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Topic: AI & Technology in Healthcare

AI and technology in healthcare, including purpose-built AI.

2018 Healthcare Trends We Expect for Marketing, IT and CRM

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It’s actually not that hard to make confident predictions about what will be the key trends for healthcare marketing and healthcare CRM in 2018, especially if you closely follow what’s going on in the healthcare industry. The trick is to take a few moments to step back from daily observations and to try to find common themes that are emergent. With that in mind, here are some trends we are anticipating for 2018!

Modifying Healthcare Marketing for Millennials

In 2018, healthcare marketing will take unprecedented steps to market healthcare to Millennials. There’s no reason to debate about the precise years for when this generation was born. The bottom line is most (if not all) Millennials are now solidly in adulthood, and that means they are the newest demographic in healthcare. There’s also no reason to discuss the finer points of what makes Millennials Millennials. All that needs to be said is they play by a different set of rules when it comes to how they make decisions and engage with brands—and this is a riddle healthcare marketers will be attempting to solve in 2018.

More Mobile-First

In 2018, healthcare marketing and IT will take unprecedented steps to adopt “Mobile-First.” We’re now in an era where it’s not enough to say “mobile healthcare” will be a trend. That’s already happened. In our most recent blog, “Five Key Mobile Website Design Tips for Hospitals and Clinics,” we touched on the subject of “mobile-first” as it relates to a major Google shakeup for healthcare SEO, and you can expect for us to talk more about this in 2018. Even if you aren’t familiar with the concept, the “mobile-first” term isn’t hard to discern: It’s the best practice of prioritizing mobile technologies over others. For SEO, it means search engines will first look to the mobile version of a Website to determine who gets the best SERP (search engine results) rankings. Mobile-first isn’t just about SEO though. Virtually anything that is part of a patient’s mobile device UX (user experience) — social media, apps, widgets, videos, etc. — will need to look and feel like it was a priority and not an afterthought.

IoT, mHealth and Telehealth Waits for Cybersecurity Improvements

In 2018, healthcare IT will take unprecedented steps to improve cybersecurity and open more doors for new medical technologies that can radically improve outcomes and revenues. We are also in an era where healthcare is grappling with with having both too much and too little—and it’s potentially stalling something great advances in healthcare. First, there’s too much access to patient information. On one hand, that’s wonderful—and it ties in nicely with more and more patients using the Internet (especially mobile devices) to find healthcare providers, engage with caregivers and improve their outcomes. On the other hand, access and information has put many hospitals at risk because there’s too little cybersecurity. (Unfortunately, the “ransomware” trend from the past couple years is probably going to continue in 2018.) Meanwhile, the medical device industry is aching to exploit the vast advantages of IoT (Internet of Things), mHealth (mobile health), telehealth and other platforms that can have monumental benefits for healthcare, both in terms of providing more and better care while reducing costs. The conflict is with how these innovative devices need access to all of that information—on largely underprotected networks. As a result, their potential is not being fully leveraged, which in turn slows continued innovation. For those reasons, you can be assured the healthcare and medical device communities will be putting significant effort into improving cybersecurity in 2018.
As Guideway Care Central/Western Regional Director, Chris Stearns is one of our most reliable resources for awareness of what is going on in our industry. Guideway Care is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Guideway Care to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.

Why and How to Optimize Hospital and Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management After EHR Adoption

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One of the many challenges of ensuring your healthcare organization’s longevity and profitability is to regularly adopt new technologies and best practices—which, after such adoptions, often requires an immediate evaluation of the new landscape after to determine what’s next. This is precisely the sentiment expressed in a recent RevCycle Intelligence article, “After EHR Adoption, Revenue Cycle Technology Modernization Begins,” and it is one we hear from our customers more frequently. This is interesting because although we are not an electronic health records vendor, we do offer patient management software as part of our Sequence patient engagement solutions platform, which enables healthcare providers to follow patients through the entire treatment process—and ultimately their optimize healthcare revenue cycle management.

What is Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management?

As the RevCycle Intelligence article explained, almost all healthcare providers—both hospitals and individual practices—have adopted electronic health record (EHR) software. Now that EHR adoption is in the proverbial rear-view mirror for most, healthcare revenue cycle management is now squarely in their new fields of vision. While many understand what EHR is and does, some might not fully grasp the same for healthcare revenue cycle management. Coincidentally, RevCycle Intelligence answered the question in another and appropriately titled article, “What Is Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management?” And although it’s explanation of what hospital revenue cycle management is was sufficient, it was what it said about what it does (or more specifically, when it happens) that perhaps best illustrates the concept:
“Healthcare revenue cycle management begins when a patient makes his or her appointment to seek medical services and ends when all claims and patient payments have been collected. However, the life of a patient’s account is not as straightforward as it seems.”

Determining Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management Objectives

As implied in that explanation, healthcare revenue cycle management is a complex and not necessarily linear process. However, according to RevCycle Intelligence, “78 percent of hospitals still use a manual healthcare supply chain management process.” Hence, it’s natural that healthcare facilities are now turning toward the next piece of the modernization pie: tools for health revenue cycle management. Having learned from the tenuous process of EHR adoption, though, hospitals are looking for solutions that let them avoid repeating the same mistakes. We are finding that they are keen to find healthcare RCM tools that:

• Integrate well with existing EHR solutions, ensuring the time and money spent on EHR implementation isn’t wasted.

