What You Should Know:

•  IntelyCare, the leading total healthcare talent solution in post-acute care, today introduced a new technology partnership with UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions for all people.
• IntelyCare’s AI-based platform and per-diem matching technology enable healthcare organizations to increase census revenue and cut staffing costs. With more than 315 technology and services partners, UKG provides one of the largest and most collaborative partner ecosystems in the HCM industry focused on creating better employee experiences to improve business outcomes.

A Collaboration to Reduce Costs, Improve Patient Experience, and Increase Revenue

This collaboration will allow healthcare organizations that utilize both IntelyCare and UKG Dimensions to increase workforce management efficiencies by enabling the scheduling and management of full-time, temporary, float, per-diem, and contract staff on a seamless interface. With the integration, organizations can view and fill open shifts at multiple facilities – with both internal and contingent staff available through IntelyCare – without having to leave UKG Dimensions.

“The large UKG customer-base of hospitals, health systems, and long-term care facilities paired with our pool of 50,000 per diem nursing professionals helps address the nurse staffing crisis head-on,” said David Coppins, co-founder and CEO of IntelyCare. Coppins continued, “Using the UKG Dimensions scheduling solution in tandem with IntelyCare’s nursing per diem and float pool management platform empowers healthcare facilities to increase revenue, reduce operational costs, improve outcomes, and stabilize their workforce.”

The integration provides a single view for facilities to directly communicate and engage with their staff and seamlessly schedule both their internal and external staff to ensure that they maintain proper staffing levels. For facilities that employ float pool staff, the integration also opens up IntelyCare’s float pool management technology, utilizing AI-driven pricing and matching capabilities to optimize the scheduling of flexible staff.

UKG solutions are developed on the FleX platform. FleX by UKG is a modern technology platform purpose-built to support great workplaces. FleX Flow, a highly adaptable API framework, anchors UKG solutions in the flow of work where people need and want them most, and helps businesses connect existing IT with innovative or emerging applications to simplify the employee IT experience.

What You Should Know:

– MedArrive, a Mobile-integrated care management platform company today announced $8M in new funding led by Cobalt Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City (Blue KC). The investment follows MedArrive’s $25 million series A round in November 2021 and brings the company’s total funding to $40.5M to date

– MedArrive plans to use the new investment to expand its payer relationships, build out its team and platform, and scale its business into new markets.

White-Labeled Care Management

MedArrive supports both adult and pediatric populations, providing a white-labeled care management solution that powers care into the home – often for the hardest-to-reach, disengaged and most-vulnerable populations. It connects providers and payers with MedArrive’s field provider network of highly trained and skilled paramedics, EMTs and other healthcare professionals. These field providers visit the homes of patients or members on behalf of their provider or health plan, providing a mix of in-home healthcare services, diagnostics, health assessments, post-acute care and other preventive health measures – while also addressing social care needs like transportation, mobility or nutrition assistance.

When higher-acuity care is needed, field providers will connect people with physician-led telehealth services. The MedArrive platform also includes integrations with a growing ecosystem of specialized partners, which allows field providers to bring even more care services into the home such as virtual behavioral health, retinal screening and maternity care.

“Everyone in America has a right to inclusive, high-quality care, yet too many are left out and have no one on their side who can connect them to the system. That’s what the MedArrive platform and our field providers offer – a trusted and compassionate bridge into the homes of the people who need care the most and at the right time,” said MedArrive CEO and Co-founder Dan Trigub. “The work we are doing with dedicated healthcare organizations, who are committed to health equity, is what drives our team every day, and we are honored to receive this strategic investment from Cobalt Ventures.”

What You Should Know:

– Abbott today released the latest installment in the company’s multi-year Beyond Intervention series of global healthcare market research designed to uncover challenges that arise within the patient journey of people living with cardiovascular disease and to identify opportunities for patient care improvement.

– The latest report stems from a survey of more than 2,000 patients, physicians and healthcare leaders, and reveals challenges resulting from a systemic lack of adoption of consumer technologies by healthcare providers, a lack of post-surgical therapy compliance, and consumer dissatisfaction beyond intervention.

Improving Post-Operative Outcomes and Patient Satisfaction

Findings from Beyond Intervention identify key opportunities physicians, healthcare leaders and health technology companies may consider to improve the patient care journey. These include providing a comprehensive care experience to increase patient satisfaction, reducing barriers to post-intervention care, driving better experiences and outcomes, and involving patients in shared decision-making. The report underscores the differences in how patients, physicians and healthcare leaders perceive the effectiveness of technology in the care delivery system.

“Increased penetration of smart devices, wearables and remote self-monitoring tools not only provide granular data on recovery, progress and adherence but critically drive patient engagement and therefore behavioral change,” said Nick West M.D., chief medical officer and divisional vice president of medical affairs at Abbott’s vascular business. “MedTech’s role is to find synergies between how patients and physicians prefer to access information to facilitate positive experiences and outcomes for all patients.”

In its third year, the Beyond Intervention initiative provides continued insight into the state of global cardiovascular care through primary research surveying the perspectives of approximately 2,000 patients, physicians and healthcare leaders. The research provides further insight into the patient journey post-procedural/post-discharge and explores the attitudes and appetites to adopt technology to better help patients recover from vascular interventions.

Key insights from the research include:

1. Patients, physicians and healthcare leaders agree that establishing multiple touchpoints help patients navigate their post-procedure care journey. Most patients surveyed (90%) believe that the two most important factors in navigating their care journey are having a clear understanding of the next steps in managing their disease and having all of their questions answered.

2. There are significant gaps between how patients and physicians view the importance of digital health tools. Patients consider access to an online patient portal and use of digital health tools more important to their overall experience (65% and 62%, respectively) than physicians feel they are for their patients (38% and 35%, respectively). Further, while patients indicated a need for improvement in these tools, physicians and healthcare leaders found the use of these tools as already satisfactory, indicating perception gaps.

3. Patients are facing many barriers to managing their condition and experiencing optimal care post-intervention. Nearly half of the patients surveyed reported finding motivation and time to manage their condition was challenging. A similar proportion described ongoing costs related to treatment as a difficult task. Lack of education and awareness of the progressive nature of cardiovascular diseases is a significant barrier to post-procedural care and adherence.

4. Many patients see technology’s value for managing their own health and wellness. Nearly 60% of patients and half of all healthcare leaders would trust artificial intelligence (AI) to help diagnose or recommend the best treatment; however, just over one-third of physicians agree (34-35%). Yet, 48% of physicians believe big data will help them provide better care in the future.

“Those who work at the intersection of healthcare and technology must straddle the digital divide and work toward greater use of technology in care,” said Jennifer McCaney, Ph.D., executive director at UCLA Biodesign. “We cannot assume that every person or patient has the access to or the means to interact with health systems or care teams in the same way. Stakeholders across the care journey from product manufacturers to payers and providers alike need to empower patients with accessible technologies that better the patient experience.” 

American health systems, hospitals and post-acute care providers are required to comply with hundreds of regulatory requirements. Facilitating this compliance comes with a high cost. According to the American Hospital Association, the average-sized community hospital spends nearly $7.6 million annually on administrative activities to support regulatory compliance. With the impending end of the COVID-19 public health emergency set to shake up healthcare regulations, ongoing healthcare labor shortages, and skyrocketing levels of clinician burnout, a perfect storm for non-compliance is brewing. 

Even with significant investments in administration to support compliance, overwhelmed providers can inadvertently leave gaps in security, access and credentialing systems. As a result, health systems may face stiff penalties and fines; significant reputational damage; and even the potential loss of critical Medicare contracts. 

