Strategies to Leverage a PMO For Your Next Technology Implementation
Deborah Aguilar, PMP, CSM, BHSA, Lean Six Sigma
Project Managers are often underappreciated and underutilized because their knowledge and expertise are misunderstood. According to a Project Management Institute study, 80% of high-performance organizations have a PMO (Project Management Office). Hear from one of EHR Concept’s lead project managers (PMs) and Consulting Partners, Deborah Aguilar, on how to best leverage a project Management Office (PMO) involved in your next technology implementation.
Why do PMOs exist?
Many organizations are suffering from an inability to deliver projects on time, under budget, and within scope. Unfortunately, strategic thinking is not enough; agility and adaptability are essential to sustainable future growth. One of the main misconceptions of the Project Manager role is the belief that anyone can step into that role. If someone took accounting in college, would they be considered qualified to do your taxes? Organizations know they need PMOs and PMs to lead their projects, but do Project Managers possess the skills to succeed? Promoting someone into this role, changing someone’s title, or adding more resources is not enough when you are trying to create a PMO positioned to succeed.
The primary function of the PMO is to manage shared resources across projects to drive increased efficiency and the implementation rate across the portfolio/program. A centralized PMO, combined with an extraordinarily strong supporting project management philosophy, can achieve a culture of accountability by delivering quality projects focused on continuous improvement.
The PMO identifies and develops project management methodologies, holding project managers accountable all the way through project audits, lessons learned, and the closing project cycle. The PMO develops policies and procedures, defines repeatable processes, and standardizes project status and project communications to ensure that all PMs are adhering to defined and repeatable PMO processes. Organizations should always know what they are getting when engaging a PM that reports directly to a PMO through additional visibility through detailed status reporting and increased communications.
A PMO is continually looking for conflicts in timing, resource inefficiencies, proper risk planning, and issue management, as well as managing stakeholder expectations to isolate potential problem areas and misaligned expectations well in advance. This ensures that they can be responsibly managed and addressed, maintaining time, scope, and budget and successfully achieving implementation for their customers. PMOs should be considered integral to positive organizational change regarding project dynamics.
How PMOs Play a Critical Role in Organization Agility
Most, if not all, organizations prioritize agility as a pillar in their governance and success models. With constant technology and market changes, the healthcare industry is always in flux. All healthcare organizations need a change champion capable of adapting in response to those changes to keep the organization moving at the pace required to drive projects forward and execute the strategic roadmap. With cross-functional visibility, PMOs are well-positioned to fill this role. Project Managers have a deep understanding of their projects, but the PMO has a deeper understanding of the organization.
The PMO is essential to facilitating mediation by bringing other competing projects, owners, and stakeholders together to work on resolutions based on what is best at the organizational level. To be successful, PMOs need to be included in the conversation and should be integral members of the strategic planning processes.
PMOs work to create relationships with Executives in the C-Suite to build trusted and valued relationships. Their partnership in developing and executing a strategic road map is the mechanism by which the PMO can deliver actionable insights to leadership, informing proactive recommendations to assist in positioning an organization to achieve higher levels of success.
Rural Emergency Hospital Program Could Resuscitate Hospitals on Life Support
Rural healthcare has been on life support for some time now and may have just received a lifeline that is too good to refuse. To no one’s surprise, rural hospitals struggled during the pandemic, but federal aid did manage to keep many afloat. According to a recent analysis, more than 180 rural hospitals have closed in the United States since 2005, with 19 closing in 2020 alone. Now while other industries are feeling like they are finally out of the woods from COVID-19, the aid rural healthcare once had is drying up, and more financial support is essential. The American Hospital Association (AHA) projected in September of 2022 that some hospitals may not make it.
A large contributor to rural hospital closures is the cost of maintaining inpatient units, otherwise known as beds for patients who need to stay more than a few days. In most cases, patients requiring longer stays or complex surgeries will be transported to larger, higher acuity hospitals, leaving rural hospitals with only a few inpatient beds full. In comes CMS’ new Medicare provider designation for rural hospitals, the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) program, which was implemented in January. The program requires rural hospitals to only provide emergency, observation, and potentially outpatient care, and transfer all inpatients (patients requiring lengths of stay longer than 24 hours), to a network of hospitals that provide higher levels of care.
This will allow rural hospitals to adjust their healthcare infrastructure to fit their needs, while still providing the medical and emergency services their communities need. Rural and critical access hospitals that meet the conditions of participation will receive huge financial relief through a 5% payment increase for their services, a monthly facility payment,amounting to more than $3 million a year, a 3.8% pay increase for 2023 outpatient providers, and restored rates for medicines acquired by the 340B drug payment program.