• Provide peace of mind about future functionality, especially as insurers move increasingly to value-based payment models.

• Let providers avoid the issues they experienced when integrating EHRs.

Adopt Effective Patient and Claims Management Tools

A glaring problem with traditional hospital revenue cycle management software solutions is it treats it as a silo function. In some instances, patient reimbursement claims are an afterthought and denial management is a tool that stands on the side of everything else. Silos create manual processes and encourage insufficient forethought in admissions and treatment, which makes it even more difficult to collect from insurers later. This is why it’s important to use patient management platforms that integrate healthcare RCM concerns smoothly within front-end processes. For instance, our medical insurance verification and medical clearance management tools ensure appropriate information is harvested to support clean claims processes and effective denial management. Proactive approaches to revenue matters reduce amounts of denials organizations face to begin with — and the entire process is easy to use and integrate with existing tools.

Use Retention Tools to Boost Quality and Value

No matter how well healthcare organizations improve their efficiency and billing, it won’t mean much if they are unable to meet more stringent value-based payment requirements. The solution, of course, is to use patient retention tools that provide the future-proofing that providers are looking for in software solutions. Wellness and prevention reminders, medication adherence and discharge-management tools are essential to help providers support patients after treatment and reduce the likelihood of unnecessary readmissions. Patient care coordination solutions let providers synchronize patient contact and services across departments and collaborate with medical treatment teams to support high-quality care — all of which is required by most value-based payment programs.
Guideway Care is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Guideway Care to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. Contact us to begin discovering how we can guide your hospital towards positive outcomes and exceptional results.

Five Success Factors to Achieving Better Patient Acquisition, Management and Retention

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What you need to know and expect from your technology implementation

Guideway Care has a long track record of successful client implementations. It’s a record we’re proud of, because we understand that many healthcare organizations may have some level of anxiety over the complexities of the implementation process. Putting those anxieties to rest is the best way to ensure our clients are maximizing the competitive value of our HIPAA-compliant, patient engagement and tracking solutions as soon as possible. Here’s are five factors that contribute to a successful Guideway Car implementation:

#1: A hands-on, dedicated team—throughout the entire process

Yes, it’s true that there will be many people involved with your implementation during different phases of the project, and both your internal team and our implementation team will have critical deadlines. But providing a dedicated resource to oversee the project from start-to-conclusion is key, and helps our team to communicate a clear understanding of the deployment timeframe and ensure a smooth and successful implementation.

#2: Dedicated preparation to streamline the implementation

One of the most critical steps to a successful implementation is coming onsite to perform a needs assessment. Our team will meet with everyone who will be involved on your team, document your workflow, and learn more about your goals and definition of success for the project. Once we define the scope of the project, we’ll configure the Guideway Care  environment and train your team on how to move a patient through your Sequence environment. Plan on an extensive 1-2 day training period for your team, depending on the size of the practice.

#3: Full go-live support

You can expect us to be onsite on your launch date to provide all the support you need. This support will continue for the next 30 days and our clients know they have direct access to us—on demand—when they need it.

#4: A Collaborative approach to build adoption and trust

Every successful IT project is conti we believe that communication throughout the entire process is essential—this means communication from the time of the initial sale, through go-live and even post-go-live.   We also believe that user adoption hinges on a high level of comfort on the part of the user. If users don’t know how to use a technology product—they won’t. It’s really that simple. At Guideway Care  , we make sure users are comfortable with our platform through full transparency into the product and every step of its implementation, and weekly cadence calls with the providers that use our technology.

#5: Assurance that the feedback loop stays put

User feedback to us is a continuous relationship, and our clients know they can provide feedback at any time, with Guideway Care remaining open to the consideration of new changes and ideas. Have any idea for a new feature or improvement? Share it with us, as honest feedback helps you to ultimately get more patients into your organization.  
Katrinka Unold is Guideway Care Director of Client Services & Implementation. Ready to learn more about our 5 steps to implementing better patient visibility, engagement, retention and loyalty? Contact us today!

