Invest or Become Irrelevant

Author: Jordan Johnson

In the recent Healthcare IT News article, Providers must invest in consumer technologies, or risk irrelevance, the author accurately identifies the need to invest, test and pivot now. As healthcare moves away from fee-for-service, the industry must pivot from FTE heavy inaccurate processes and optimize patient facing time and solutions. There are several misconceptions and reasons that will lead to systems falling behind into effective and meaningful investments into software.

• The big EHR and EMR vendors will create a once size fits all solution—This is going to cost you an enormous amount of money in the long run and you are still not going to get what you need. This will actually put you much further behind the curve with all of the time that is exhausted. With all of the changes and integrations, a smaller service line focused vendor is who you should work with because they have the specific expertise and ability to adapt and change much faster. Interoperability is not near as big of a challenge as it used to be.
• Culture—This is one that people are just going to have to accept and institutions do a better job of identifying and flushing out. With 25% of healthcare spend being waste and 50% plus percent of that being administrative cost, this is the spot for savings and waste reduction. Previously tasks have been very FTE heavy. The culture in many institutions has been very siloed by job. Software adoption is seen by many to only be the “job replacer.” Many are hanging onto the way they have always done it and, have become very resistant to change and sharing of knowledge. You do not have the time to waste if this is the case, cross-collaboration and transparency are what will get you there faster. Your tolerance with these people and job codes will define the success of your initiatives. Optimization does not equate to replacement.
• Cost—The “It’s not in our budget” mentality must change. Your data will show that in many circumstances you are already paying for it in duplication of tasks, inaccuracies, overtime, unused software/technology. Individual service line technology is affordable.
• Internal teams can handle it—This is also a fatal flaw assumption. Internal teams do not have the content expertise in all service lines, nor the time to build, trend and adjust for all service lines. Plus internal politics and the organizational structure have much more “red-tape,” (time killer).
• Buy it and it works will not work—This is also the downside of waiting on the big vendor to solve your problems. With all that is going on, they do not have the application specialists and the field service engineers for timely and adequate adoption. Sure, you will purchase some education hour and create a superuser, but what about the changes. This is where the smartest solution is using a service line specific vendor. You basically need a “coworker,” not “press 1 for technical help.”
• Understanding data—It is imperative to realize that this is a multi-step process and the fast production of “pretty graphs” are meaningless if the data is not:
  • Accurate
  • Actionable/transparent
  • Valuable
  • Scalable

The team at Legion Healthcare Partners has bridged the gaps for oncology with an approach ensuring meaningful software deployment, strategy/trending and findings-based education. Patients are demanding more, and the solutions are required to allow staff to meet those demands are available.