REH Program
Although the REH program will provide a much-needed lifeline to rural healthcare, nearly 1600 hospitals aren’t sold due to the requirement to cease inpatient services. These facilities argue that inpatient care is not only key income for the hospital but also an essential need for their patients. Under this program, patients that require inpatient care would be transferred to a large hospital in the closest city, which could be at capacity itself or difficult to travel depending on weather, roadblocks, and more; leaving the patients with only a few options – wait or travel out of state.
The question many rural hospitals are now trying to answer is whether a hospital without inpatient services is better than no hospital at all. While it is unknown how many hospitals will eventually get on board with the REH program and how many will continue to provide for the needs of their community, even if that means financially suffering, a few other steps were taken in the last few months by policymakers to mitigate the closures.
Spending Bill
In December 2022, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that included a two-year extension of Medicare payment adjustments targeted toward rural hospitals. Additionally, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) is testing the Pennsylvania Rural Health Model which provides rural hospitals with an all-payer global budget and is intended to reduce costs, increase quality, and improve the sustainability of rural hospital finances.
As much as we’d all like to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, the world is still feeling the aftershocks of the havoc it wreaked and will for many years to come. Communities in rural America were hurting long before COVID, with 150 rural hospitals closing between 2005 – 2019. This tragedy was amplified by the pandemic. As patients sought care during the pandemic, they soon learned how limited their hospital options were, and the available hospitals were overrun with sick patients.
Financial Loss
Rural hospitals have been experiencing persistent financial loss and low financial reserves for years now, and COVID has only exasperated the issue. Although some steps have been taken by the government to help soften the blow, including financial assistance during COVID, which is soon to expire, now more than ever, we need solutions across the board. Out of 600 rural hospitals, 200 are in danger of closing in the next two to three years, according to the CHQPR survey, while 30% of those 600 facilities are at risk of closing in the future.
Some wonder what this means for our rural communities, but we should ask what this means for our Nation. When we really dive into the issues, we discover a vicious cycle. Operating at a loss is one thing, but that loss causes ripple effects for the rural community. Doctors and clinical staff are feeling burned out. With many “jumping ship” during the pandemic, hospitals are short-staffed and struggling financially, leaving doctors carrying a load of even more patients for what might be inadequate compensation. Unfortunately, it seems like there is little to no help on the way, as new doctors don’t want to work and live in rural America because of this.
Eventually, these hospitals can’t stay afloat any longer and must close their doors. Even in urban and suburban communities, hospitals are at risk of closure. These aren’t considered so bad, assuming that if one hospital closes, it is easy enough to go to another. But think about how many patients will now knock on the next door. This may mean more dollar signs to some, but this doesn’t mean more efficient patient care. To accommodate everyone, the facility will have to speed up care, which is when mistakes occur. Sadly, this proves to increase patient mortality.
Hospital Locations
In rural America, a hospital closure can be far direr. The average travel time to the nearest hospital is about 17 minutes compared to 12 minutes in the suburbs and 10 minutes in urban areas. Some in the farthest percentile average a 34-minute drive, with others over an hour. These 5 -10 minutes can make a huge difference in the outlook of a patient’s health. If the nearest hospital closes, it leaves many almost stranded, with the next closest hospital double or triple the distance. Another significant problem with hospital closures is that in rural America, hospitals are often the largest employers in the area, leaving many without jobs if their doors were to close.
Vicious Cycle
To close the loop on this vicious cycle, we must recognize the severity of this issue on our Country as a whole. Urban and suburban America relies on rural America for food, energy, and recreation. If this area of our Country’s health is declining, so will their ability to produce these essentials for the rest of the Nation. Some might think that rural hospital closings will not affect them, but here we see that we are all connected and that the opportunity to survive and thrive must be given to ALL American hospitals. Various lifelines are being extended by legislators that could save some of the rural healthcare, but there is no one size fits all approach.
Health IT Startups Shaking Up the Industry in 2023
This article is part two of our previous article 10 Emerging Trends in Healthcare IT in 2023. Here we dive deeper into emerging technology startups that could change the way healthcare operates, improving physician burnout, patient care, and the continuum of care.
Care AI is a US-based startup offering an AI-powered autonomous patient monitoring platform. The startup’s platform connects to the proprietary edge sensors and transforms ordinary rooms into Self-Aware Rooms. The platform increases patient safety, reduces medical errors, and improves the quality of care and clinical efficiency. It finds applications in monitoring hand sanitation, in-bed patient monitoring to prevent falls, and prediction of pressure ulcers, tremors, and other risks.
