meaning that facilities are missing an excellent and easy opportunity to drive dramatic clinical, operational and financial efficiencies across their enterprise. For example, the average U.S. hospital owns or rents at least twice as many pumps, ventilators, wheelchairs and other equipment as is needs. Up to 25 percent of those mobile assets are not properly cleaned between patients, resulting in hospital-acquired infections that Medicare and many private payers have stopped paying for. RTLS generates alerts to the appropriate person before dirty equipment can reach a patient or clinician and provides the information users need to identify and fix the procedural breakdown to prevent a recurrence.
Matthew Holt, co-chairman, Health2.0: Learn about the new technologies that are going to help hospitals extend their roles from being focused on maximizing service-line revenues to also being partners supporting care teams which provide overall care management to the chronically ill.
Gary Kolbeck, President, LodgeNet Healthcare, Inc.: Invest in a patient engagement solution that educates, empowers and encourages patients to become active participants in their medical care. Research shows that involved patients are far more likely to follow treatment recommendations, use preventive services, take medications appropriately, pursue follow-up treatment and choose healthier lifestyles. These actions positively impact a hospital's bottom line via reimbursements tied to clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction and preventable readmissions.
Adam Lynch, Vice President, Principle Valuation: An unidentified health system created a M&A department given the level of activity taking place in the market.
Eric Muller, President, WPC Services: Prioritize 5010 transition projects to accomplish two goals: prevent serious disruptions in early 2012 to revenue cycle and patient service operations, and incorporate ICD-10 planning into all testing. 5010 is both an 'operations' and 'technical' issue and affects nearly every aspect of a hospital's revenue stream — from the point of patient entry through discharge and legal collections. Educate billing staff on 4010 and 5010 differences, know the changes to top revenue cycle business processes, and prepare for the unexpected. Failure to realize accountability for compliance can result in huge financial consequences.
George Schwend, president and CEO, Health Language: Both providers and payors must convert to the ICD-10-CM/PCS code sets by the Oct. 2013 deadline. While conversion processes are in full swing at most payor organizations, providers are still focusing their IT efforts on Meaningful Use initiatives. Although there are no incentive payments directly attached to the ICD-10-CM/PCS migration, healthcare providers unprepared for the conversion risk losing reimbursement dollars to rejected claims, less than optimal mappings between ICD-9-CM and procedures to ICD-10-CM/PCS, and poor collaboration with payers. I strongly encourage hospitals to start assessing the business impact of the ICD-10-CM/PCS conversion on their enterprise now, so that they can make strategic purchasing decisions to complement their MU initiatives.
Anu Singh, Senior Vice President, Kaufman Hall: 1) Model their five-year plan such that by year five, all payors converge to Medicare rates, in order to quantify the gap they would need to fill. 2) Formulate an opinion on what form or components of partnership would be attractive to their organization, in advance of such pursuit. 3) Evaluate each and every business unit, segment or line of service in the organization to reconsider what they define as their "core" operations.
Peter Witonsky, President and CSO, iSirona: Hospitals should plan to integrate medical device data into their EMR. They should do this as a part of their patient safety initiatives and their nursing satisfaction efforts. Integrating medical devices into their host EMR is the easiest way to promote clinical adoption of the EMR.