On EHRs

Beyond Cost Cutting: Health IT’s Role in Financial Health

Posted by on

Health systems continue to face complex financial challenges. Industry articles highlight the few that have strong operating margins while also noting the many facing continued operating losses. Becker’s Hospital CFO Report published the article, “25 factors that could affect health system performance in 2024”, by Alan Condon on September 8th. It is a comprehensive list and worth reviewing.

What do these financial challenges mean for health IT leaders? I talk to many CIOs who are faced with cost cutting targets and dealing with very limited budgets yet long lists of priority projects. It’s no surprise. Health systems often fall into the trap of relying solely on cost-cutting measures, particularly in the realm of IT and staffing.  While trimming expenses is essential, it’s just the starting point.  Organizations must carefully consider all the impacts on operations and especially morale.

At StarBridge Advisors, we advocate for a comprehensive approach that goes beyond mere savings, encompassing revenue growth, digital transformation, and effective change management. This multi-faceted strategy promises swift improvement to your bottom line, operational efficiency, improved staff morale and progress toward the goals of the Quintuple Aim.  IT enablement is often essential to these activities. You can use these opportunities to leverage the IT investments that have already been made.

In a recent series of four blogs written by Principal, David Muntz, we offer practical and pragmatic guidance on each crucial aspect of this approach.  The benefits are tangible and span from immediate gains to long-term sustainability.  Our expertise empowers your organization to undergo both tactical and strategic transformations, ensuring uninterrupted top-tier patient care without compromising on IT performance or security.

We can help your organization hardwire the Quintuple Aim. Partner with us to revitalize your health system’s trajectory, creating growth opportunities despite financial constraints.  I hope you’ll take time to review the series and let me know if we can help you and your organization.

StarBridge Advisors blog series:

 

Ready to share your story?

Posted by on

Last week I shared that going forward I plan to use this blog to also highlight the great work that so many of you are doing. I got a lot of positive reactions to that idea. The next step is to connect with those of you ready to talk with me and start lifting up the work you are doing for others to learn from.

In articles and podcasts, it is often senior leaders who are interviewed. I have worked with many awesome staff and management folks over the years. I know many of you subscribe to this blog or read it when I share on social media. Consider this a more direct appeal to you to share your stories.

If you have a particular project that you are proud of, an important initiative that you are driving, or key lessons you want to share with others, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me a note describing what you want to talk about and I’ll follow-up to learn more. Be ready to share what you did and why, key challenges, results, and any lessons learned that will help others.

How best to reach me? If you don’t already have my email, send me a message on LinkedIn.

Together we’ll keep learning, sharing, and making a difference!

Related Post:

Time to pivot

On the other side of the digital front door – part 3

Posted by on

Two different procedures. Two different specialties. Two different patient communication approaches. Yet both practices use the same EHR and patient portal.

Prep for surgery instructions. Paper. Branded folder to put the paper in. More paper on next visit. A call from practice confirming specific surgery time and then get transferred to recorded message with specific pre-surgery instructions. Day of surgery sent home with post-op instructions – more paper.

Prep for procedure instructions. Available on the patient portal under letters. Texts and emails sent with specific prep information. Timed texts and emails for each major step along a defined prep timeline. Post procedure summary and instructions given to me on paper and available on the portal.

Practice variation is real. At times, it’s required and makes sense given different specialties. But not always.

So how were these two different experiences from a patient communication perspective? For me, there is a comfort having paper – can easily refer to it when needed. That is, if you know where you put it – hence the branded folder they give you. In the other situation, there was a very prescribed set of timed pre-procedure steps so the texts/emails at specified times telling me what to do was helpful.

What wasn’t such a good patient experience? Continue reading →

Thoughts on the Oracle acquisition of Cerner

Posted by on

Without question, the announcement yesterday that Oracle is acquiring Cerner for $28.3 billion is the biggest health IT story of the year. I won’t speculate on what I don’t know. I’ll leave that to others. But I can

source: www.hitconsultant.net

speak from experience as a CIO who has worked with all the big EHR vendors over the years including Cerner, Epic, Allscripts and Meditech. I’ve talked with and at times commiserated with many CIO colleagues who have experience with some or all of these EHR vendors.

While Cerner clients are trying to figure out what this acquisition will mean for them, good or bad, I’ll go back to the basics. Over the years I’ve written several blog posts on vendor management. They all seem pertinent and good reminders for health IT leaders trying to sort out how to work with Cerner going forward and how to manage within their organizations as they are faced with questions this week that they probably can’t answer.