Ligence is a Lithuanian HealthTech startup that develops tools for cardiac risk diagnosis and measuring tools. The startup develops CardioEchoAI, a heart ultrasound image analysis tool. It uses deep learning algorithms to mimic steps performed by a cardiologist during a regular heart ultrasound examination, speeding up the analysis of 2D transthoracic echocardiography (TTE). The startup’s automated heart ultrasound imaging workflow reduces the average examination time from 30 to 5 min, as well as increases the overall accuracy and diagnosis.
German startup Uventions develops solutions for the automated disinfection of surfaces and infrastructure. The startup offers multiple products for the disinfection of air in the room, door handles, objects, surfaces, and handrails. These solutions are easy to install in settings like hospitals, clinics, offices, airports, hotels, and even cruise ships. The system detects the presence of people in a room or door handle usage and automatically disinfects using ultraviolet C (UV-C) light radiation. The solution documents the disinfection process and reports it in real-time through a dashboard.
Tredomo is a US-based startup developing a portable IoMT device for dose monitoring. The remote, integrated dose monitoring system guarantees on-time delivery of a valid and monitored thermosensitive dose with smart disposal. The device also continuously monitors each new dose, disposable sharps, internal and ambient temperatures, battery level, performance diagnostics, and more.
Telemedicine Vendors
Ceiba develops a Tele-Intensive Care Unit (Tele-ICU) platform
Ceiba, a Turkish startup, provides a tele-ICU platform. The platform offers a fully customizable proprietary dashboard, providing a snapshot of all ICU patients and beds to relay time-critical information demonstrating their need for care. The platform provides AI-based predictive alerts for sepsis, mortality, length of stay, early warning patient deterioration, acuity level scoring, automated doctor progress notes, and nurse notes. Moreover, the solution is easy to integrate with any electronic health record (EHR) platform.
Estonian startup Viveo Health offers a fully working, end-to-end telehealthcare platform that bridges insurance and healthcare. The startup provides an online doctor consultation platform for clinics, doctors, patients, and companies. It allows users to communicate with healthcare providers through video calls, as well as book appointments. The platform also allows users to receive medical advice, e-prescriptions, or e-referrals directly from doctors by using the app.
Israeli startup InnVentis utilizes big data and machine learning to provide solutions for diagnostics, monitoring, and therapeutic decisions on major chronic inflammatory diseases. The startup’s platform combines high-quality data with advanced algorithms to generate actionable insights for diagnostics and disease/health management of inflammatory diseases. The startup also provides products and services for discovering drugs for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The startup plans to extend its platform to other inflammatory conditions like asthma, multiple sclerosis, and colitis.
MediChain is a British startup offering a decentralized platform for the secure, fast, and transparent exchange and usage of medical data. The startup uses blockchain technology to securely store health records. It provides access to a patient’s record to doctors, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacists, and health insurers while recording transactions on the distributed ledger.
VRSANO is a US-based MedTech startup that develops a brain-computer interface. Its technology combines VR, neurofeedback, and clinical hypnosis principles to optimize health outcomes. The startup’s patented method pulls medical patients out of a state of distress by immersing them in a relaxing virtual world. It induces a psychophysiological state that helps patients with their mental health needs. The platform alleviates symptoms and improves long-term patient outcomes while lowering healthcare costs.
British startup Rescape Innovation develops immersive technologies to support patient care in both adults and children. The startup specializes in virtual reality (VR) distraction therapy to support pain and anxiety/stress management. The solution offers cystic fibrosis (CF) patients to view therapeutic documentaries, wherein they can travel among the planets in the solar system or experience surfing, skydiving, and other adrenaline-fueled activities. The startup’s interventions reduce anxiety in patients.
M4Life is an Israeli startup developing a mobile health platform. M4Life’s provides a simplified and smooth patient/caregiver relationship, allowing information traceability inside the mHealth care chain. The startup’s platform uses a blockchain-based architecture to share prescriptions, diagnostic images, medical certificates, patient consent. Moreover, it offers a telemedicine interface for communication between patients and physicians.
Swedish startup Knodd provides a platform for e-consultation with pediatricians. The startup’s platform offers video calls to experienced pediatric nurses and pediatricians with more than 5 years of experience, providing safe answers about children’s health within minutes, free of charge from anywhere. The platform also has digital courses on parenting and child care.
Get in touch to easily and exhaustively scout relevant technologies and startups that matter to you.