Fortunately, technology is available to help bridge these compliance gaps, enabling hospitals to take a more proactive approach to create a safe environment for patients, staff and visitors.

What does an effective, tech-forward credentialing compliance program look like?

Identify and automate best practices to improve health system compliance and safety: 

To meet compliance obligations related to accreditation needs, healthcare organizations need to have policies and procedures to track vendor representatives who enter their facilities. This type of comprehensive vendor credentialing program can help prevent adverse events such as healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) by making it easier for business visitors to follow best practices and adhere to provider policies.

To be successful, security access procedures need to allow for:

– System-wide policy standardization

– Easy, fast and safe facility access 

In conventional security and access programs, this requires substantial investment in labor costs and administrative time and still leaves the facility vulnerable to human error. With compliance technology tools, hospital systems can benefit from automated capabilities and real-time reports, as well as insights into the performance of various security measures that can accelerate the process of standardizing credentialing procedures.

Secure facility with automation: 

An important part of any vendor credentialing and visitor access program is to control on-site access and ensure the facility is secure. Through the use of connected infrastructure for automated vendor badging and monitoring, hospitals can help facilitate easy, fast and credentialed access for vendor representatives in compliance with required documentation and immunizations, as well as automated access denials if a vendor representative is not currently compliant. Further, these connected systems allow for periodic checks to whether a hospital’s registered vendor companies and representatives are not under federal or state sanctions, potentially triggering an automatic denial to the facility in response. 

With automation, hospitals can take their security and access programs a step further in efficiency, accuracy and completeness. Infrastructure, including touchless kiosks, mobile apps and other fast, contact-free check-in options for vendors, should connect to a centralized system for vendor credentialing and management. These automated access control systems help ensure standardized entry and save time and effort on the part of hospital workers.  

Centralize documentation and insights: 

To help protect patient and staff safety, hospitals must require documented evidence that vendors entering facilities have complied with health system policies. And to remain in compliance with The Joint Commission, HIPAA, OIG, and local regulatory agencies and maintain accreditation, providers must be prepared to produce this documentation demonstrating their vendor management procedures. This can leave hospital staff scrambling to locate the appropriate paperwork during audits. By centralizing document management, healthcare providers have access to this critical information. 

With insights, hospitals can speed up the time it takes to standardize credentialing procedures. Providing visibility into the performance of various measures can help hospital leaders make more informed decisions about the best ways to protect patients, staff and visitors.

Leverage credentialing compliance technology a step further with specialist input 

Credentialing compliance professionals can leverage data and insights to help facilities avoid reinventing the wheel when it comes to vendor access, identify potential vendor credentialing compliance gaps and make recommendations on best practices to support the organization’s goals.

To meet compliance obligations, healthcare organizations need to have in place policies, procedures and technology to track vendor representatives that enter their facilities – waiting until “after the fact” is not a strategy for success. By embracing a hybrid automated and specialist-supported credentialing and compliance solution, healthcare systems can be confident that their patients, visitors and staff are secure, and they remain compliant, safeguarding their facility’s accreditation status.

About Sean Eaton
Sean Eaton is Senior Compliance Solutions Specialist at Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX). Prior to this role, Sean led a team of GHX customer success professionals in helping health systems increase software utilization and compliance. Sean holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management from the University of Mississippi.

What You Should Know:

– Healthcare profit pools are expected to grow 4 percent annually resulting from $654 billion in 2021 to $790 billion in 2026, according to a new McKinsey report.

– The report reveals inflation is not transitory and the economic outlook has meaningfully darkened due to a healthcare worker shortage and endemic COVID-19.  

What to expect in US healthcare in 2023 and beyond

The US healthcare industry faces demanding conditions in 2023, including recessionary pressure, continuing high inflation rates, labor shortages, and endemic COVID-19. But players are not standing still.

Key findings from the report are as follows:

1. Healthcare services and technology is expected to be the fastest growing sector in healthcare at 10 percent annual growth between 2021-2026 (potentially landing at $81 billion by 2026).  On the other hand, the outlook for some segments has worsened compared with the previous analyses, including general acute care and post-acute care within providers and Medicaid within payers.

2. The Government segment’s profit pools are projected to land nearly 50 percent greater than the Commercial group segment by 2026 ($33 billion compared with $21 billion). In July 2022, it was estimated that  2021 payer profit pools to be $40 billion, however, actual 2021 profit pools were $5 billion higher Higher Medicaid EBITDA margins due to the extended public health emergency accounted for the majority of the increase, although it was partially offset by lower-than-expected commercial margins with the return of deferred care.

3. Increased labor costs and administrative expenses are expected to contribute to reduced earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by about 60 basis points in 2022 and 2023 combined. Previously, in July 2022, it was estimated that provider profit pools would grow at a 7 percent CAGR from 2021 to 2025. The current forecast is that of a 3 percent CAGR from 2021 to 2026 in updated and expanded estimates, with the decline primarily due to increased costs owing to high inflation and labor shortages.

4. Payer profit pools are expected to grow at 11 percent annually reaching $75 billion in 2026. Growth in 2021 resulted from making up for care deferred from the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as additional healthcare demand attributable to COVID-19. Provider profit pools faced substantial pressure in 2022 and are likely to continue to do so in 2023 as a result of inflation and increased labor costs.    

5. Payer profit pools are likely to see slower than normal growth between 2022-23 due to inflationary pressure and provider reimbursement rate increases.  

6. Provider profit pools are also expected to see slower growth annually than previously predicted (3 percent growth annually from 2021-26, compared to the 7 percent figure previously predicted).  Three factors account for the anticipated faster growth in HST. First, analysts expect higher demand from payers and providers to improve efficiency and address labor challenges. Second, payers and providers are likely to be willing to absorb vendor price increases where there is clear value. Third, experts expect HST companies to make operational changes that will improve efficiency, including through the use of technology and automation across services.

7. Increased labor costs and administrative expenses are expected to contribute to reduced earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by about 60 basis points in 2022 and 2023 combined.

Every day, hospital staff do the best they can to navigate the daily chaos of bed management by making educated guesses as to what is going to happen over the course of the day. Relying on team huddles throughout the day, staff pore over Excel or paper spreadsheets to predict how many beds will open up and when. They try to estimate demand for those beds by the time of day, unsure when to deploy “surge capacity.” On some days, this method works out well. However, more often than not, the staff’s best efforts result in long patient waits, unwanted staff overtime, and ultimately lower access to care. 

The problem with traditional bed management is that the common approach of using spreadsheets to get a periodic read of patient flow, then trying to unlock capacity by discharging patients faster, simply does not work. It takes sophisticated algorithms and real-time predictive and prescriptive analytics to shape demand, successfully match bed supply, place the right patient in the right bed at the right time, and identify and address discharge barriers. 

The ROI of Improving Patient Flow 

Inpatient beds are a substantial economic investment — a single bed can be worth $10,000. Keeping a steady flow of patients into and out of beds is a tricky yet vitally important element of the overall management and efficiency of a hospital. It’s also core to providing a positive patient experience. 

Historically, health systems have directed extensive resources to improve patient flow and reducing the length of stay. Avoidable days, or the number of days a patient remains as an inpatient even though he/she/they are medically ready for discharge, can cost a hospital thousands of dollars each month. Avoidable days generally occur because of an avoidable delay, such as not securing necessary durable medical equipment (DME) for a patient post-discharge or not securing a room at a post-acute care facility (i.e. skilled-nursing facility (SNF) or rehab) for the patient to enter once he/she/they are no longer an inpatient. Addressing these barriers as early as possible in the patient stay, so the patient can be discharged to the right next step of their care journey at the right time, is critical to avoiding lengthy and costly delays and turning over new beds.