EMRs Still Leaving Functional Gaps For Users, Survey Says

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A study conducted by the Veteran Affairs Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety recently found that 43% of over 2500 primary care providers nationwide reported using workarounds in addition to or instead of their EMR-based workflows for managing vital patient data like test results. While the results of this study are nothing new, and in fact follow many years of reports of providers relying on paper-based workflows, this new study did provide some additional insight into WHEN and WHY providers turn to pen and paper. The study found that WHEN providers reported Limited Administrative Assistance, they were more likely to report using workarounds. Also, WHEN a provider reported that she or a colleague had personal experience missing important patient data in the past, they were more likely to rely on workarounds, presumably to ensure it didn’t happen again.
An in-depth review of rationale for WHY providers used workaround utilization yielded three main reasons: AS A MEMORY AID Though providers are accustomed (sometimes too much so) to the continuous beeps and buzzes of medical devices, EMRs lack the ability for users to set their own future alerts or reminders in a way that makes tracking easier.  While an EMR has the ability to display hundreds of patient records spanning years and years of care, EMRs do not surface the context-specific highlights of that dense data, leaving providers on their own to manage their specialty-specific, patient-specific or day-specific “To Do” lists elsewhere – like on a Post-It. FOR IMPROVED EFFICIENCY Changes happen fast.  Patients can become ill, need intervention, and escalate from urgent to emergent in a matter of minutes.  The fast pace of technology and patient care makes a clunky, slow documentation system virtually unusable.  Shortcuts that smart enable decision support, quick action, and accurate and timely exchange of information are simply not available within EMRs today, resulting in workarounds like provider-to-provider texts, vital signs jotted down on gurney sheets, and other “quick and dirty” methods of communication. FOR FACILITATING CARE COORDINATION Additionally, any note communicated in a patient record in the EMR is auditable under HIPAA and other patient care regulations, so the documentation of those internal provider-to-provider or provider-to-self reminders in the EMR are often specifically discouraged. At the same time, due to the same regulations, documentation of patient information is also discouraged OUTSIDE of the EMR, in more unsecured formats such as email. Without a designated place to communicate these notes, it is no wonder providers turn to paper and pen.
The researchers concluded that innovations are still needed to provide a solution suite that will meet the needs of care providers. Find out how Sequence eases the functional gaps left behind by EMRs by attending our next webinar on Thursday, August 11 at 2 PM EST. Register today!
HayleHIMSS Portrait HKy Kenslea, Director, Product Management Hayley ensures that our technology delivers for clinicians, patients, and systems by coordinating the work of our technical teams and client services. Our product knowledge expert and workflow engineer for Pathways and Call Center services, she joined Guideway Care with almost 10 years of experience in physician practice management, workflow re-engineering, and EMR and BI optimization. Hayley earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology & Global Health from Emory University and a Master’s in Healthcare Administration from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Tech Talk and Summer Reading Highlights with Chief Technology Officer, Gopi Yeleswarapu

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A few weeks ago Bill Gates published his reading list on his blog. My boss mentioned about the book How Not to be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg, and suggested that I may like reading it. Here are my thoughts on workflow automation and the challenges of improving the user experience.
5 Books to Read This Summer Here in Seattle, summer is a gift you earn by gutting out nine months of rain and gloom. The skies are clear, there’s…www.gatesnotes.com
Reading the book, you will understand why Bill Gates would have added to his list of books to read. Having spent the last dozen years writing software to automate routine tasks and building platforms, I have realized that math has a profound impact on computing, especially automation. In my opinion automating user workflows is one of the fairly challenging computing problems to solve. Identifying use cases and building rules on what needs to happen next and how, involves a lot of common sense logic applied like mathematical deductions (deduction theorem). At work, one problem my team and I are working on solving is to apply “if this, then that” rules to automate tasks while taking into account “when and by whom.” Come to think of it, these rules are pure math and if improperly applied can cause chain and circular rule executions leading to infinity. So taking atomic transactions (derivative) and applying limits (not tending to infinity, maybe 10 for now) is helping us solve the problem of workflow automation, while limiting the number of rules one can execute on a successful completion of a transaction. The chapter Straight Locally, Curved Globally has really been an inspiration while working on this project over the last few weeks.
gopi1_web Gopi Yeleswarapu Chief Technology Officer at Guideway Care

Gopi joined the Guideway Care team in 2014 with more than 10 years’ experience in developing complex software and support platforms. Since his arrival, he has led development of our software platform, Sequence, while managing development and support of the existing LeadTracker platform and all other internal IT projects.

He spent the majority of his career building scalable, communication enabled and automation oriented software platforms for Healthcare and Telecom.

Gopi earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science from Osmania University in India, and a Master’s in Computer Information Systems from the University of South Alabama.

mHealth Tools Let You Measure Post-Operative Patient Success By the Numbers

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How do you define success in today’s evolving healthcare industry? How can you improve patient outcome success while keeping your focus on your bottom line? Mobile health (mHealth) tools allow you to focus on providing state-of-the-art healthcare, reducing costs, and improving patient outcome success by allowing each patient to engage in real time with the care team to advance through the steps of care. This improvement in communication is never more critical than during post-operative recovery when your patient’s engagement determines the success of a procedure.

Overcoming the communication barrier between the patient and the care team is the single greatest advancement in today’s healthcare industry.

“So what does patient engagement mean? It means that patients are motivated in their health and have the tools to improve their well-being. It means that patients comply with their provider’s care plan, and the provider knows about it. It means that patients are active players in their health, versus passive recipients of treatment.” – Puget Sound Business Journal Benefits of incorporating mHEALTH tools into your post-operative procedures: 1. Set expectations regarding recovery, pain management, and rehabilitation. 2. Communicate the ways your patient can improve recovery. 3. Set a timetable for results and provide automated appointment reminders. 4. Provide benchmarks along the recovery process and allow your patient to track success. 5. Provide patients a resource for engaging the care team without interrupting clinicians. 6. Manage the use and renewal of prescription medication. 7. Receive feedback via survey automation without scheduling in-office visits. 8. Know your patient’s recovery progress in real time with real data and modify instructions accordingly without requiring in-office visits. 9. Release patients for activity without requiring in-office visits. 10. ELIMINATE COSTLY READMISSION RATES AS PATIENTS SUCCESSFULLY RECOVER FROM SURGERY THROUGH CONSTANT COMMUNICATION AND RISK STRATIFICATION. MDnet_BLOG_IMG2_030916 Mobile Devices Send and Receive Messages mHealth engages patients through text and multimedia messaging, mobile apps, patient portals, and through interactive devices that track data and instantly communicate results. This improvement in the process allows you, as the care team, to recognize and address complications in real time resulting in a significant reduction in readmission rates and increase in patient success. You can also use real-time communication to analyze and adjust your own practices by noting trends in data and making adjustments to your patients’ coordinated care. Mobile Access to a Patient Portal Allows the Patient to Act on Your Messaging Online portals offer secure access to patient information and provide a resource for continuous patient engagement. An online portal enables both the patient and the doctor to know, see, or find vital patient info in one convenient place. Easily housed on your website, both you and your patient can view, store and record information, schedule appointments, refill medications and communicate with ease. “The fourth annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) mobile survey, which included more than 200 healthcare provider employees, revealed that 73 percent of respondents believe the use of app-enabled patient portals has been the most effective tool in patient engagement to date.” – HIMSS Survey