Exiom is a US-based startup that uses 3D scanning and printing technology to produce customized solutions to heal fractures and sprains. The startup develops a hygienic, waterproof, breathable, itch-proof, easily removable, and reusable support device that adapts immobilization to each patient’s condition. The key benefit of the startup’s solution includes onsite printing in a clinical setting, eliminating the time and cost of recasting with traditional materials.
Indian MedTech startup Graft3D provides a solution for surgery planning and execution. It utilizes radiological-assisted 3D Model (RAM) technology to visualize a patient’s anatomy prior to surgery. The startup’s Virtual Surgical Platform (VSP) assists doctors in predetermining surgical cuts. The startup designs patient-specific implants (PSI) with informed evidence from nearly 100 successive case studies on complex surgeries. It uses a haptic device that allows doctors or surgeons to sense the bone consistency.
Blockpharma, a French startup, develops blockchain-based drug traceability and anti-counterfeiting solution. The Blockpharma app allows the consumer to instantly check the authenticity of the drug box. BlockPharma integrates with multiple information systems and stores authenticated data on medicines stored on Crystalchain, the startup’s private blockchain. Upon detection of a falsified medicinal product, the laboratories immediately alert BlockPharma which then adds the medicine to its flagged list.
Slovenian startup Iryo Moshi provides a modern practice management tool for private healthcare providers. The startup specializes in blockchain, interoperability, open EMR, consumer relationship management (CRM) areas, and provides an integrated digital healthcare platform. The platform features automated appointments, invoicing, clinical data storage and management, and digital documents and forms. The solution is cloud-connected and also is compliant with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Irish startup Radmol AI utilizes the latest advancements in cloud computing, data analytics, blockchain, and AI-based technology. It provides a platform for connecting patients and healthcare providers to local and global expert radiologists on-demand. The startup’s technology enables accessing reports from anywhere, at any time. It creates solutions that democratize access to healthcare, enabling patients, physicians, and providers.
Finnish startup Medified provides cloud-based dynamic mental health monitoring software. The software as a service (SaaS) platform aids physicians to monitor patients in real-time, helping patients get the right treatment faster and more efficiently. The software analyzes clinical data and provides valuable clinical insights, enabling remote, digital healthcare services with an interactive dashboard. It allows patients to capture and communicate daily mood and well-being to provide healthcare professionals with self-treatment information in real-time.
Italian startup Allelica predicts human traits and diseases based on genomics data. The startup’s proprietary platform performs genomic risk prediction based on polygenic risk scores (PRSs). Allelica’s technology uses machine learning algorithms to accelerate clinical genomics for applications in precision medicine. The startup’s solution identifies individuals with a high genetic liability for cancers and heart diseases who are unidentified by traditional risk models.
Phosphorous is a US-based startup developing an at-home genetic test. PhosphorusONE, the startup’s test, uses saliva samples to detect diseases that are caused by multiple genes. The comprehensive test uses next-generation gene-sequencing technology to analyze 375 different genes. It determines the risk of multiple diseases including heart disorders, inherited cancers, infertility, adverse drug reactions, neurodegenerative disease, and vision loss.
The healthcare industry startups outlined in this report only scratch the surface of trends that we identified during our in-depth research. Identifying new opportunities and emerging technologies to implement into your business early on goes a long way in gaining a competitive advantage. Get in touch to easily and exhaustively scout relevant technologies and startups that matter to you.
It is no secret that healthcare lags behind other industries when it comes to technology and innovation, but the industry is starting to turn over a new leaf. With so many technologies, AI, wearables, analytics, and more out there, it can be hard to navigate and even be aware of your options. To help, we compiled a list of the top 10 healthcare IT technologies of 2023.
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is replacing conventional labor-intensive and time-consuming processes in healthcare with rapid, remotely accessible, and real-time solutions for diagnosis, treatment, and disease prevention. HealthTech startups develop software platforms, application programming interfaces (APIs), and other digital products to extend the benefits of AI. Some of the applications of artificial intelligence in healthcare include clinical workflow management, advanced surgery assistance, and medical diagnostics.
2. Internet of Medical Things
IoMT is instrumental in the development of products that need less or no human interaction to provide healthcare services. Connected medical devices, equipment, and infrastructure enable multiple applications like automatic disinfection, smart diagnosis, and remote patient management to name a few. Cognitive IoMT (CIoMT) is a recent sub-trend that integrates sensory information, automatic processing, and communication through networks for real-time diagnosis, monitoring, tracking, and disease control.
