Best Practices

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By Kim Chaundy and Joe Fisne

With the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care, improving outcomes and providing high quality care are top priorities for today’s healthcare organizations. Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) are one way that healthcare organizations such as Geisinger are taking patient care to the next level.

Recognized by their peers as a world-class organization, Geisinger realized that to continue to deliver on its mission of excellence, it needed to think beyond the four walls of its organization and create an information network to share data across providers and payers in the region. Specifically, Geisinger founded the Keystone Health Information Exchange (KeyHIE) in 2005 to close care gaps, execute population health management programs, and support safer more effective coordination of care across Pennsylvania’s patient population.

Current data plays a crucial role in patient care, yet both data access and exchange remain as critical challenges in the digital age. Given the disparate and diverse data sets that exist, healthcare entities find it to be increasingly difficult to share and aggregate data between provider organizations, and prohibitive to collaborate with payers, without leveraging the value of an HIE. 

[Read more…] about Leveraging an HIE to Achieve Excellence in Patient Care

By Kerri Petrin

As the healthcare industry continues emphasizing the value of patient centricity and engagement, industry leaders managing large, diverse populations are increasingly called upon to balance this expectation against various metrics of quality, efficiency, effectiveness, and cost. For healthcare leaders looking to encourage patient engagement and drive behavior change in support of quality care, affordable cost, and better health, technology offers an answer. It has presented a means to develop and execute programs that engage individuals in changing health-related behavior in a scalable way. 

Perhaps one of the most important ways in which technology can support this sort of engagement is in the deployment of analytics for program selection, design, execution, and evaluation. Analytics, specifically, have offered a means to realize population-level behavior change by rethinking the way healthcare initiatives are deployed in two key steps.

[Read more…] about The Two Steps Healthcare Leaders Must Take to Achieve Scalable Behavior Change

By Eric M. Stone

The two heavyweights of retail – one a brick and mortar stalwart testing its online chops, the other an ecommerce pioneer creeping into the real word – seem destined to collide in a title bout for the healthcare crown. Recent news pronouncements and moves by each chart a path closer to direct contention for patient’s healthcare concerns. What will the world look like for patients when brands built on the promise of savings and price competition become meaningful alternatives to traditional medical care? 

Emphasis on Affordable Care

Both brands thrive on their reputation for being low-cost leaders where everything is immediately available – a philosophy that stands in stark contrast to most people’s understanding of healthcare, where the mantra often seems to be “the costlier, the better.” Two large companies committed to eliminating waste and inefficiency in service to lower prices would be welcomed by patients and advocates alike, or would it?

For Amazon, that means activating its world-class supply chain to reverse the high cost, poor outcome dynamics of modern healthcare in America. The juggernaut has demonstrated an unrelenting, almost maniacal commitment to distribution that cuts costs and delivers immediacy for today’s “now, now, now” generation. The result is “the everything store” with millions of products, nearly all perceived to be value priced by consumers and many of which can be on your doorstep in hours.

[Read more…] about Do Patients Win (or Lose) When Amazon and Walmart Joust in Healthcare?

By Zaida Aronovsky and Samir Panchal,

Program managers are the orchestra conductors of business: leading often sizable yet finite resources through several complex and changing passages to achieve a set goal. Both roles also make a greater difference to the final results than many people might think.

A few years ago, researchers studied whether orchestra conductors really mattered. The verdict? Emphatically so. In fact, the study found the more a conductor’s influence, the better the music.

Similarly, quality program managers make a positive difference. Organizations with great program managers have far higher project success rates (92 percent on average), more successful business outcomes and waste less money due to poor project performance than organizations with substandard program management, according to theProject Management Institute.

How can organizations more consistently enjoy the benefits of superior program management? Start by avoiding these five leading program management pitfalls and instead embracing best practices.

[Read more…] about Avoid These 5 Leading Pitfalls of Program Management

By Chris Hutchison

I speak to physicians on a daily basis. I enjoy hearing their thoughts on improving patient care and safety, as I believe industry can play a key role in equipping doctors with information to improve decision making for their patients. While the conversations often start at 60,000-foot level about treatment protocols and medicines, we quickly engage around IV fluid management and the challenge of meeting the unique needs of each patient. Increasingly, studies have shown that what is best for the patient is not a “one size fits all” approach to IV fluids. In fact, just the opposite is true: improper fluid management can lead to serious complications, even death.

We all know that IV fluids offer significant benefits. They are essential whenever critically ill patients are admitted to the hospital, easing the administration of medicines, keeping patients hydrated and improving perfusion. That said, the more we learn about IV fluid and its effect on the kidneys, lungs and other vital organs, the more we understand the need to dose IV fluids the same way we do medicines: give only when they are needed and check to make sure they work.

[Read more…] about IV Fluid: Too Much of a Good Thing Can Kill You