The bottom line for hospitals and healthcare providers who incorporate mHealth tools into regular practice is a savings in time and money as technology increases efficiency in the communication process. The Internet of Things allows your patient to accurately and efficiently communicate the state of recovery through mobile tracking devices that measure the same benchmarks that once required costly in-office visits. Patient engagement, patient satisfaction, and patient outcome success all benefit from trends in mHealth that meet patients where they are through the power of technology they already use, including:

Mobile Phone Messaging        Interactive Mobile Apps      Wearable Devices Patient Portals       Blue-tooth Connected Devices   

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO INCREASE POST-OPERATIVE RECOVERY SUCCESS? If you’re not engaging patients through mHealth tools, you’re not doing everything you can…and your practice is paying a hefty price. For more information on improving post-operative outcomes and saving your practice time and money, visit mdnetsolutions.com/patient-engagement. Join the conversation by following us on social media or using the hashtag #mHealth, #digitalhealth, or #telehealth. Tell us how #wearables have improved YOUR #patientengagement.

MDPathways Q&A with Gopi, Chief Technology Officer and Hayley, Director of Product Management

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We’re thrilled with the excitement and recognition that MDPathways has received. Our new patient engagement and management platform recently debuted at conferences from California to Chicago to Puerto Rico — creating a buzz at ASMBS ObesityWeek 2015, SHSMD Connections by the American Hospital Association, and the Puerto Rico Hospital Association’s 2015 Convention. MDPathways is pioneering change in patient engagement and challenging the healthcare industry as a whole. To best explain these achievements, and bring you up to speed whether you’ve seen us at a recent show, have participated in a demo, or are even one of our inaugural users, here is a Q&A with those closest to the development of this patient engagement product — Gopi Yeleswarapu and Hayley Kenslea.   First tell us a bit about your role in this project. gopiGopi Yeleswarapu: As Chief Technology Officer, I’m responsible for planning the new product development; hiring software development teams and setting up the product development process; building the cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure; and managing budgets and leading software development towards the successful development and release of this product.   hayleyHayley Kenslea: My role is Director of Product Management, so I work to ensure the end users are happy with the tool. “Happy” means many things – can users understand how to use the tool? Do they know where to find things while logged in? And is the overall look and feel (what we call the User Interface) fresh and inviting?   So exactly what is MDPathways? H: It’s a tool that helps users — from front-line staff, to clinicians and managers — to better manage patients throughout a care process, ultimately allowing them to understand, anticipate, and react to trends in their programs. G: From a technical perspective, it is cloud based software as a service (SaaS) platform that integrates with EMRs, PMSs, CRMs and other automation systems in addition to facilitating two-way communications via email, phone calls and text messages to deliver the best possible patient outcomes. What was the push for creating MDPathways? G: MDPathways is a brand new upgrade and complete refresh of our proprietary Patient Engagement and Management system, LeadTracker. In this new Avataar, LeadTracker has been transformed from a web based application to a cloud based SaaS platform designed to streamline workflow throughout a practice’s care continuum; help eliminate the risk of data inaccuracies; and engage patients one on one to help providers deliver the best possible outcomes. What are the top 3 successes of this product? H: The updated look and feel; the improved reports (no more downloading Charts & Reports on your local desktop); and the speed and more intuitive layout — I could talk about how great MDPathways is for days! Oh, and its integration abilities mean we can feed data directly into or out of MDPathways, which decreases the risk of duplicate data entry and error on behalf of our users. G: First I’d like to answer this with a quote from Eugene Pototsky, Lead Engineer and Architect who has been instrumental in the design and development of MDPathways SaaS platform development: “The biggest success is the chance to be pioneers of a complex solution within the healthcare industry. This multilateral product required us to develop for all aspects of the care continuum — we needed to create a simple and straight forward user interface (UI) for patients; a functional-rich UI for hospital users; and both of those required the support of a complex, customizable backend platform.” It is truly remarkable. From my perspective, the biggest successes have been: 
  1. Building a ubiquitous software platform that is ready for the new healthcare challenges.
  2. A clean user interface that will help our clients manage their patients efficiently and always know what a particular patient’s needs are. That in turn has a potential to help those patients achieve their goals for a healthy life.
  3. Setting up a repeatable process to continue improving the product to provide powerful new features. 
What has been the biggest challenge with the MDPathways development? G: Aside from vetting the proper technology to build the product, and recruiting a team able to plan, design and develop, one of the biggest challenges was delivering the product on-time. This, by far, was the most arduous task because we had to maintain a fine balance between prioritizing product features that would enhance usability with making sure we could deliver the full product within the originally planned timeline. H: We have many different profiles of user — call center, nurses, doctors, non-clinical staff — so feeling like we accurately addressed each of those users’ priorities was tough to balance. How are the trial users responding to the new product? G: It’s still early but we are already receiving positive feedback from our newly on-boarded clients as well as prospective clients that have seen our product demos. Our sales and on-boarding teams are doing an awesome job with their product evangelism! H: Users — call center, nurses, doctors, staff, everyone — love the look and feel, and easy flow of information throughout the tool. Looking ahead, what new developments and improvements do you expect for MDPathways? H: Users always want to see graphical representations of data trends so we’ve already added a lot of updates for the Reports function into the development pipeline. We also have a lot of new features around automating updates in MDPathways from an integrated EMR or PMS to continually improve and streamline workflows. G: This next big upgrade to our patient engagement and management platform actually launches in a few days — we’re integrating a pre-configured patient intake form portal that will allow patients to report about their health. This will help maintain accurate patient data for our clients. We’re also meeting this week to prioritize several new features like integration with EMRs, appointment schedulers, advanced automation and other features that can help clients, as well our own teams, efficiently manage and engage with patients. Thanks to you both for taking the time to chat with us, and a huge congratulations to you and the rest of your teams on such a radical development in the healthcare industry!
Closeup of doctor at his desk in front of computer