12 tips for effective vendor management outlines what to look for in your current and future vendors. If I were a Cerner client or contemplating a switch to Cerner, I’d pay particularly close attention to these tips:

  • A good product roadmap
  • More service than sales
  • Excellent customer service
  • Executive level relationship
  • Long term value for the investment

There will be much speculation and commentary in the coming days on what this acquisition means to Cerner clients and the health IT industry overall. At the end of the day, we must keep the Quadruple Aim in mind in all we do to serve our patients and our communities: enhance the patient experience, reduce costs, improve healthcare outcomes, and improve the clinician experience. That has never been more important than during this pandemic. Will Oracle’s acquisition of Cerner help or hinder? Will Cerner provide a superior, more reliable, more integrated EHR in 2022 and well into the future? Only time will tell.

Related Posts:

12 tips for effective vendor management

Keys to successful vendor management

What to expect from your vendors

Vendor relationship management revisited

 

On the other side of the digital front door – part 2

Posted by on

My health journey continues with multiple focuses. And my journey through digital front doors continues as well. I wrote part 1 on this topic in early November when I was in the middle of various health and dental appointments and scheduling more. I also wrote about what I thought was an awesome example of how technology has evolved in “Patient friendly testing – yes, a positive story!” in September.  The end of that story was not so positive. More on that later.

Here are a few anecdotes from my recent experience:

Cataract surgery – I had my initial consultation appointment the end of November and have surgery scheduled for mid-February. Specialized eye drops were prescribed to start taking a few days in advance of the surgery. As soon as I left the doctor’s office, I received a text message that my eye drop prescription from my doctor was pending payment with this special pharmacy – for immediate delivery to my home I should click the link to pay $82.50. I was a little suspicious of a text asking for payment like that and knew I didn’t need to have the eye drops until February, certainly not immediate home delivery. I called the doctor’s office to confirm the text was legitimate and asked how to handle the timing of delivery. I was told I could just text back regarding delivery timing which I did and got a reply that they could do that. I thought great, there’s a person on the other end. But then I received several more automated text reminders to click the link so they could ship right away. Then they called me. I talked through the timing and gave them my payment info. Their proactive communication (and persistence) was a plus, but I was more comfortable with real-time communication to coordinate specific delivery schedule and payment.

Bone health – I had a virtual visit with a Nurse Practitioner from the Bone Health clinic at my primary hospital. This was part of follow-up from my fall and pelvic bone fracture in August. The virtual visit was easy to get into and very thorough. I learned that more and more elders are asking to be seen in person – not this one unless there is a reason to “lay hands on me”. Continue reading →

On the other side of the digital front door

Posted by on

Being on the other side of health care delivery is always an eye opening experience as to the progress we’ve made with technology and making it easy for our patients, and how far we have yet to go.

Now that I have more flexibility in my work schedule and we’re past the house move, I’m taking time to prioritize my own health. The newest health issue I’m addressing is cataracts in both eyes. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the ophthalmic practice in the area who my eye doctor referred me to has a patient portal link on their website. As I waited on the phone to make an appointment, I perused the website. I thought it was odd that the portal had the same name as my health system’s portal. When it was my turn to talk to someone, they told me my new address asking me to confirm it. I had just updated it with my health system on the patient portal last week. So I asked how they, a separate ophthalmic practice knew. They said the patient portal showed it based on my phone number. Turns out it is the very same portal as my health system. I asked if they were part of the system and they said no but they share the portal. Guessing there is more to the story – possibly an Epic Community Connect relationship?

We scheduled the initial consultation appointment at a location reasonably close at the end of November vs one at an even closer location at the end of January. But my positive response to this encounter quickly took a step backwards. As they described my next steps pre-appointment it included writing down two fax numbers. One to give my eye doctor so they could send a report from my last eye exam. And a different one to give my PCP so they could send a referral. When will healthcare finally retire fax machines??

The fact that I can remember my patient portal password means I’ve become a regular user. And that means I’m taking care of my health. Due to my injury in August, I have multiple ortho appointments and now weekly physical therapy visits.

I was late to my first physical therapy appointment due to mistakenly thinking the e-checkin on the portal would be quick. Continue reading →

Vendor relationship management revisited

Posted by on

For IT leaders, effective vendor relationships are critical. In previous blog posts, I have provided guidance on creating win-win relationships and outlined what makes up a successful ongoing vendor relationship.