If hospitals invest in the right easy-to-use tools, backed by a predictive and prescriptive analytics engine combined with the use of Natural Language Processing (NLP), they can proactively identify and address discharge barriers earlier, streamline patient flow, and ultimately improve patient outcomes and the bottom line. Here are four opportunities to improve bed management with AI and NLP-based analytics: 

1) Using sophisticated demand-supply models to assign patient beds

The best way to optimally place patients is to accurately predict and match supply and demand – on a unit-by-unit, minute-by-minute, day-by-day level – every day. Similar to how apps like Waze take baseline predictions from the speed of traffic for each section of the road for each minute of each day of the week, solutions are now available that model current and future bed availability in each unit. Supply and demand must be approached in different, yet compatible, ways. 

Supply: Model the availability and timing of beds that will become available in each unit. By using historical data to mathematically create a “fingerprint” (a model for each unit that predicts the likely number of patients that will be discharged), hospital staff can make concrete placement decisions about individual patients. Since the predictions are augmented by real-time feeds, these decisions will be more accurate and less speculative. 

Demand: Similar to the supply side, create specifically tailored models for “upcoming demand signals” at any time of the day for each element of demand. These elements can include various factors, such as incoming volumes from surgical and emergency departments, as well as external transfers. Models can be updated by real-time feeds that capture any delays or cancellations of surgeries to ensure updated accuracy.

Side-by-side supply and demand models can then be elevated to patient-placement leaders, giving them visibility into upcoming demand and supply for beds. This leads to dramatically better outcomes than a system purely based on reaction. 

2) Make data-driven internal transfer decisions

Internal bed transfer requests are often viewed as an added burden, pushed to the side to be executed only when convenient. However, transfers can actually serve as a strategic lever since they can free up a bed that will be needed in the near future. By utilizing the predictive modeling tool described above, plus moving the right patients to appropriate open beds, placement teams can open up the right slots to meet the expected demand for high-value beds.

3) Forecast demand with surgical smoothing 

On a given day, 20-25% of bed demand is the flow of patients from the OR into inpatient beds. This often results in spikes in the inpatient census. Surprisingly, this flow is in fact more “controllable” than the census contribution from the emergency department, as optimizing the elective surgery schedule with respect to recovery time can yield a flatter inpatient census. The practice of “surgical smoothing” can be done by forecasting the volume and case mix of surgeries, using AI-based tools to develop templates for scheduling. 

4) Use predictive discharge planning to focus case teams and social services

The most common discharge delays occur towards the end of a patient’s stay – typically surrounding insurance, transportation, follow-up outpatient or home care, or if necessary, availability at skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) or extended care facilities. This last discharge barrier has become especially challenging in recent years, as SNFs are suffering from severe post-pandemic operational and staffing constraints.

Many discharge delays can be avoided if case managers were alerted to the problem earlier in the patient’s stay. Historical data regarding avoidable discharge delays can be collected, and a machine-learning model can be used to identify key case attributes that indicate possible discharge delays early on. The most powerful solution also uses NLP, which makes this information actionable to all care team members and unit staff so they can proactively remove barriers and optimize patient flow. This helps reduce costly avoidable days and provides patients with a smoother care journey. 

Each of these pillars of bed management is critical when it comes to improving processes and asset utilization. While each health system will have different criteria and contributing factors for proper bed management and patient outcomes, and while new tools require learning and patience, the investment is definitely worthwhile.

About Sanjeev Agrawal

Sanjeev serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer for LeanTaaS, the leading AI / ML analytics company in healthcare operations. LeanTaaS’s predictive analytics software powers over 130 health systems and 500 hospitals to improve access and lower costs.

Sanjeev is also the co-author of the book “Better Healthcare Through Math”. Before LeanTaaS, Sanjeev was Google’s first Head of Product Marketing and led three successful startups – CEO at Aloqa (acquired by Motorola), VP of Products & Marketing at TellMe Networks (acquired by Microsoft) and Founder & CEO at Collegefeed (acquired by AfterCollege).

What You Should Know:

– The homecare market has surged as healthcare organizations have sought to maintain quality patient care throughout the pandemic and fulfill requirements for value-based reimbursement, according to the latest KLAS report. Organizations are looking to expand their homecare offerings; however, the pandemic has exacerbated staffing shortages and decreased bandwidth, making operations—let alone growth—difficult. To help organizations understand how peers are approaching the current environment, KLAS interviewed 88 leaders from home-based care organizations regarding the top challenges they face and the technology vendors they use or have considered investing in to address these challenges.

– KLAS also reveals The COVID-19 pandemic brought a wave of challenges to facility-based post-acute care organizations (i.e., SNFs, LTCHs, and IRFs). Staffing has become a particular pain point, with organizations citing burnout, increased competition with staffing firms, and intensive patient care for severe COVID-19 cases as contributing factors. To help organizations understand how peers are approaching the current environment, KLAS interviewed 82 leaders from facility-based post-acute care organizations regarding the top challenges they face and the technology vendors they use or have considered investing in to address these challenges.

Evaluating the Role of Home-Based Post-Acute Care and Facility-Based Post-Acute Care

KLAS has recently released two reports, “Facility-Based Post–Acute Care 2022 and Home-Based Post–Acute Care 2022” which evaluate the top challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic, specifically in terms of home-based post-acute care and facility-based post-acute care. Although both reports convey their findings in a similar manner, the differences between facility-based care and home-based care can be astutely observed.

Key themes and findings that pertain to facility-based post-acute care are listed and explained as follows:

1. Respondents Look to EMRs & Online Recruiting Technology to Address Top Challenges: Staffing is the number-one challenge respondents report facing today, followed by regulatory requirements and the pandemic. However, these challenges often overlap and perpetuate one another. For example, both the pandemic and documentation workflows—which are often made challenging due to new regulations or changes to reimbursements—exacerbate burnout and can prompt staff to leave. To address these challenges, respondents are looking to online recruiting tools, EMRs, and COVID-19 screening tools. Organizations are competing with staffing firms over resources; some respondents must pay triple the standard cost to hire staff. Additionally, many respondents feel that the pandemic has contributed to staff shortages, thus limiting the number of patients an organization can care for. Organizations are investing in scheduling technology to manage staffing shortages and fill shifts more easily. Regulatory requirements are a top challenge on their own, and they also impact other areas of concern, including changes to reimbursements and revenue cycle. Many respondents are frustrated that the requirements introduce redundancy to clinician workflows, make documentation overly complex, and increase the need for reporting. When possible, respondents are most likely to utilize their EMR to address these challenges; several regulatory-compliance vendors (i.e., HEALTHCAREfirst, Team TSI, SimpleLTC) are also mentioned as helping organizations stay ahead of regulatory changes. Regulatory requirements are a top challenge on their own, and they also impact other areas of concern, including changes to reimbursements and revenue cycle. Many respondents are frustrated that the requirements introduce redundancy to clinician workflows, make documentation overly complex, and increase the need for reporting. When possible, respondents are most likely to utilize their EMR to address these challenges; several regulatory-compliance vendors (i.e., HEALTHCAREfirst, Team TSI, SimpleLTC) are also mentioned as helping organizations stay ahead of regulatory changes.

