Showing posts with label Healthcare IT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Healthcare IT. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Technology Is crucial for medical staff retention

The Great Resignation still has momentum, presenting a complicated reality for every business. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record-high 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November, followed by a still notable 4.3 million in December 2021. This growing movement hit the healthcare industry particularly hard, with 503,000 healthcare and social assistance workers quitting in December.

Within the past couple of years, providers and staff at medical practices have experienced added stresses and pain points. For example, with new COVID-19 protocols, medical practice team members often find themselves taking patient temperatures upon their arrival and administering and collecting screening questionnaires, all while continuing to answer a flurry of patient calls and e-mails amid short-staffed shifts.

Burnout itself can take many forms. For example, both practice owners and staff may feel a “depersonalization” of their day-to-day work, increasing the likelihood of errors and feelings of disconnectedness with the practice mission, leading to cold office experiences that prompt patients to leave negative reviews.

According to an AMA study, 61 percent of physicians across all specialties reported having experienced work-related burnout, a 20 percent increase compared to a pre-pandemic report. In addition, of the healthcare workers that left their job during the pandemic, 29 percent said that burnout and being overworked ranked as primary reasons they left their job during the pandemic.


How technology can help reduce burnout for providers and staff



While delegating tasks or spreading work among more people can help reduce stress, it’s not a necessary solution. Instead, specialized software programs and functions built for medical practices can alleviate the administrative burden and free up staff to engage in more enriching patient connections. Here are some of the more notable solutions:

24/7 Online appointment scheduling and billing tools - The key to removing unnecessary work from practice staff is to offer patients the opportunity to manage some processes online at their convenience. Online appointment scheduling gives patients 24/7 access to check available time slots and either book or request an appointment. Ideally, this is also the place for appointment change and cancellation requests. With 63 percent of patients preferring this method, your practice delivers the digital convenience patients demand while freeing your staff to focus on other higher-value elements of practice management.

Similarly, giving patients the option to make payments online reduces the hassle of paper invoices, can expedite payments and removes the time and hassle required to manage manual billing systems. Although most patients do not currently receive their medical bills electronically, our research shows that 59 percent prefer online bill payments.

Online intake forms - Move your forms online rather than maintain a manual registration and intake process with a clipboard and pen. Staff members can avoid stacks of paperwork, and patients can complete forms before their appointment at their convenience. Practices can send links to intake forms via email or text link, preferably included with the patient’s automated appointment reminder. With forms completed ahead of time, you can reduce patients’ wait times, helping to improve patient satisfaction: our survey research shows that 60 percent of patients feel frustrated if their appointment wait times exceed 20 minutes.



Two-way text messaging - HIPAA-compliant text messaging now makes it easier than ever to engage in direct conversations with new and current patients, using the most dominant method of communication today. Not only does this significantly reduce your staff’s time spent on phone calls, but it’s an accessible, secure way for patients to better connect with providers and staff. So whether they want to book an appointment or have health-related questions, patients are demanding text access to practices — and forward-thinking practices are offering it.

While feelings of burnout are nothing novel to the medical profession, the past few years have made it clear that practices’ priorities need to change. With the right technology and approach to practice management, practices stand a much better chance of improving staff morale and productivity.With these systems in place, your practice will also have more opportunities to attract and maintain new employees throughout the Great Resignation



Travis oversees all aspects of strategy, sales, and business development at PatientPop. Before co-founding the company, Travis co-founded and served as the CEO of ShopNation. He also co-founded and served as the CEO of StarBrand Media. Travis holds an Honors degree in Business and Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also a two-time recipient of the KPMG Enterprise Entrepreneur Award.


15% Off Medical Practice Supplies


VIEW ALL



Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Yellow)


Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Bright Orange)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Yellow)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Blue)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - White)


VIEW ALL

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Three steps to fixing the data quality issue plaguing the U.S. health care system

Data quality is essential to improving the U.S. health care system. But what is data quality? Basically, data quality is about extracting value for patients, clinicians and payers. High-quality data is both usable and actionable. In contrast, low-quality data, such as duplicate records, missing patient names, or obsolete information, creates barriers to care delivery and billing/payment while costing money across the health care system through inefficiency.

Unfortunately, health care has lagged virtually every other industry in leveraging data for strategic and operational advantage. This is not for lack of data. More patient health data than ever is being captured today by medical equipment, digital devices and apps. Indeed, if data is gold, health care is sitting on top of a goldmine.

Yet the industry generally has done a poor job of mining and refining this gold ore of data to a point where it can be useful. That is a wasted opportunity because refined, quality data would provide value to all health care stakeholders—hospitals, payers, health information exchanges, labs, and patients.