3. Telemedicine
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of telemedicine by many governments, healthcare systems, clinicians, and patients. To tackle the pandemic, governments issued telemedicine guidelines to decongest healthcare facilities. Telemedicine minimizes the load on facilities and reduces the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as medical practitioners reach their patients via telecommunication. HealthTech startups are working on telehealth services that facilitate public health mitigation strategies by increasing social distancing. Telemedicine also aids to assist elderly people remotely, reduces bed space, and conserves clinical supplies.
4. Big Data & Analytics
Digitization is transforming medical data collection, storage, diagnostic techniques, treatment planning, surgical workflows, remote patient monitoring, and consultations. The volume of health and medical data is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years. MedTech startups leverage big data and analytics to analyze the unstructured and huge volumes of medical data. It improves patient-based services, detects diseases earlier, and generates new insights into disease mechanisms. Moreover, big data solutions monitor the quality of processes at healthcare institutions, as well as enable better treatment methods.
5. Immersive Technology
The use of immersive technologies, such as AR/VR and MR, is on the rise in the healthcare sector. Applications for VR in healthcare vary from rehabilitation therapy and exposure therapy anxiety disorders to aiding in cognitive and physical rehabilitation. AR/VR also plays an important role in medical education. Immersive technologies also find applications in surgery, for instance for the perioperative projection of patient information, holographic images, and scans.
6. Mobile Health (mHealth)
mHealth technologies provide access to personalized information using digital solutions and connected devices. Mobile devices enable visualization of health issues that prevent patient commitment. Unconstrained by geographical boundaries and using real-time data streams, smartphone-linked wearable sensors, point-of-need diagnostic devices, and medical-grade imaging make healthcare delivery more equitable and accessible. mHealth solutions played a critical role in controlling the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic by enabling contact tracing, surveillance, quarantine control and management, testing, and dissemination of relevant information, as well as immunization cycle tracking and notification.
7. 3D Printing
3D printing is gaining traction in the healthcare industry for multiple applications like printing lightweight prosthetics, bionics, and casts for fracture repair. The use of inexpensive, lightweight biomaterials and smart materials ensures improvement in care delivery and time of production while reducing costs. 3D printing technologies are advancing the development of patient-specific models of organs and surgical tools, using the patient’s own medical imaging. Another area of application includes personalized surgical instruments that increase a surgeon’s dexterity and support better surgery outcomes while facilitating faster and less traumatic procedures.
8. Blockchain
The security and traceability of blockchain make the technology suitable for multiple applications in the healthcare industry. Some of these include electronic medical records, remote patient monitoring, pharmaceutical supply chain, and health insurance claims. Blockchain technology supports the management of EHRs and FHIRChain (Fast Health Interoperability Records) for sharing clinical data. It also plays an important role in smart contracts, tackling drug counterfeiting, as well as storing, sharing, and retrieving remotely collected biomedical data.
9. Cloud Computing
Cloud computing allows clinicians to establish quality patient journeys supported by tech-enabled care delivery via telehealth and remote monitoring. It allows for greater storage capabilities and processing power for data analytics and eliminates the need for on-premise storage. Cloud platforms integrate network, security, billing, monitoring, and alerts, together with access and identity management. It also provides streamlined data access, data storage and management, data backup and recovery, smart data potential, and data interoperability, among others.
10. Genomics
There have been notable efforts in developing genomics tools for various applications in recent times. Integration of both genomic knowledge and genomic processes into existing clinical workflows would ensure physicians perform established communication and actionable recommendations that a genomic test can provide to patients. The new arena of personalized medicine is possible due to the advent of innovations in genomics. Gene therapy and gene-based therapy solutions have revolutionized clinical medicine and specialty care for several unmet clinical needs.
The healthcare industry trends outlined in this report only scratch the surface of trends that we identified during our in-depth research. Among others, robotics, 5G, and stem cell therapy will transform the sector as we know it today. Identifying new opportunities and emerging technologies to implement into your business early on goes a long way in gaining a competitive advantage. Dive deeper into the emerging technology startups that are trending in these areas. Get in touch to easily and exhaustively scout relevant technologies and startups that matter to you.
Top Five Patient Safety Risks Following an EHR Implementation
Electronic Health Record technology has brought incredible automation to the healthcare industry, and many would say, it’s about time. Its benefits are strong and, if done right, will lead to a better patient experience and ultimately better patient care. However, with all great things, an EHR implementation comes with its risks. According to a Kaiser Health News and Fortune Magazine investigation, EHRs have created a host of largely unacknowledged patient safety risks, with the study finding thousands of cases of patient deaths, serious injuries, and near misses related to software glitches, user errors, or other flaws.
If we follow the crumbs of these tragedies, they lead back to how the EHR was designed, implemented, and used by clinicians and healthcare care staff. Here we will outline the top five patient safety risks you may encounter following an EHR implementation.