2. MatrixCare, PointClickCare, and Indeed Most Commonly Deployed to Address Top Challenge: Many respondents are looking to address top challenges with the technology they have already deployed at their organization. MatrixCare and PointClickCare are most often mentioned by respondents, who are hoping to alleviate staffing challenges by giving staff easy-to-use tools that will streamline workflows and improve the user experience. Epic and WellSky also have respondents looking to them for streamlined documentation workflows. The two vendors have smaller footprints in the long-term care market; Epic serves primarily large IDN customers, and WellSky is live in mostly IRFs. KLAS performance data for MatrixCare, PointClickCare, Epic, and WellSky indicates they are well positioned to help tackle workflow challenges; each customer base generally reports satisfaction with their respective product’s ease of use and the delivery of new technology. Indeed and Meta (Facebook) are the recruiting tools most mentioned by respondents. Enquire is the most-mentioned vendor that doesn’t offer an EMR or staffing solution; they instead offer various products tailored to CRM, referral management, care transitions, and preauthorization.

3. Respondents Often Consider Investing in New EMR to Improve Documentation Workflows: About one-third of respondents are considering investing in additional technology to address their top challenges. They are most likely to invest in a new EMR; KLAS ’ broader research in this market indicates that about 20% of facility-based post-acute care organizations (up from 13% in 2019) regret purchasing their current EMR solution or don’t consider it to be part of their long-term plans. Respondents looking to simplify complex documentation workflows and increase efficiency most often consider MatrixCare and PointClickCare. Respondents looking to address staffing challenges are focused on scheduling technology from vendors like OnShift and symplr. OnShift is mentioned because their scheduling, HR, and payroll offerings are integrated, thus simplifying back-office processes. symplr is highlighted for their scheduling and secure communications solutions. Additionally, respondents hope to improve the patient experience by investing in apps that patients can use for telemedicine and scheduling; many are planning to roll out solutions from their EMR vendor. In an effort to reduce costs, respondents are considering vendors like vcpi for outsourced IT support and Flock for HR functionality.

Key themes, ideas, and insights from the report pertaining to home-based post-acute care are as follows:

1. Respondents Look to EMRs & Regulatory-Compliance Technology to Address Top Challenges: Many factors contribute to current staffing shortages, including difficult work environments and burnout. Respondents hope to retain staff by enhancing documentation, technology, and training. Some are also looking to leverage online recruiting tools. Second to staffing are concerns about regulatory requirements and changing reimbursement—both of which increase documentation complexity and potentially increase burnout. For redress, respondents are considering EMRs, regulatory-compliance technology, and revenue cycle services.

2. MatrixCare, SHP, Netsmart, and WellSky Most Commonly Deployed to Address Top Challenges: Most respondents are looking to address top challenges by leveraging technology that will streamline internal processes (e.g., clinician workflows, rejections, automated EVV). Respondents typically evaluate their EMRs first for additional optimization and functionality; as a result, EMR vendors MatrixCare, Netsmart, and WellSky are among the most commonly utilized. MatrixCare customers value the product’s ease of use and regular enhancements. Satisfaction with Netsmart’s go-forward solution, myUnity Enterprise, is mixed—many customers are awaiting additional workflow enhancements. WellSky customers say the revenue cycle tools facilitate efficient processes. Homecare Homebase is also frequently considered or deployed to improve complex documentation. The product meets a broad range of needs, especially around keeping customers compliant with revenue cycle regulations. Customers are waiting for the vendor to further enhance workflows. SHP is the most frequently utilized non-EMR vendor in this report sample. They offer a broad suite of solutions, including analytics and satisfaction surveys. Finally, multiple respondents utilize Forcura; respondents say the document management solution interfaces with their EMR and provides communication and documentation tools.

3. Respondents Often Consider Investing in New EMR to Improve Documentation Workflows: Due to resource constraints, only one-fifth of respondents are considering investing in additional technology to address their top challenges. They are most likely to invest in a new EMR; KLAS’ broader research in this market shows that 28% of home-based post–acute care organizations (up from 18% in 2019) regret purchasing their current EMR solution or don’t consider it to be part of their long-term plans. Looking to simplify complex documentation workflows and increase efficiency, organizations mention considering Epic, Homecare Homebase, MatrixCare, and WellSky. To address other common challenges, respondents mention considering a variety of vendors, including Workforce.com and CareXM (staffing), Vivify Health and MatrixCare (patient experience), Health Recovery Solutions and Ushur (telehealth), and Bamboo Health and Salesforce (transitions of care)

What You Should Know:

– PointClickCare announced a collaboration with Pfizer Inc. to provide real-world insights for vulnerable populations at high risk of age-related disorders (including Cachexia) – further enhancing PCC’s mission to protect and support the senior population.

– With coverage approaching 70% of the long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) market, PointClickCare is uniquely positioned to provide life sciences companies, like Pfizer, with outcomes-based evidence through extensive longitudinal patient records. The continued collaboration between LTPAC and Life Sciences companies is powering this innovation. 

Why It Matters

Globally, the population is aging rapidly. Between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world’s population over age 60 will nearly double, from 12% to 22%. In the United States, the number of individuals older than age 65 is projected to peak at 95 million in 2060. Many older adults will need to spend time in a long-term care facility as they age, but older adults in long-term care facilities are often unable to participate in clinical trials. This lack of representation can limit the development of therapies aimed at addressing the unmet needs of this important population.

With access to the real-world data PointClickCare can provide, research and development teams can gain a deeper understanding of the long-term and post-acute care demographic, resulting in more data-enriched clinical trials and empirical evidence-based studies. To learn more about how our data is advancing care in the life sciences space, visit our website here.

Care providers continue to face mounting pressures – from increasing staffing shortages to balancing patient needs across in-person and virtual settings and managing pent-up patient demand. Rather than navigating through fragmented digital solutions that feed care providers disparate data, more and more clinicians now rely on connected technology to access the care context, i.e. the right patient data translated into reliable actionable insights at the right point in their workflow. 

To truly alleviate the mounting resource, capacity and data burdens faced by care providers today, it’s important to closely evaluate what these digital tools and solutions can offer to providers, as today’s technology is only as useful as it is designed with the end-user in mind. 

What is clinician-centric technology?

As evidenced by the early days of digital health innovation, we cannot ignore that technology can become a source of frustration and administrative burden if not implemented strategically – technology for technology’s sake can do more harm than good. Truly clinician-centric technology is designed to take the friction out of workflows and care delivery and allow care providers to focus on what they do best.

A McKinsey & Company 2021 survey reported a 15.8% nursing turnover in a period of 12 months, in addition to an average increase of 4 to 5 percentage points in vacancy rates during the same period. With more statistics coming out of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) indicating we could see an estimated shortage of between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians by 2034, informatics leaders’ focus is shifting toward staff experience and retention.

This prioritization shows that digital transformation in healthcare is really about the people, not the technology. Rather than overwhelming care providers with technology and leaving them with the responsibility to make sense of all the tools and the data they offer, solutions need to be thoughtfully integrated into workflows so that clinicians can access the right data at the right time to make informed, confident care decisions. 

Solutions that help clinicians make sense of data, support seamless transitions of care, and manage increasing patient loads will help ease some of the biggest pain points that many clinicians face today. 

Making data actionable

Clinicians interact with a wide variety of tools and platforms on a daily basis – from EMRs to virtual care platforms, to clinical communication and scheduling platforms. Keeping pace with this influx of data sources is a growing challenge. Over half (51%) of healthcare leaders agree that data silos hinder their ability to utilize data effectively. Breaking down these siloes and turning an abundance of data into actionable insights starts with a robust, cloud-based platform. 