Patient Engagement through the Portal

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Improved communication leads to higher patient satisfaction, and for healthcare providers who want to involve patients in their own care and form closer ties with consumers, now might be the best time in years to implement a patient portal solution. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reports 69 percent of U.S. adults track a health indicator for themselves or a loved one. The California HealthCare Foundation also reports, “Patients pay more attention and become more engaged in their health and medical care when they have easy access to their health information online.” Although there is clear data supporting the need for providers to offer effective and user-engaging patient portals, many systems launched to date have fallen short of meeting patients’ needs. At Guideway Care, we have worked with practices of every size to install an online patient portal enabling both the patient and the doctor to know, see and find vital patient information in one convenient location. Our solution, which is HIPAA-compliant, is housed on your practice’s existing website or we can build you an entirely new website, including the patient portal. The portal is a convenient two-way street of communication between patient and provider. Both sides can view, store and record information, get lab results, schedule doctor appointments, refill medication, view a billing statement and easily communicate with one another in a private secure web-based system. A patient portal is an engaging way to encourage patients to regularly access their information. It could be a routine like updating your Facebook status, “tweeting” on twitter or creating a “pin” on Pintrest. These sites have one thing in common—users interact with the sites many times a day, returning multiple times to access new content. This type of engagement should be the ultimate goal for patient portals. The portal is helping to alleviate follow-up phone calls to physician offices, allowing the practice’s staff to focus on taking care of patients who are in the office. Overall, the most significant benefit of the portal is the opportunity to offer an accessible, effective engagement tool to patients and your community. Our patient portal is much more than just an online tool; it supports a strategy focused on enhancing patient engagement within our community and with our providers. The patient portal also can be an efficient and effective method of communicating with patients outside of the office. However, the most pronounced portal benefit is the improvement in healthcare quality it encourages, stemming from patients’ active engagement in their own health and healthcare. Don’t delay, contact a sales rep at Guideway Care today and let’s begin the engagement. Donna Roach, CIO of Borgess Health/Ascension Health Information Services in Kalamazoo, Mich., helped contribute to this blog.
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Rethinking Your EMR System

