Pinscriptive

Roni H. Amiel

The pace of change for health care providers is overwhelming at best. In today’s world of collaborative medicine and mobility, access to actionable, integrated clinical information and applications, regardless of location or device, is a “must have” not a “nice to have”.

Transformation Journey: This would start with rethinking the clinical and business processes with focus on outcome, clinical quality, service quality and financial metrics. The approach to process transformation required concurrent examination and redesign of key clinical and business processes, technology and the “people”.

To launch this major organizational and process-focused transformation, you will need to work closely with your leadership to reach consensus on understanding the drivers, need for change and urgency to achieve defined changes. Put together a clear and understandable vision of the future and a well aligned strategy to achieve the future vision and targeted outcome.

The Challenge: To maximize physician, nurse and administrative performance, hospitals must create a fluid HIT environment that provides on-demand access to patient data and patient care applications.

50,000 Foot Perspective: Health information technology is a pivotal factor in creating sustainable health systems that deliver quality services and programs along a coordinated continuum of care.

Performance in the future must be efficient, effective, relevant and accountable. Outcomes in patient care, stakeholder satisfaction, revenue management, market penetration and population health improvement must be sustainable:

Today: Data Silos, Manual labor – Reporting & Analytics, Paper, Reactive response to clinical conditions, Lack of process management, Information is focused on short term, Clinical and administrative data is disconnect and Lack of informatics & biomedical capabilities

Future: Integratedaggregated information, automat¬edPushPull information, Electronic, Automate tools alerts clinicians on key conditions, Process reflected in the technology solutions, Long Term Trended Comparativepredic¬tive, Integrated aggregated view and Ro¬bust infrastructure

Clinical Framework: With a primary focus on activities centered on process redesign, informational analysis and strategic decision making to drive change and improved quality, efficiency, safety, coordination, and integration of the patient care delivered transforming the provider experiences, productivity and increasing operational efficiencies by outlining new decision-making structures to ensure:

• Care is patient-centered and coordinated across provider venues, not just the inpatient stay.
• Systematic processes encourage standardization and evidence-based practice.
• Transparent operations for point-of-care decision making.
• Engaged patients, who understand prevention, and involved in their own care.
• Cost reduction and quality improvement measures are in place.

Technology Framework: HIT department played prominent roles in assisting hospital executives in meeting these challenges, in technology there is no magic bullet, but creating an agile environment that offers the most options is likely to be a promising route:

• Architecture and platforms that leverage investments in new and legacy systems.
• Adopt a user-centric approach that focuses on a seamless, predictable experience.
• Investment in information technology is coupled with care delivery redesign.

Measuring Success: Design metrics reflecting the goals that can be measured accurately and objectively, built the metrics into processes and systems:

• Share a clear vision with executives, physician leaders, management, and staff
• Design “for” physicians rather than doing things “to” physicians
• Plan well and adjust well
• Create innovative “end to end” solutions
• Promote acceptance of substantial changes
• Manage all the pieces of the transformation so they “fit”

The path toward accountability is clear— transformation away from fragmented health care delivery and a focus on acute care to prevention and wellness, care coordination and population health management is necessary.