The power of the cloud goes well beyond data storage. It opens the door to greater visibility into the patient journey and smart data analytics to enable the right care at the right place at the right time. When it comes to choosing a cloud solution, healthcare providers will benefit most from technology that helps them visualize data in a user-friendly way, generate new operational and clinical insights from that data, and ensure those insights can be used to power confident clinical decision-making. By moving from point solutions to a platform approach, health systems can liberate data and connect it in a manner that allows care teams to provide proactive care and collaborate in a more impactful way. 

Supporting seamless transitions of care 

In the age of value-based care, clinicians are responsible for the end-to-end well-being of their patients. They require access to insights not only about a patient’s hospital stay but also through discharge and post-acute care. Effective transitions can be highly influential to patient outcomes, but information often gets lost in these transitional periods. Rather than being penalized when these shifts lead to blind spots and missed data, clinicians need to feel empowered with the right solutions that offer visibility into their patient’s well-being as they transition care settings both inside and outside the hospital.

It is critical for providers to not only understand how their patients’ health is progressing but also how those patients manage their own health beyond the hospital walls. With virtual care and remote patient monitoring solutions becoming an everyday part of care delivery, we can now extend the reach of clinicians, leverage the power of robust data integration, and empower them with meaningful patient insights and trends right when and where they’re needed. This allows clinicians to proactively manage patients’ conditions at home, helping alleviate strained hospital capacities while also driving more timely patient interventions to avoid preventable readmissions. 

Effectively managing patient loads

41% of all U.S. adults deferred medical care during the height of the pandemic, leading to an increasingly acute patient population today. This, along with staffing shortages, means providers need to do much more with much less. Predictive, AI-powered tools can help to triage patients more efficiently according to priority, guide them to the right setting based on their condition and who has the capacity to receive them, and direct clinicians to those in need of immediate attention. Used as a “care traffic control” model, providers can understand where a patient needs to be across a health system – whether it is the general ward, the ICU, or a transitional care unit – and be routed where they are most needed to ensure efficient use of resources and bed availability while providing a better view on staffing. Especially as nursing coverage can vary greatly across hospitals within a health system, the birds’ eye view and AI-driven decision-making are critical to both the quality of patient care and care providers’ ability to confidently manage their caseload.

Empowering clinicians with technology built for them

The anticipated staffing shortages and the explosion of disparate technology will keep any healthcare CIO up at night. To effectively recruit and retain the best talent, it’s become increasingly important to offer technology that supports, rather than overwhelms the care provider. Collaborative sessions may help to uncover their needs and pain points and offer guidance on how to practically implement digital technology in the most beneficial way. 

Ensuring clinicians get the most out of the solutions they use requires proper training and an adequate IT infrastructure. The right technology infrastructure can pave the way for clinicians to fully utilize data, overcoming the lack of training. With a keen focus on improving the clinician experience and adequate training on technology that integrates seamlessly into their workflows, healthcare leaders can help clinicians get the most out of technology and continue to advance their digital transformation. 

Investing in clinician-centric technology that is truly integrated into workflows can empower providers with visibility into patient care journeys across settings and help to boost clinician satisfaction while improving patient outcomes.

About Shiv Gopalkrishnan

Shiv Gopalkrishnan is a seasoned executive who currently serves as the General Manager of EMR and Care Management within Philips’ Connected Care business. With an enduring passion to transform healthcare through technology, Mr. Gopalkrishnan has spent his 20+ year career at the intersection of care quality, cost and access, delivering innovation and scaling businesses. Prior to joining Philips, Mr. Gopalkrishnan held the role of Vice President and General Manager of the Intelligent Network business at Change Healthcare, delivering real-time claim settlement and payment transaction experience to payers, providers and patients. Mr. Gopalkrishnan started his career at GE Healthcare’s Diagnostic Imaging business followed by GE Healthcare’s IT business as the Vice President & General Manager of their Enterprise EMR and Revenue Cycle businesses. He helped spinout GE’s RCM business in 2018 and consequently founded Healthstack, a startup focused on delivering AI-based care management solutions, where he served as CEO.

What You Should Know:

– The Michigan Health Information Network (MiHIN), the nonprofit state-wide health information network, recently announced that it is partnering with PointClickCare Technologies, the largest post-acute electronic medical record vendor in the country, to advance and deepen healthcare collaboration, care coordination, and interoperability by offering access to real‐time insights at any stage of a patient’s journey.

– Although Michigan has experienced widespread adoption of certified health IT systems over the last several years, many long-term care facilities and emergency medical service providers are not yet able to comprehensively leverage the state’s health information shared services utility.

Improving Patient Outcomes Using Data-Driven Variables

The Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services (MiHIN) is Michigan’s state-designated entity for the technical, legal, secure, and private exchange of health information. Breaking down disparate and siloed data systems, the digital network is dedicated to transforming the healthcare experience, improving quality, decreasing cost and solving for health.

As part of the partnership, MiHIN will be able to offer PointClickCare’s Emergency Department Optimization (EDO) platform to hospitals across the state of Michigan, enabling emergency departments to access real‐time insights, ranging from prior patient encounters histories to interorganizational patient care plans, to support high‐risk patients across the healthcare continuum. The tool will be particularly beneficial to those clinicians delivering care to increasingly complex and vulnerable patient cohorts such as expectant mothers, those experiencing health inequities, those that are being transitioned from post-acute facilities, and those impacted by the opioid crisis.

MiHIN and PointClickCare are calling upon hospitals in Michigan who are interested in accelerating the responsive, HIE-enabled capabilities of their Emergency Departments (ED) to provide feedback and input to the broader network. Providers and groups using the statewide digital infrastructure are also encouraged to collaborate to explore a new Use Case with MiHIN, termed Alert and Query, that looks to harness alert notifications to trigger a query to a long-term care facility in order to gather and present the most actionable prior information to the ED. 

“PointClickCare will exchange post-acute health information throughout our shared digital infrastructure at an unmatched pace and scale, helping to tie the gaps of post-acute care into the integration and connection of the care continuum,” said Dr. Tim Pletcher, DHA, Executive Director of MiHIN. “Over 250 new post-acute providers and case managers will now be afforded the equitable ability to exchange real-time data via the state network. We anticipate this partnership will support optimized care delivery, safety, and coordination for patients, and will significantly improve outcomes and lower costs associated with particularly vulnerable populations.”

What You Should Know:

– A new report from KLAS examines what solutions are offered, how they are being adopted, and how well they meet setting-specific functionality needs (particularly for home health and LTC/SNF)

– The KLAS report mainly focuses on vendors specific to post-acute care but also provides a brief look at the post-acute care solutions of enterprise acute care EMR vendors.

Trends Concerning Post-Acute Care EMR Product Suites in 2022

Most providers in post-acute care settings want technology built for their specific area, but they face challenges with interoperability, analytics, value-based reimbursements, and care coordination. Increasingly, organizations are looking for vendors that can meet all their post-acute care needs. Several vendors are answering the call, despite the highly varied, unique challenges associated with each care setting.

The key trends and findings from KLAS’ latest report concerning post-acute care EMR product suites in the year 2022 are listed and explained as follows:

1. MatrixCare Broadly Adopted While Giving Consistent Satisfaction: No vendor today has delivered solutions across the entire breadth of post-acute care settings, but there has been progress. Typically, organizations offer either home-based or facility-based care, so their purchase decisions are usually driven by one type of care or the other. Overall, MatrixCare has achieved broad adoption (i.e., solid adoption across several care settings) and performs consistently well in home health, hospice, and LTC/SNF. WellSky, in part through some recent acquisitions, offers products for all measured care settings; however, adoption remains very low in several key settings, such as LTC/ SNF. The table below shows a detailed picture of vendors in all care settings—including their product offering, customer adoption, and (where available) customer satisfaction ratings.