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As a kid I remember spending hours planning imaginary road trips using the Rand McNally Atlas. I was an only child and had to entertain myself somehow. Living in North Carolina, I would plan trips to Laramie, Wyo., Pierre, S.D., excursions into Mexico and to exotic locales such as Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I meticulously carved out the route from my home to my selected destination, much like we do today by typing in our starting and ending point in a GPS or some other navigational system.  The old paper atlas of my youth has gone digital, much like our medical records.iStock_000019087573_Small However, unlike simply pushing a couple of keys on the screen embedded in the dashboard of your car, the transition from paper to digital when it comes to electronic medical records (EMR) has been anything but smooth. The government-led transformation of healthcare information has become a taxing process for the healthcare industry. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, office-based physicians using an EMR increased from 48 percent in 2009 to 78 percent last year. However, some medical practices are still using the old paper format. One of the major solutions to increasing patient engagement is an EMR system. Doctors are aware of this and most are eager to go digital. The goal of an EMR system is to make the process of patient recordkeeping easier, more accurate, more comprehensive and more efficient. It helps enhance patient care and improve patient outcomes. However, many doctors are not happy with their current system. In an article appearing on www.politico.com, American Medical Association President Steven Stack called electronic health records systems as “infuriating and cumbersome.” Healthcare professionals agree with Stack’s opinion. “We’re basically key-punch operators, transcriptionists having to input the data ourselves,” said James Gilbaugh, a physician in Wichita. “It has essentially tripled the time to complete a medical record. How do you accomplish that when we are already working 12 to 14 hours a day?” Gilgaugh’s contemporaries echo the Kansas doctor’s sentiments about EMR systems. In this year’s national survey by the MPI Group and Medical Economics, 70 percent of physicians described their EMR investment as not worth the effort, resources and cost. The main complaint (67 percent) was the functionality of the system, followed by cost (48 percent) and poor customer service from the EMR vendor (33 percent). Instead of making the doctor’s office run more efficiently, the EMR system is becoming problematic. In terms of quality of care made possible by EMR use, 45 percent of physicians reported their EMR system made patient care worse. A staggering 69 percent said their current system posed an even greater threat to care coordination. At MDnetSolutions, we are the experts in developing solutions to increase patient engagement, streamline patient management processes and improve outcomes management. Our EMR solution can bolster your ability to better manage your patients. Many EMR programs require you to conform to their system, but our web-based system is easy to use and configures seamlessly with any existing records system. We are able to replicate the way your practice manages patient encounters. From initial contact with your practice to post-operative procedures and continuing education, MDnetSolutions’ EMR system accurately records patient information to help reduce errors and aid in your patients receiving optimum care. Our EMR system eases patient intake, insurance verification, scheduling consultations, surgeries and follow-up visits. Combine our EMR system with our other patient management solutions, like the LeadTracker ™, our boutique medical call center and our HIPAA-compliant NurseLine, staffed around the clock by registered nurses, and your practice will be running more efficiently and effectively in no time. Our EMR solution helps eliminate the need for paper and puts an end to costly transaction fees. Your practice also saves on having to hire additional office staff. By partnering with MDnetSolutions, you spend more time taking care of your patients and less time being an administrator to your practice. Don’t delay, visit www.MDnetSolutions.com today or call 888.986.3638 and schedule a demo. Together we can transform healthcare.
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Healthcare mobile technology integration on the rise

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Tablet ScreenWith the indoctrination of big data, and a change in the way we use it, mobile technology in hospitals and practices is becoming increasingly necessary and easier to incorporate into practical use. According to a new report, nearly everyone from pharmaceutical reps, to nurses, to emergency room techs, and surgeons integrates mobile technology into their daily routines. And in ways different from how they were using it last year. “Mobile Device Usage Patterns Among Physicians” explains how, based on a survey, physicians are using mobile device to help them stay organized and informed.  Seventy-five percent of doctors in the 31-40 age bracket answered that they used mobile devices either every day or a few days a week. Forty-six percent of physicians ages 61 and older say that they use mobile devices at least a few days a week. One thing was for certain. Physicians are using mobile technology on a daily basis. How could they not? It’s hard to avoid when receiving e-mails, marketing and sales material, and patient data so frequently and packaged in different digital methods. Today, mobile technology is a must. To learn more about how MDnetSolutions’ mobile technology offerings and application building can help your practice, call 888-986-3638 or visit our website.

Electronic Medical Records to be used in 2012 Olympic Games

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EMRs for USA athletesMedical records for more than 700 United States Olympians will be managed electronically for the first time ever at this year’s London Olympic Games. This is in great contrast to how the U.S. Olympic Committee historically shipped electronic medical records in paper form on pallets around the world to where the athletes and doctors were at the time. Aside from being costly, paper medical records are much less efficient and provide a greater risk of destruction than EMRs. The implementation of EMRs at the Olympic Games will mean a world of difference for the athletes and participating physicians. EMRs will enable quicker response time of treatment, a better understanding of an athlete’s medical history and performance, and easier management of individual treatment for members of a team. Included in the collection of EMRs is an additional 3,000 records of images and other vital documents, including X-ray and ultrasound. Tracking medical information electronically also enables health care providers to track and analyze data for further treatment. With real, reportable information, providers can analyze what treatments were more effective and custom-build programs for each individual athlete. The success of EMRs isn’t exclusive to athletes. MDnetSolutions’ first-class patient management system allows healthcare providers to track and analyze patients’ health data from lead capture to treatment follow-up and beyond. We take the guess work out of tracking data entry and help save you time. To learn more about how you can integrate Electronic Medical Records in your practice today, visit our website or call us at 888-986-3638.

Touch technology could soon tell you when it’s time to wash up

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Sign Stating Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to WorkTouch technology similar to that used on the iPad is being mimicked to monitor hand hygiene compliance and cut down on healthcare-associated infections, or HAIs. Safe Hands, the name of new hand sanitation-monitoring technology, is being developed by the same company that brought us talking urinal technology that warns against drunk driving. In this case, Healthquest Technologies Inc plans to create a system that measures the quality of provider cleanliness while tending to patients. The non-invasive system would monitor patient contamination in real time and would have the ability to detect the proximity of patient interaction and decide if sanitation is up to par. The hand hygiene monitoring system is not currently available for commercial use, but is in development and testing. Healthcare-associated infections are some of the most avoidable, most often overlooked infections. They are large risks for hospitals and have proven to be very costly to some organizations. According to the CDC, 1 out of every 20 hospitalized patients will contract an HAI. Awareness and prevention, much like with everything else, is key in making sure this doesn’t affect your practice. Mobile solutions for hospitals and health care organizations will continue to change the way we operate. This is only one indicator of how comprehensive and crucial incorporating technology into your practice can be. Let MDnetSolutions help you in your mobile technology integration, whether with custom mobile applications for the iPhone or iPad or other mobile web solutions. Give us a call at 888-986-3638 or visit our website.