Impact on research, patient outcomes


Poor data quality has negative ramifications throughout health care. The way we bring new medications to market is a great case in point. The first phase is identifying the medication, a process that comprises less than 20% of the cost of drug development. Next comes clinical trials, which account for the vast majority of drug development costs.

Clinical trials are long and arduous. Worse, from a data quality standpoint, data still are collected on paper and then transferred to computer, and typically not associated with other data sets for similar types of patients or even other patients in that clinical trial. If all this information were easily available and everything was automated, clinical trials would cost less than 10% of what they do now.

I just started participating in a clinical trial and it is amazing how much effort is required just to log in to an older system for a single trial. There may be six to 12 different logins and each requires special access permissions. It can take several days to log in to just one of these systems. All that information under these logins should be united to become quality, actionable information that's easily available.

Even in the physician's office there's a significant lack of aggregated data for patients, leaving clinicians knowing only part of a patient’s story. And when a doctor sees a patient at the hospital, that doctor needs the patient’s ambulatory outpatient records to make sound, evidence-based decisions about appropriate treatment. In far too many cases, however, the data that would inform clinicians at the point of care are trapped in siloes scattered across the health care landscape.


Healthcare has not availed itself of advanced digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), which are being used to transform many other industries. In large part this is because its either not accessible or the quality of health data is so poor that intelligent machines would struggle to process and analyze it for actionable insights into patient care.

In contrast, quality health care data creates scenarios in which AI/ML quickly can provide clinicians at the point of care with information that enables them to educate patients about their specific condition, offer referrals to appropriate specialists, suggest new medications, and improve outcomes. With the right data and insights, clinicians also might be able to match the patient with a clinical trial that could save the patient’s life.

Low-quality data is a problem for payers because they need data to make decisions, whatever it’s condition. It starts when the patient gets a diagnosis and the payer may not be aware of it for weeks. So a patient diagnosed with cancer might suddenly have to find a specialist and determine whether the practice takes their insurance.

But if a payer finds out right away that this patient may have cancer, the payer can help guide patients to the right provider, removing a heavy burden of financial concerns and medical management.


Three steps to quality data


There are three main steps to achieving high data quality. The first is ensuring access to the data the clinician needs. There are still many legacy systems in health care where the vast majority of medical records are housed within an organization’s servers and not on a cloud, where they could be more easily accessed and aggregated by authorized users. While health care interoperability and data sharing have improved in recent years, we’re still building integrations one at a time. Bringing data into a central database where it can be turned into gold remains a challenge.

The next step involves identity management. Much of the value in health data comes from its ability to document longitudinal change in individual patients. Clinicians may, for example, want to see how medications or disease processes affect lab results for a particular patient. Even if they could connect disparate data sources and have the data go into a single database, they can't associate the data with a specific patient. With effective identity management, though, it is possible to create a good longitudinal patient record that can bring huge clinical and efficiency benefits.

The third phase of data quality will finally make the data usable or actionable. Once the data is in the right patient's chart and created a longitudinal record, it must be organized and easy for clinicians to locate and read. This requires a process called data normalization. Health data can come from multiple sources (EHRs, labs, pharmacy systems, etc.), all of which may use different coding for a medical procedure, different terms for a certain test, or even use different language to categorize genders. Data normalization creates a common terminology that enables the semantic interoperability necessary to make data actionable.

There’s no magic bullet for improving health care data quality. It will require a joint effort and the innovation inherent in the free market. There will be companies that will help us collect and connect to data and there will be companies and entities that will help us connect to data. There will be technologies that will identify the data and others that will normalize the data so it looks similar—and becomes actionable—no matter where it originated. And there will be companies that provide quality databases that health care stakeholders can use to perform advanced analytics. The end result will be a health care system that provides better care at a lower cost.


15% Off Medical Practice Supplies


VIEW ALL



Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Yellow)


Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Bright Orange)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Yellow)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Blue)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - White)


VIEW ALL

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Getting patients enrolled in text messaging

How do you go about getting consent for texting promotional and transactional messages to hundreds or thousands of new and existing patients?


Explain the benefits of text messaging


You must clearly explain the benefits of text messaging to your patients.

Explain that text messaging will allow patients to receive urgent office announcements. Tell them that they will remind them about overdue follow up appointments. Mention that texts will make it easier for them to reschedule appointments and be reminded of them.
Plan opt-in communications for text messaging

You must also come up with a brief communication plan. How, specifically, are you going to alert patients conveniently?

There are at least five ways to get new and existing patients enrolled for promotional text messages. Some of them require modifications to your intake process.


1. Website Text Messaging Sign Up Form


Set up a website form which encrypts traffic for text messaging enrollments.