2. A Look at Enterprise EMR Vendors: Despite many gaps across post-acute care settings, EMR vendors generally receive good marks for the post-acute care products they do offer; it is worth noting that leaders at the enterprise level tend to be more satisfied than users that work in the individual care settings. Customers using Epic’s post-acute care technology are highly satisfied overall. They note that Epic has gaps in key areas (e.g., tablet-based documentation for home health) and that the workflows continue to be geared more toward inpatient settings. However, clients say they are very confident in Epic’s continuing development and ability to keep up with regulatory requirements. MEDITECH has seen less adoption of their post-acute care technology—MEDITECH EMR clients tend to include fewer post-acute care facilities compared to other vendors. Those who use MEDITECH’s post-acute care solutions for home health and hospice (which were acquired and are separate from the Expanse platform) are moderately satisfied and feel the value proposition is good.

3. MatrixCare Continues to Lead in Home Wealth with Strong Mobile Workflows: most provider organizations tend to consider a vendor for either home- or facility-based settings. For home-based settings, performance in home health is often a key indicator of satisfaction in other related areas. When it comes to home health, customers report MatrixCare’s mobile technology for iOS and Android devices helps support clinician workflows,

and they feel confident that the vendor will continue development in areas

like interoperability and billing workflows and analytics. WellSky customers feel disconnected from their vendor, and this results in slow or insufficient development of things like mobile technology and revenue cycle reporting. Netsmart clients report gaps in functionality, and this, in combination with lacking relationships, leads some to view their home health solutions as outdated—in particular, customers want to see better upgrade testing and increased support resources to help them leverage their technology before they would be willing to move to the go-forward myUnity platform.

4. PointClickCare Delivers Innovation in LTC/SNF: Customer satisfaction in LTC/SNF settings is often a key indicator of satisfaction in other facility-based settings. The LTC/SNF market is dominated by PointClickCare, whose customers highlight the product development and, consequently, the high clinician usability; the ease of use is supported by regular updates built on customer-driven development.

5. Customers Want More Financial and Drill-Down Reporting: Customers of all post-acute care vendors share concerns with their products lacking needed functionality. Reporting is one of the most common functionality requests from each customer base. Overall, customers want to be able to bring together data from third-party technologies and get better financial and clinical insights at the organizational level. While PointClickCare clients feel the vendor has done well at building out needed reporting functionality for LTC/SNF, they want more flexibility to analyze data from the PDF reports that are generated. MatrixCare customers are also successful with many aspects of the vendor’s reporting, but some have been held back by insufficient financial claims reporting. Interviewed WellSky customers experience glitches that prevent them from accessing reports or drilling down for more information. Netsmart customers have a variety of functionality requests; many want additional, customizable reporting, while others cite the need for better integration to improve the ingestion of data from HIEs.

What You Should Know:

– Luna, the leading in-home physical therapy (PT) platform, today announces the launch of a value-based savings program for orthopedic practices to reduce post-acute care costs by 55-70%.

– Top orthopedic groups are turning to Luna to reduce costs and deliver this innovative, in-person form of care, including Hoag (Orange County), Resurgens Orthopaedics (Atlanta), and dozens of others.

Using At-Home PT Services To Reduce the Cost of Orthopedic Practices

While hospital-at-home continues to shake up healthcare, the latest rapid-growth sector is outpatient PT-at-home – a more cost-effective approach over traditional home health, which consists of the same high-quality PT services that patients typically receive at a clinic – delivered in the comfort of their own home.

A recent study showed that Luna’s outpatient in-home PT saves an average of $3,000 per case for post-surgical rehab for bundled care cases, equating to Medicare savings of 55%-70% per case.

“Orthopedic surgeons are turning to Luna for a cost-effective post-surgical PT-at-home experience for their patients, without compromising quality,” said Palak Shah, Luna co-founder and head of clinical operations. “We are committed to an innovative, tech-enabled approach to rehabilitation. Our superior data, algorithms, and technology, together with our team of exceptional therapists, deliver a high quality, precision experience for post-surgical care with faster recoveries – and is 55-70% less than the average cost of home health.”

Luna works with orthopedic surgeons and their teams to identify and set protocols, care pathways, and escalation triggers. Depending on the surgeon and the type of surgery performed, Luna technology automatically assigns specific protocols or care pathways to patients. Physical therapists have a seamless way to access this information and track progress in real-time with phase-specific escalation questions via the Luna app. All of this is shared with the surgeon’s team to ensure the highest standards of care.

Luna operates in 43 U.S. markets and 24 states. To date, Luna has partnered with innovative health systems, including Emory Health, SCL Health, UCLA Health, and Scripps Health, to activate outpatient in-home physical therapy for their patient communities.

What You Should Know:

– Olio Health, an Indianapolis, IN-based workflow and collaboration platform for the post-acute care and population health industry, raised $13m in Series A funding.

– The round was led by Fulcrum Equity Partners with participation from Mutual Capital Partners. The company intends to use the funds to further accelerate its growth through product development and key hires across multiple departments. 

– Led by Ben Forrest, CEO, Olio provides a platform for real-time communication, collaboration, and cost savings to risk-bearing entities and PAC providers. The software supports value-based care payers and providers and all levels of post-acute care (SNF, IRF, Home Health, Hospice, LTCH).

What You Should Know:

– Netsmart announced that it has acquired CORE Analytics, the industry-leading skilled nursing facility (SNF) claims data analytics offering from Zimmet Healthcare.

– With the addition of Core Analytics, Netsmart Simple^™is now the only solution suite in the market capable of calculating quality measures and Five-Star ratings leveraging Minimum Data Set (MDS), Payroll-Based Journaling (PBJ) and UB-04 claims data.

Software Solutions to Problems in Healthcare

Netsmart, a leading provider of Software as a Service (SaaS) technology and services solutions, designs, builds and delivers electronic health records (EHRs), health information exchanges (HIEs), analytics and telehealth solutions and services that are powerful, intuitive and easy-to-use. 

This new offering will enhance the Netsmart CareFabric^® platform to expand data solutions and services for post-acute care organizations in the areas of quality measures reporting, benchmarking, assessment data and scrubbing, while increasing the quantity and quality of required data for health plans, Medicare and Medicaid. Through this acquisition, Netsmart now offers the most comprehensive SNF data analytics solution to integrate clinical, staffing and financial data to provide better intelligence and reimbursement optimization, with the aim of saving time for clinical and reimbursement staff.

The acquisition further establishes Netsmart as a leader in the SNF market by providing technology and services to more than 50% of SNFs across the nation. Analytics are needed more than ever in the rapidly evolving and complex ecosystems of value-based care for post-acute providers, and Netsmart plans to continue to extend this same approach to all community care providers beginning with home health and hospice providers.

CORE brings three new solutions into the CareFabric platform. CORE Reimbursement identifies Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) revenue opportunities through logic testing and benchmarking. Value-Based Post-Acute eXchange (VPAX) measures clinical and financial outcomes necessary to demonstrate value to at-risk referral partners. Additionally, Medicare Advantage Post-Acute eXchange (MAPAX) quantifies clinical and financial performance, delivering the healthcare industry’s first claims-based intelligence and meaningful utilization data on current SNF-MA reimbursement, outcomes and value-proposition.