Virtual consults put the spotlight on new health communication tools

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Gone are the days when picking up the telephone or getting in the car and driving to the office are the only ways to communicate with your healthcare provider. Thanks to abundant access to new video conferencing technology, patients can now video conference with their providers from the comfort of their home, a.k.a. telehealth or virtual visits. veteran's affairs telehealth proposalThe most recent case of success with virtual visits comes from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. According to a recent article, the VA is considering a proposal to waive co-pays for patients when they participate in telehealth visits. The VA could be paving a way for healthcare providers as a leader in video technology and electronic patient experience. In its proposal, the VA says it “hopes to make the home a preferred place of care.” In doing so, the VA is recognizing that not only is telehealth a better patient experience, but also a large cost-saver to both parties, and therefore would make telehealth eligible to waive associated cost to patients. Communication is an integral part of patient management. Whether meeting for the first time or conducting a follow-up, patients’ needs come first. And that means convenience, comfortability, and often finances. Virtual visits meet those needs. Telehealth, however, doesn’t exclusively benefit the patient. Through telehealth, health care providers have the ability to hear and see their patients — in contrast to holding conferences via phone only — and can get a better idea of the progress a patient is making. They also save time and stress when trying to fit consults and follow-ups into a block of busy appointments every day. Virtual visits through patient portals are the way to communicate with patients today. And they don’t require much. With simple technology and the right training, health care providers can be telehealth users in no time. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to communicate with your patients through a method that’s convenient and comfortable to them. Call MDnetSolutions today to learn more about integrating virtual visits into your practice — 888-986-3638.

Interactive Learning Startup Top Hat Monocle Wants To Turn Your Homework Into A Tournament

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Over the last few years, we’ve seen technology start to play an increasingly disruptive role in both primary and secondary education. There’s still a long, long way to go, but schools are becoming more receptive to integrating mobile, web, and cloud technologies as a means to improve the learning experience in and out of the classroom. As more and more startups jump into the game, we’ve seen a rise in “blended learning,” which aims to increase the productivity of teachers and students through the strategic integration of technology into the classroom. If you attended a university with large classes, you may be familiar with those hand-held clickers that professors use to take polls from students during class discussions. One Canadian startup, called Top Hat Monocle has been using the old clicker model as an entry point into university classrooms, as it attempts to bring that model a serious dose of more modern technology — with some gamification to boot. To do so, the startup is capitalizing on the profusion of laptops and mobile devices among university students, having built a web and mobile-based classroom response solution that looks to give students a more engaging in-class experience while giving professors realtime feedback on the degree to which their students are understanding the material. For those unfamiliar, Top Hat lets professors take advantage of polls, quizzes, and interactive demonstrations in class, while allowing students to participate on any device they own, whether it’s a smartphone, a feature phone, an iPad or a laptop. For those with feature phones, Top Hat offers an SMS-based response system, while all others access its platform through the web. Students can ask questions during lectures without interrupting teachers and get instant feedback from other students. Those answers are then saved, allowing them to monitor their own progress, study past work, etc. That’s where Top Hat is looking to go beyond just being a simple polling mechanism for higher education. Professors can offer interactive demos students can watch on their laptops or smartphones in class, or save for homework, choosing from a library of pre-existing demos or designing their own. They can ask open-ended questions and reward students for participating or helping each other out, upload and share files (course notes, lab materials, etc.), and take advantage of the fact that Top Hat automatically grades and tracks all answers submitted in its “Gradebook.” Professors can access the tool on their desktops, integrating the system into their presentations to display poll results, demos, etc. as they lecture. This means that there’s no hardware to buy or install, and the on-boarding process is fairly simple. And this is how Top Hat is gaining entry into higher ed classrooms: Rather than selling its product to universities themselves, they’ve been using a direct sales force to go straight to teachers, side-stepping the software pricing model by offering the solution for free to teachers, while charging students to use it. In a sense it’s an alternative (or replacement) to textbooks, and it’s pretty affordable for students at $20 a semester or $38 for five years. And it seems to be working. While the startup initially launched in 2009, it’s largely flown under the radar, in spite of finding some decent traction over the last year. After raising over $1 million in early angel funding, the startup now has over 60,000 paying customers in over 75 universities. It grew its team to 22, while managing to remain profitable, as it saw $1.4 million in revenues for 2011, which represented 500 percent year-over-year growth. The executive team said they expect to hit $4 million in revenues by 2013, and are currently raising a second round of venture capital to support that growth. But, perhaps more important than that, is the fact that professors are loving the tool because it replaces “clickers” with a much more useful suite of tools that make their jobs easier, while the startup reports that classes have seen a 3 to 5 percent improvement in their average grades. In the big picture, higher education is an easier market for Top Hat to target, with shorter sales cycles as universities largely operate on the semester system — as compared to high school and K-12, where classes tend to run over longer periods of time. What’s more, at the university level, professors have a bit more freedom in choosing the material, setting curriculum, and choosing what types of technologies to integrate into the classroom experience. There Top Hat can have a greater influence on the learning experience: “All told, we really want to own the relationship between the teacher and the student,” said CEO Mike Silagadze and CRO Andrew D’Souza. Providing classrooms with an easy-to-integrate solution that makes learning more interactive, more fun, and more social, the startup has opened the door, and there’s obviously a lot more it can add to that experience once it has the trust of students and professors and has truly shown that its model is effective in hiking engagement levels. That’s why, just as we’ve seen so many other consumer-facing startups and companies do — across verticals — Top Hat is looking to introduce some game-ification into the mix. The team has developed a feature called the “Tournament Homework Module,” which it’s testing in beta now and hopes to launch publicly in the next month. As the name suggests, it turns homework into a week-long competition, or tournament, in the hopes that bringing game dynamics to problem sets and workbooks will increase the retention of material, raise grades, and maybe make homework a little more fun. It works like this: Professors set up a question bank and a tournament question bank, and leading up the tournament (let’s say at the end of the week), students practice questions from the first set and receive practice scores. On the day of the tournament, students log in and are automatically paired with other students at their level of ability, proceeding through rounds of problem solving, until there’s a winner. The top five are publicly displayed. While this may irk some, the idea is that knowing that they will be publicly competing with winners to be displayed on a class scoreboard incentivizes students to actually practice problem sets and learn the material. So far, the executives say, the response has been “remarkable,” and apparently students and professors are going for it. It will be interesting to see how classrooms across the country react to this kind of game-ification. If the way the rest of the web is going is any indication, it may not be long before tournaments are popping up at your alma mater. Let us help you reach your target market by providing you with the latest in education technology for websites.  At MDnetSolutions we have the tools available to help you integrate online seminars and online consults on your website.  If you’re interested in more information or a demo please contact  Carol O’Dell at carol@mdnetsolutions.com or 888.986.3638. Source