You can still allow patients to enroll if you have not set up text messaging yet. Just mention that text message updates are “coming soon” for your practice.

The form should capture the person’s name, mobile number, email address, and consent. It should not identify a patient relationship with the person, if possible. It should include language to allow you to send promotional messages to the individual.

You can hire a developer to integrate the form with your EHR. (Your EHR must have a flexible API and support text messaging for this integration to make sense.)

A website text messaging sign-up form, by itself, will not enroll most of your patient population. It is important to have multiple approaches to encourage sign ups.




2. Ask for Text Messaging Sign Ups During Patient Intake


The best way to enroll new patients for text messaging is during your normal intake process. Why?

First, it is easier for the patient. The patient already expects to complete paperwork when they check-in. When you include text messaging consent and opt-in during patient check-in, your patient should not complain. As a result, your enrollments may increase quickly.

Second, it is easier for your team. Instead of building a new process and training staff, you are incorporating what you need into an existing process. Ask your front desk to include one additional form in the material they hand to the patient.

Asking for text message sign ups during patient intake is not the best way to enroll your existing patients in text messaging.

To enroll existing patients, you will need a varied communication plan. This plan should include email/blog opt-ins, social media, and signage.


3. Offer Text Messaging Opt-Ins in Emails or Blog


Text messaging alerts pair well with a consistent blog or email newsletter.

You can use texts to alert your most engaged patients to educational matters about their health.

If you are an ENT, for example, you might create an article about how to manage allergies before the spring. You could send a text message alert so that your patients have this important information. Or, you might provide important recommendations to your patients during a regional health emergency.

But your blog or emails can also increase text messaging opt-ins.

First, update your email signature to include a link to your text message opt-in web form. Whenever your team emails patients, they may click this link and enroll.

Second, create an email marketing campaign for existing patients. In this email, announce that your practice has enabled text message alerts. Include a link to your opt-in web form and mention how your patients will benefit personally.

Finally, if you have a blog, you can use it to encourage text message sign ups. At the bottom of every blog article, include a link to your web form where patients can opt-in to text message alerts.

Just as text message alerts can draw attention to your articles, your emails and blog articles can help improve text messaging opt-ins.


4. Offer Text Messaging Promotional Alerts on Social Media


Social media sites like Facebook, Google My Business, and LinkedIn can help you boost text message enrollment.

First, update your profiles to include a link to your text message opt-in web form. When people check out your page, they will know how to set up texting alerts.

Second, periodically create posts mentioning your text messaging alert capabilities. Be sure that these posts highlight the benefits to your patients and clients.


5. Add Text Messaging Sign Up Signs in Office


Create simple signs for your office to get your patients enrolled in text messaging alerts.

The signs should direct patients to your text message opt-in web form. The signs can also direct patients to the front desk if they have difficulty with the web form. Some people are less comfortable with technology and need help.

These signs should be simple with a large font size. Do not include more than five lines of text. Keep each line shorter than fifty characters.

You might include your practice’s logo in the corner of the sign. Each sign should be in a central area and catch your patients’ attention.




Keeping Patients Enrolled


Once you have patients enrolled, do not abuse the privilege!

Once a patient opts out of your texting service, they are unlikely to reenroll. Therefore, set limits for each type of text message. Then, schedule the messages ahead of time for maximum impact.

Using technology to schedule your patient text messages is not only effective, it saves you time. You do not have to remember to text each individual patient manually.

You will need to select a HIPAA compliant text messaging app to schedule patient texts.

Or, if you have access to a developer, you can use Twilio’s API to build your own texting tool. Just make sure that you enter a Business Associate’s Agreement with Twilio.

The purpose of the text message will determine when you should schedule it. Appointment reminders are most effective shortly before the visit. But payment reminders may be sent long after the date of service.

Some text messaging apps can halt sending messages after the action (e.g., payment, survey) is completed. If your app cannot, then only send a maximum of two text messages.

Schedule appointment reminder text messages to go out:
48 hours prior to the scheduled appointment
12 hours prior to the scheduled appointment
2 hours prior to the scheduled appointment

Schedule feedback and rating text messages to go out:
Immediately after the appointment
Three days after the appointment
One week after the appointment



Schedule payment and billing reminder text messages to go out:
As soon as the patient payment responsibility is determined
One week after patient payment responsibility is determined
One month after patient payment responsibility is determined
Two months after patient payment responsibility is determined
Three months after patient payment responsibility is determined, as a final reminder



Schedule recall reminder, compliance, and preventive health text messages to go out:
On the date that the intended action is due
One week after the due date
One month after the due date


15% Off Medical Practice Supplies


VIEW ALL



Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Yellow)


Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Bright Orange)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Yellow)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Blue)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - White)


VIEW ALL

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)