“The integration of the CORE solutions within the Netsmart CareFabric platform, specifically with the Netsmart Simple data solutions, will change the way we support providers by connecting all of the solutions needed to unlock the full potential of claims data,” said Zimmet Healthcare President & CEO Marc Zimmet. “Through this collaboration with Netsmart, we can expand the capabilities of our comprehensive tools to unite the clinical, claims and staffing data to provide a holistic view of an organization. Our clients will be able to rely on the same tools and support they’ve come to expect, with the ability to leverage solutions across the Netsmart CareFabric platform.”

In addition to this acquisition, Netsmart and Zimmet Healthcare have entered into a collaboration to offer consulting services and referrals for the clients and communities they serve. Through this relationship, the organizations will continue to collaborate on ways to utilize the CareFabric technology portfolio and the Zimmet Healthcare domain expertise to develop and enhance each party’s solution.

No one would argue that a crisis is looming for healthcare professionals and their employers. However, the question remains: How can it be solved? We asked 22 healthcare and health sciences leaders for their thoughts; here’s what they said.

Stephanie Queen, Chief Nursing Officer and SVP of Clinical Services at Air Methods

Critical care workers are all human. Our constant exposure to pain, suffering, and death exacts a severe toll over time, even as we are conditioned to greet grief with a smile. Some studies indicate a relationship between the effects of cumulative grief in medical workers and profound stress and burnout. How can clinical caregivers ease the corrosive effects of grief on their lives? We must start by consciously taking better care of ourselves because self-care is the most proactive and responsible step we can take. This is where clinicians need to embrace innovative approaches to self-care. Maybe it’s as simple using a device to track that you’re getting enough sleep, exercise, and time to relax. Or it could be leveraging technology to allow you to connect regularly to someone you can talk to and express your grief with. Technology solutions can be a key component of keeping a clinician accountable to themselves. Regardless of the approach, the key is to find a path that allows clinicians to embrace their own emotional needs and manage their mental health.

Rich Parker, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Arcadia

Health tech innovation can and must continue to improve the health of the population while at the same time reducing the workload on our front-line clinicians. From improved care management to e-prescribing, to text outreach and better telehealth, innovation will continue to move patient care forward and reduce the bureaucratic pressures on clinicians contributing to burnout.

Justin Norden, MD, MBA, Partner at GSR Ventures

Clinician burnout is at an all-time high and as the pandemic continues we only ask more of our healers. For years electronic medical records, messaging systems, and other technologies have only increased physician burnout. To retain the best in clinical care we now must partner with physicians to build the right automation solutions that work for them. New technologies such as smart triage, AI transcription, and messaging automation exist today; as a field, we must work together to prioritize efficient and smart implementations that will ease the burden on clinicians.

Lynn Carroll, Chief Operating Officer at HSBlox

Information overload is a contributing factor to health worker burnout. Health intervention requires timely and focused data points, brought to the fore by applied technologies, eliminating the burden of wading through extraneous information. Technologies such as NLP, predictive analytics and digitization of unstructured data can play a role in reducing this burden — delivering the pertinent information for clinical assessment and decision-making in a timely manner.

Anna Dover, PharmD, BCPS, is Director of Product Management at FDB (First Databank, Inc.)

The causes of clinician burnout—and overall provider shortage—are multi-layered. The pandemic is a major influence, but so are the demands on time that pre-existed COVID-19, including administrative burden, and routine tasks that could be automated, as well as excessive time and cognitive burden caused by foundational information technology in hospitals. Cognitive burden, in particular, is an area where health leaders can leverage innovative technology solutions to make progress quickly. Clinicians and pharmacists are confronted with an overabundance of alerts, many of which may not be clinically relevant for the patient at hand. Responding to these interruptions leads to alert fatigue, a widely known source of dissatisfaction and cognitive overload. Leading health systems have found that leveraging more patient-specific data and advanced analytics within their electronic health record can significantly reduce the number of unnecessary alerts and improve acceptance rates. In addition to better leveraging patient inputs, providing clear, concise and actionable information makes it easier to make the right decision. For instance, if the patient has an abnormal lab, display the drugs that may have caused the issue and support quick changes. This improves the experience for clinicians as well as safety and outcomes for patients. We need to start addressing these issues – and this is a great place to focus.

Angie Franks, CEO at ABOUT Healthcare Inc.

One of the biggest reasons for the clinician burnout crisis facing healthcare today is related to the emotional stress tied to pandemic-fueled patient surges and infection protocols. However, another key contributor is disconnected and labor-intensive processes. Health systems need to overcome the technological and cultural silos within their organizations to create better systemness and help ease workforce burnout by allowing providers to operate at the top of their license. This means applying technology to reduce waste and inefficiencies where applicable and enabling global visibility into their operations. It also means not allowing cultural norms to dictate how patients are cared for. For example, a health facility shouldn’t continue to send a certain type of patient to a tertiary hospital just because that’s the way it has always handled it. They should have tools in place that allow them to see the capacity in all their network facilities that have the expertise to care for that patient and transfer them to the one that will result in the best treatment and outcome.

Ashish V. Shah, CEO of Dina

To reduce burnout, providers need to empower their care teams with technology to ‘manage by exception,’ focusing on patients that require immediate attention at specific times. This is paramount as more care takes place in home and community settings. Using predictive modeling and recurring patient feedback can drive a manage by exception mindset, minimize distractions, and offer a real-time picture of patient needs.

Kimberly Hartsfield, EVP of Growth Enablement at VisiQuate

Clinicians simply can’t work any harder. Health care organizations have to embrace technology, innovation and automation to ease the administrative burden. Automating tasks like appointment scheduling and management claims coding, billing and submission, as well as insurance authorization will help gain efficiencies so that clinicians can continue to focus on delivering high-quality care.

Russ Thomas, CEO at Availity

The pandemic didn’t create clinical burnout, but it did exacerbate it. There are a number of reasons for burnout, but administrative overload and inadequate information technology are significant drivers. The lines between front- and back-office healthcare operations have blurred. Clinicians can’t perform at the top of their license absent the coordination and harmonization of healthcare’s administrative and financial levers. Health plans and providers are under increasing market and regulatory pressure to surface and share actionable information from an ever-expanding ocean of data. Consumers aren’t reacting to bespoke encounters, but to the totality of their healthcare journey. Clinicians are burning out, in part, because they are trying to deliver 21st-century care with 20th-century processes and workflows.

Maulik Majmudar, MD, Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer at Biofourmis

The U.S. Surgeon General’s recent advisory about clinician burnout cited numerous societal, cultural, structural, and organizational causes—including excessive workloads, administrative burdens and lack of organizational support. The advisory cites the Association of American Medical Colleges’ estimate on clinician demand outpacing supply, with an anticipated shortage of between 54,100 and 139,000 physicians predicted by 2033. There is an opportunity to adopt and scale the use of innovative care delivery models, team-based care, and health technology solutions to drive efficiency and alleviate clinician burnout by improving clinical workflows. As the care-at-home revolution gains momentum as a relief valve for overstretched clinicians, a combination of remote patient management and in-person visits can help lighten the overall clinician burden. Software and data science can play a crucial role in augmenting clinical care teams to deliver high-quality and cost-effective care-at-home programs, including post-acute care, hospital at home and complex chronic condition management.