I am currently serving as interim CIO at Boston Children’s Hospital, the fourth health system I have served as an interim IT leader since 2016. I am experiencing vendor relationships and the challenges of vendor management all over again. Revisiting some of my own advice has been useful to me so I decided I would share it again with my readers.

12 tips for effective vendor management is a useful refresher worth another look. Let me know if I missed anything.

I would love to hear your stories of vendors who stepped up as true partners with health system IT teams to find creative solutions, expedite deliveries and provide extraordinary customer service during the pandemic. After all, 2020 was a test for all kinds of relationships.

Related Posts:

Keys to successful vendor management

What to expect from your vendors

Resources for your digital health journey

Posted by on

My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, wrote an excellent blog series on Digital Health over the past year. His latest in the series is titled, “Digital Health – Planning for the Virtual Campus”. David’s ability to define digital health and provide a blueprint for organizations is impressive. This most recent post does not disappoint. He describes the changes that health systems have made in care delivery during the pandemic and poses the question – where do we go from here? He outlines 12 steps organizations should take. Here is a partial list just to whet your appetite:

  • Embrace the same discipline and framework to create the virtual campus as for a traditional campus
  • Query a broader representative sample of stakeholders than you have in the past
  • Plan for the underserved and those who might be excluded because of the digital divide
  • Personalize the experience for providers, patients, and families
  • Use augmented intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) during the data collection process

I encourage you to check out the entire post. If you are interested in any future posts in David’s digital health series, subscribe to View from the Bridge to get notifications of new posts. Our team of advisors regularly contributes posts on a wide range of topics relevant to today’s healthcare executives and IT leaders.

The New England HIMSS 2021 Annual Spring Conference: “Empowering People to Impact Health Through Information and Technology” was this week. Continue reading →

Crowdsourcing – looking for your stories on digital transformation 

Posted by on

I am trying something new with this week’s blog post. I will be doing a talk titled “Digital Transformation: Emerging from COVID19” at an upcoming virtual conference. I will be working on it in my spare time (aka the next two weekends) so it can be recorded in advance.

For many organizations, Digital Health means the “digital front door” and an increased focus on patient or consumer facing applications. But it is far more than that. My StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, wrote an excellent blog series on Digital Health over the past year. His first post attempted to frame what we mean by Digital Health – “Digital Health – Is Healthcare Ready? Are You and Your Organization Ready?”.

He starts by trying to define it and acknowledge that the Wikipedia definition is good but not great: “Digital health is the convergence of digital technologies with health, healthcare, living, and society to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery and make medicine more personalized and precise.” As David expands on his definition, he says ”Digital health requires harnessing the energy from the data tsunami that includes all sources, not just provider-controlled databases. We need to synthesize data from existing sources and use patient generated data, social determinants of health, census information, AI engines, and so many other sources.”

As I work on my upcoming talk, here is my “crowdsource” ask if you are willing to share your stories and anecdotes on any or all of these questions: Continue reading →

Ensuring go live success for large scale IT projects

Posted by on

Since the pandemic, major system implementations at health systems have continued with successful go lives supported by virtual or hybrid remote/onsite teams. Many organizations have “go live” success stories in this new world of remote work. While virtual support may change some things and certainly presents new challenges, the core work of a successful go live is still the same.

In late 2019, I published several blog posts on successful go lives based on firsthand experience with a major Epic implementation. Here they are again with basic lessons and tips:

10 Go Live Command Center lessons from the field

Epic Go Live – report from the field

9 Tips for Go Live support success

I welcome your comments on any virtual or hybrid go live experiences you have been involved in during the past year. If I get enough new lessons and tips, I will write a new blog so all can benefit. After all, continual learning and sharing best practices is at the core of what we do in healthcare.

Why this topic this week? I am currently working with a client who is less than six weeks out from an ERP go live so it is on my mind a lot. We are doing what we refer to as an Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V), a framework that facilitates audits of major IT projects regardless of area and complexity.  We explore 11 categories in-depth.  The topics range from governance and budget to training and QA.  The detailed analyses for each area involve document review and interviews to ascertain the status of the project.  A risk score is assigned in each of the 11 areas and mitigations are suggested based on the findings.  Ideally, over the life of the project there are three IV&V sessions conducted prior to go live and one session after go live to ensure that projects stay on course, make corrections as necessary in a timely manner, and achieve the defined objectives.

If you think an IV&V from my advisory firm, StarBridge Advisors, is something that your organization can use, please contact us to discuss.