Incorrect Patient Information
More common in the fast-paced environment of the emergency room, is confusing one patient’s personal health information with another. The copy and paste function in many EHR software doesn’t help the issue, making it too easy to copy from one patient’s chart, and mistakenly paste into another, also called “cross-charting”.
Some patients have complex care plans requiring multiple medication doses, treatment plans, doctors, and nurses over multiple days. It only takes one misstep by one distracted, rushed, or undertrained user, to cause a ripple effect in a patient’s care that could have dire consequences.
Technical Glitches
Although we expect technology to be foolproof, it has its days. Glitches in technology unfortunately happen and require every human user to be vigilant of their potential. For instance, an EHR glitch could incorrectly remove a decimal point when a medication is being entered into the system, completely changing the dosage for the patient, and even risking overdose. Users must be trained on more than just how to navigate the system for their job, but also educated on how to spot discrepancies and red flags in the system and from other users. Major glitches can cause the entire facility to be offline from the EHR. Downtime procedures are essential to keeping the “lights on” and should be standard for whenever a facility experiences an electrical outage.
Auto-Correct and Auto-Complete Issues
The Opposite of a glitch is when technology over-corrects human inputs. Sometimes technology thinks it is smarter than us. Although not always false, auto-correct, and auto-complete functionality within the software can completely change the intended documentation by a clinician. If the clinician is diligent, they may catch the changes, but will then have to spend extra time correcting and double-checking all other documentation. If they don’t catch the changes, it could completely alter a patient’s care.
An EHR implementation can seem overwhelming. But with education and training, your EHR can be an efficient and effective tool that will benefit both the providers and patients.
Complex EHR Interfaces
We have all heard that physicians are resistant to EHR adoption, and although some have dived in headfirst to the change, they have reason to be. Physicians’ focus is and always will be on the patient, so when they have to take time away from patients to learn a new way of doing things, especially complex and unfamiliar technology, they are understandably resistant. As incredibly smart as EHR software can be, it isn’t just simply putting paper charts on the computer, and arguably, that is what makes it so smart. To be a powerful, interoperable technology, all paper documents and processes need to be digitalized. But for many physicians, this is a thorn in their side. And for patients, this could have negative repercussions on their care. Certain data may be displayed differently in the electronic patient chart, compared to what a physician is used to seeing on a paper chart. Navigating the interface is time-consuming for clinicians, especially when they are moving fast and treating multiple patients. This can lead to missed alerts, test results, and more.
Medication Errors
Every year, 7,000-9,000 Americans die because of a medication error. Errors cause medications to go to the wrong patients or with the wrong doses. Some medication documentation can cause treatment delays and even adverse drug reactions. Depending on the software, and how it was designed and implemented it could provide safeguards for human errors like this, such as deploying alerts about potential drug allergies.
You can get the fanciest technology out there, but if you don’t know how to use it, it is worthless. Education is key to a new software implementation. An EHR implementation lacking the proper training or continuous education even after go-live can make some medical practices destined for failure.
An EHR implementation can seem overwhelming, especially with the many horror stories of failure. Still, with time, EHR education, and training, those fears will melt away and what will be left is an efficient and effective tool that will benefit both the providers and patients.
Three Proven Strategies to Get Physicians Home for Dinner
Physicians are heroes in our healthcare system, so it is not surprising that much of the country is alarmed that we are experiencing a physician shortage. The COVID-19 pandemic was just the start of what the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates will be a 54,100 to 139,000 physician shortage by 2033. Physicians are burned out as a result of long hours, tricky technology, constant change, and a population that has grown sicker than it has been in over 100 years. So, how do we combat all of this? Let’s get our physicians home for dinner.
1. Reduce Technology Fatigue
According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, physicians spend more than an hour per day addressing EHR notifications. This time is either ripped from the patient or from physicians’ loved ones. Technology is meant to help make our lives easier, automate simple tasks, and give more time for real human interactions. If an EHR isn’t enabling this, then it wasn’t set up right, the staff wasn’t properly trained, and ongoing support is lacking.
For a streamlined EHR, consult health IT experts to pinpoint problem areas and help answer the following important questions: What tasks can be automated further to reduce inefficient workflows? What comprehensive training is needed for both physicians and other clinical and non-clinical staff? Where can you invest in more support staff that would make a difference to overall physician satisfaction? Hiring scribes who are responsible for all charting and documentation can free up physicians, allowing them to be present with their patients.
At EHR Concepts, our Triple Down Support Solution offers a support service model that is more than a helpdesk. We ensure that our support specialists are skilled experts in your EHR and PM applications and can provide Tier 1 -3 support.