From Waiting Rooms To eVisits

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Nobody likes to drive to the doctor’s office and sit for an hour or more in the waiting room to see a physician, especially if the visit is for something routine like a chronic illness check-up or a prescription renewal. Most physicians aren’t fond of these routine appointments either. They take valuable time away from patients that truly require face-to-face attention and treatment. Why then hasn’t the Internet been leveraged more as an interaction medium between doctors and patients? The technology certainly exists to connect patients with their physicians virtually via email, Web chat, or teleconference. However, these technologies have not been widely adopted in healthcare because 1) several security and patient privacy concerns exist regarding online doctor/patient interaction, and 2) physicians aren’t being paid adequately for these services. Let’s take a closer look at each of these technology adoption barriers. Online Interaction Raises Patient Privacy & Security Concerns While most Americans routinely leverage Web sites like WebMD to search for health information, online interactions with actual physicians carry much tighter security protocols. Doctor/patient interactions via the Internet or telephone must comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy rules. This requires a secure Web portal with high-levels of encryption to ensure a hospital or physician’s office does not accidentally expose sensitive patient data to outside parties. Building this infrastructure can require a significant technology investment from the physician community — one that many are reluctant to make due to inadequate reimbursement. Insurers Must Recognize The Value Of eVisits In a recent article in the Los Angeles Times titled “The Doctor’s Inbox,” author Lisa Zamosky states that less than 5% of doctors communicating online with their patients are being paid to do so by insurers. The fact is that most major insurers, including Medicare, don’t currently reimburse physicians for clinical consultations conducted via the Internet or teleconference. However, this is slowly beginning to change. Some larger insurers including Cigna and Aetna are beginning to compensate doctors for online and telehealth consultations. Payment for these virtual services averages about $30 per visit, as compared with $75 to $100 for in-office appointments. This trend is likely to continue as the federal government and state governments are beginning to create new payment incentives for virtual doctor/patient consultations. For example, 12 states currently have laws requiring health plans to pay for telemedicine services. Furthermore, the federal government has provided more than $6 billion in telehealth incentives as part of ARRA (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Online doctor/interactions are typically recognized as part of a telehealth initiative. The Benefits Of eVisits Hopefully, as reimbursement practices for eVisits improve, so will the adoption of the enabling eVisit technologies. Doctor/patient interactions via the web and telehealth have shown great promise in overcoming a variety of healthcare challenges. For example, combining virtual consultations with in-office visits can help physicians see more patients throughout the day. This not only provides the doctor with the potential to make more money, but it also can help physicians address an influx of newly insured patients under healthcare reform. The option for patients (particularly chronically ill patients) to receive virtual consultations from their doctor can also create powerful customer loyalty advantages. Convenient eVisit services can be the differentiator that helps attract new clientele to your offices, while keeping current patients happy. If you’re interested in more information about virtual consultations for your practice, MDnetSolutions is here to help.  We can answer all your questions about virtual consultations for your website and work with you on creating a more effective marketing plan for your practice.  Learn more about virtual consultations by contacting Carol O’Dell at  carol@mdnetsolutions.com or 888.986.3638. Source

Streamlining Costs While Implementing EMR

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Peter J. Polack, MD, FACS at Health Plan News mentions using electronic medical records in his healthcare practice in order to increase efficiency and eventually reduce costs. Some of the costs of an EMR system he mentions are: “EMR system implementation involves the following expenses:
  • technical support
  • IT consulting
  • infrastructure costs
  • computer hardware
  • licensed software
Also consider the costs of training staff, and the extra data entry that they will perform to move information over to the new system.” With MDnetSolutions Patient Management Systems, you get fully integrated EMR and Outcomes management software. This allows you to reap the benefits of an efficient paperless system at a lower cost than what you would spend by setting up the system on your own. Contact us today for more information.