Liz Boehm, Learning Community Lead for the CEO Coalition & Executive Strategist at Vocera, now part of Stryker

I am hopeful the Surgeon General’s Advisory will drive more action to address the nation’s burnout crisis among healthcare workers and slow down the Great Resignation of nurses, doctors and other team members. It was encouraging to see that the advisory highlighted many actions the CEO Coalition outlined in its Heart of Safety Declaration of Principles, to improve the safety, well-being, and equity for all who work in healthcare. To end the crisis of burnout, we must implement processes, policies and technologies that help protect the emotional, psychological and physical well-being of healthcare workers by reducing cognitive burdens, adopting a zero-harm program, restoring human connections, and requiring explicit equity-focused policies and practices to advance diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

Jay Anders, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Medicomp Systems

The correlation between clinician burnout rates and EHR usability is well-established. To improve EHR usability, we need to start with workflows––making patient- and problem-specific information more accessible at the point of care. Most EHRs require users to sift through multiple screens to find the relevant data they need for clinical decision-making. These time-consuming searches are inefficient and detract from patient care. Clinicians need readily available snapshot views of pertinent clinical details in a patient’s chart related to specific problems or diseases. This is crucial when treating patients with chronic diseases because their charts contain multiple test and lab results and records from multiple providers over time.

Oron Afek, Co-Founder and CEO at Vim

To achieve high-quality healthcare, there must be an evolution in understanding the needs of the people delivering care every day–the clinicians and care teams. These teams are meant to focus on patients and care delivery, yet historically, the technologies and processes forced on them did not address holistic workflows. Today, with nearly 90% of office-based physicians using EMRs/EHRs, technology must integrate directly into EHRs at the point of care. This layering of technology functionality improves speed–not changes–existing in-EHR workflows and point-of-care processes. When technology is woven into a care team’s day-to-day, it is proven to lower administrative burden and drive action on key performance initiatives shared across stakeholders–ultimately improving health care and accelerating time to value. The right technology delivers on its promise of time savings and increased efficiency, allowing human needs to come into focus.

Oleg Bess, MD, CEO and Co-Founder at 4medica

Lack of a single, unified longitudinal patient record undermines healthcare and poorly serves both clinicians and patients. Clinicians and support staff spend far too much time running around trying to get all the information they need for a patient because that data rarely can be found in one place. They too frequently must resort to making calls and receiving patient information via fax, which is a 60-year-old technology that moves data in a non-discrete format, unusable by today’s digital tools. This adds unnecessary stress and frustration to an already stressful job and quickly can lead to clinician burnout. Technology innovation in the form of full digital interoperability and an accurate, continuously updated clinical record for each individual patient would remove this source of stress. Further, better data aggregation would allow clinicians to focus more on the patient, enabling better decision-making at the point of care and resulting in better outcomes.

Colin Banas, Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst

For clinicians already facing numerous pressures, COVID threw gasoline on the fire in terms of emotional burnout and moral injury, with the sheer volume of patients and the conditions clinicians encountered daily. Fortunately, we’ve also seen a significant pivot in the industry within the last three years toward technologies that automate repetitive and monotonous tasks, such as data entry or checking repetitive boxes. This is a key step toward decreasing a rapidly rising cognitive load and freeing clinicians to provide more meaningful and thoughtful care. Artificial intelligence can automatically import and populate patient data in a safe and appropriate format understandable to both humans and computers. These types of automation are proving safer and more efficient in core functions such as medication reconciliation and prescription refills, thus requiring fewer clicks and integrating more naturally into clinical workflows.

Dallan Huff, President at Motient

In healthcare, our mission is to ensure we are first, doing no harm. The same should be true for healthcare technology. Technology should relieve burnout from clinicians, not add to it. When it comes to patient movement, clinicians are often over-burdened with the clunky and time-consuming processes that accompany emergent interfacility patient transfers. The right technology and patient movement tools can relieve the burden of securing emergent interfacility transports from clinical staff, preventing burnout by removing what can be a largely administrative task from clinical team members’ plates.

Janet Dillione, CEO at Connect America

While the pandemic is the backdrop of the recent clinician shortage and fatigue crisis, it is the same force that’s driving physicians to seek out and rapidly implement technology solutions, such as telehealth and remote patient monitoring. Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), specifically, allows physicians to extend their care teams virtually in a more meaningful way and also helps alleviate provider burnout. With RPM, providers can manage their patients’ chronic conditions while proactively supporting patients to stay compliant—all through digital tools that also provide meaningful data in near real-time. The result is increased efficiency, higher patient adherence, fewer hospitalizations and better patient outcomes.

Bronwyn Spira, Founder and CEO of Force Therapeutics

Patient-facing digital tools have the potential to automate repetitive, time-intensive manual tasks which can significantly reduce clinician burnout. In order for these tools to be effective, however, they need to be seamlessly integrated into existing provider workflows. Configurable, empathetic technology gives clinicians visibility at the point of care to surface at-risk patients in time for effective intervention. Best of all, this kind of remote support functions as another member of the care team, relieving clinicians of some daily administrative tasks and helping them spend their precious time on patients with more emergent needs.

Siva Namasivayam, CEO of Cohere Health

Eliminating unnecessary administrative tasks seems like an obvious first step in addressing clinician burnout, but we all know healthcare is reluctant to abandon old models. The good news is that as widespread adoption of AI and machine learning grows, these tools will not only automate manual processes that require significant administrative work but will also bring more value to providers. For example, AI and natural language processing can support the immediate approval of prior authorization requests while offering clinical recommendations to improve patient outcomes. By using vast datasets to provide point-of-service recommendations, AI-driven platforms can augment clinicians’ expertise—and save them time—in areas ranging from imaging analysis to diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Tom Milam, Chief Medical Officer at Iris Telehealth

Providers across the country, specifically those in behavioral health, are suffering burnout due to the increased number of patients seeking care related to the pandemic. In fact, we are seeing many providers leave the profession or retire early as a result, which further fuels the ongoing provider shortage problem we’re seeing in the mental healthcare space. When implemented properly, telepsychiatry can help address the challenge of provider burnout by offering behavioral health providers a sense of control and autonomy over their schedules thus enabling them to spend more time with their family, engage in self-care, and take appointments from the comfort of their own home. Additionally, providers no longer need to worry about the wasted time or the expense of a commute, especially in rural areas where they might have to travel further to see patients. And finally, allowing a provider to practice from a setting where they are more comfortable improves the quality of care for patients.

Laura Kreofsky, Senior Vice President, Strategy at Pivot Point Consulting

Health worker burnout and resignations are an escalating reality that could cripple our health system, increase costs and exacerbate health disparities. The Surgeon General’s Advisory outlines several strategies to address these risks, including reducing administrative burden. Health technology can play a vital role in this strategy, such as the following examples:

• Optimizing EHR design and workflow can reduce the time-suck of clinical documentation.

• Patient-facing apps and tools can help minimize low-value tasks that too often fall on the shoulders of highly skilled health professionals.

• Broad adoption of technologies like remote patient monitoring (RPM) can help reduce patient volume in costly and harried settings.

Some health systems are seeing a 76% reduction in hospital readmissions when RPM is used. Across the board, we recommend healthcare organizations strategically evaluate, deploy and optimize technologies–from EHR-integrated telehealth and streamlined workflows to RPM and AI-enabled solutions–to help address this crisis.

Miles David Romney, CTO at eVisit

A doctor’s time is sacred. Every moment a doctor spends on administration within an EHR is a sacrilege. Healthcare is destined to become a right and not a privilege. But that can only happen when the cost of delivering it is driven wildly down—which means using doctors for what only doctors can do. And the tools they use? As a healthtech futurist, I like to say that the best user interface is no user interface. The closer we can approach that ideal, the closer we’ll be to solving both provider burnout and scaling quality care across the world.