2. Provide Organizational Support
With months of preparation and training, go-live can often feel like the finish line of a marathon, but the need for support doesn’t end there. A post-implementation evaluation is essential to assess whether your implementation was done right. This will help highlight the benefits and costs in contrast with the proposed budget. If the evaluation finds an increase in revenue and efficiency due to the automation of financial, clinical, and administrative tasks, you are well on your way.
But still, even after this, there will be hiccups. Staff will need support from application specific IT professionals for the full life cycle of your technology. And in the case of an EHR implementation, patients need support using the patient portal. This support can make a big difference in both patient satisfaction, and patient care. The time and resources needed to provide around-the-clock support services can’t be managed by your staff alone and certainly not by your clinicians.
3. Provide Personal Support
The American Association for Physician Leadership notes that the most effective strategies for reducing burnout rates involve a combination of individual and organizational initiatives. If long hours, hectic schedules, new technology, and time away from loved ones aren’t taxing enough, our clinicians are also dealing with sickness and death daily. It is no surprise that being a physician takes a toll on your mental health. Clinical staff need access to emotional support as needed through support groups, employee assistance programs, hotlines, and more.
At EHR Concepts, our Triple Down Support Solution offers a support service model that is more than a helpdesk. We ensure that our support specialists are skilled experts in your EHR and PM applications and can provide Tier 1 -3 support.
EHR Concepts has been awarded a Bronze 2022 Stevie Award in the Women Run Workplace of the Year category, following a silver award in 2017 and a bronze in 2016. Much of the company’s success can be attributed to the small but mighty team of women leaders and talented individuals behind it who are committed to operating with the highest morality, ethics, and integrity. As someone who has remained emotionally invested in building up women from the inception of her career, April Reed, the Founder and CEO of EHR Concepts, has created a force in the industry built on determination, strong relationships, and woman leadership.
On her list of many accomplishments are the contributions she has made to making health information technology (IT) easier. This year EHRC celebrates 15 years in business. It all began when April took her passion as a sought-after consultant for EHR implementations and training and founded her own consulting firm with just one other employee – her mom. Now she has surrounded herself with a team of out-of-the-box thinkers, who are EHR trainers, implementers, optimizers, integrators, convertors, passionate tinkerers and women that truly understand the client’s challenges and provide solutions fit for their unique organization.
“We want to positively impact our community, our industry, and the world around us. We believe each person holds a responsibility to be a conduit for positive change and we strive to support others in their endeavors. We discipline ourselves to implement change and have the strength to do so even if it’s beyond comfort levels.”
-April Reed, Founder and CEO of EHR Concepts
She shared this about the company culture, “Ask anyone on our team, ‘Why EHR Concepts?’ and the answer is the same – we are an open, honest, and fun-loving group. Yes, we solve our clients’ difficult technology challenges, implement, configure and optimize electronic health records software, train and increase EHR adoption, etc., but we do so in an open and collaborative environment, which is the cornerstone of every successful partnership.” The company strives every day to deliver no-nonsense, caring, personalized expert services to EHR users everywhere, successfully implementing complex EHR projects for the past 15 years.
As April continues to be an inspiration to women everywhere, especially in the health IT space, she and the team at EHR Concepts desire to be defined by more than just success. “We want to positively impact our community, our industry, and the world around us. We believe each person holds a responsibility to be a conduit for positive change and we strive to support others in their endeavors. We discipline ourselves to implement change and have the strength to do so even if it’s beyond comfort levels.”
EHR Concepts is a proud participant of the women-owned small business program through the Small Business Administration. Its eligibility has been certified by two separate independent organizations, the Women’s Business Enterprise (WBENC) and the National Women Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC).
As we stated in our previous blog Health IT is innovating our world and improving the quality of patient care, but it can be difficult to navigate and execute successfully. Without experience-based implementation, competent staff, and continuous support for staff and patient users, both your patient’s safety and your ROI are at risk. Below we will discuss more inherent risks and proven solutions.
Training and Continuous Education
At the route of every successful or failed implementation is the staff/end-user communication, training, and support. To be an A-team, your staff must be set up for success, which isn’t accomplished by throwing the hypothetical training book at them. Most healthcare facilities are stuck in the past and have an obvious disconnect between how their staff learns and how they train them. Often technology is thrown at the application as if checking that box is enough for your staff to successfully run with it. And even then, running with complex technology that is the cornerstone of a patient’s care is risky business. Not only could the lack of thorough training affect a patient’s medical records, but incorrect reporting on those records could change their care. As practitioners integrate EHR data into decision-making, such errors could lead to medication errors, wasteful duplication, unnecessary or incorrect treatment, and delayed diagnoses.
Optimization
Once your health IT is implemented and configured, it needs to be fine-tuned to ensure that it performs to its full potential. Optimizing your EHR should be a top priority—not only to qualify for incentives and generate a return on your investment in EHR deployment but also to improve provider adoption and satisfaction. We will assist your organization with optimizing clinical content, workflows, technical build, reporting, and revenue cycle management.
Our EHR optimization consultants work with operational and clinical leaders to optimize EHR solutions and deliver measurable outcomes.
“Providing a support system to help patients and staff when they are having trouble using health IT is essential to your success.”
Support
Whenever an organization’s end-users experience an issue within their health IT it takes a serious toll on their ability to stay productive. This is especially true if the problem affects core elements of staff workflow. We can’t forget that patients are also end-users of health IT, like the EHR. What happens when patients run into an issue at home as they try to access their medical information? Having trained staff on call to support them and their experience is a great solution, but extremely time-consuming and again, cuts into their productivity.
Ensuring that patients have access to their clinical information is more important now than ever with the 21st Century Cures Act. It was designed to make healthcare information more accessible and transparent with a focus on prohibiting information blocking. It aims to give patients and their healthcare providers secure access to health information and increases innovation and competition by fostering an ecosystem of new applications to provide patients with more choices in their healthcare.
The rule includes a provision requiring that patients can electronically access all their electronic health information (EHI), structured and/or unstructured, at no cost.
Providing a support system to help patients and staff when they are having trouble using health IT is essential to your success.
Our expert team is made up of clinicians with deep application knowledge, experienced project managers, and expert technical consultants all focused on improving clinician adoption, productivity, and satisfaction with health IT. As your trusted advisor, we will equip you with the tools to make health IT easier, positioning your facility for value-based care, decreasing burnout, reducing costs, improving patient experience, and increasing quality/safety. Our consultants are certified in all major EHR solutions and can assist and advise on other health IT implementations, optimization, training, and support.
Health IT is innovating our world and improving the quality of patient care, but it can be difficult to navigate and execute successfully. Without experience-based implementation, competent staff, and continuous support for staff and patient users, both your patient’s safety and your ROI are at risk. Below we will discuss the inherent risks and their solutions.
Strategic Planning and Complex Project Management
Strategic planning seems like a no-brainer, but it is essential to determine where your organization is today and provide a vision for where it will be in the future. When strategic planning is done right, your organization will be able to successfully communicate its vision and ensure that both stakeholders and users are on board and understand their integral role in the change. In our experience, large corporate IT implementations often fail and are scrapped six months post-implementation because people are inherently resistant to change. This leaves everyone feeling defeated and exhausted.
Our experienced project managers can help you plan, develop timelines, build consensus around project objectives, track progress, prepare your staff for change and motivate your organization to achieve your goals effectively and efficiently.
Successful Implementation
A successful implementation is contingent on a strong implementation plan, followed by clinical readiness assessments, and of course a backup plan just in case everything doesn’t go as planned.
We know a successful implementation can be achieved with a proven and effective Go-Live Process Plan from start to finish. A discovery phase is very important, as it identifies current pain points and all EHR or other systems that will be involved and determine workflow needs surrounding them. From the discovery phase, one is able to create A System Design and Training Plan to help execute a workflow analysis of your users and clinical process. Once that plan is in place, we assist you in bringing experts in where needed to help complete application design/build, run full system testing, and conduct classroom and on-the-job training and go-live support.
Line Up Your A-Team
As we said, health IT is difficult without the proper resources. You need the best team on the job that is highly trained and understands the purpose behind the processes they are carrying out. Unfortunately, poorly prepared staff bring to light resistance to change and human errors that can lead to patient safety risks. Poor patient identification within health IT becomes exponentially more problematic and dangerous as more data is generated and more applications are introduced into the healthcare environment. If your staff is resistant to change, you may need to consider outsourcing.
Our expert team is made up of clinicians with deep application knowledge, experienced project managers, and expert technical consultants, all focused on improving clinician adoption, productivity, and satisfaction with health IT. As your trusted advisor we will equip you with the tools to make health IT easier, positioning your facility for value-based care, decreasing burnout, reducing costs, improving patient experience, and increasing quality/safety. Our consultants are certified in all major EHR solutions and can assist and advise on other health IT implementations, optimization, training, and support. (To be continued. Don’t miss our next blog for more ways EHRC can make Healthcare Easier for your organization)
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