Tag Archives: Healthcare

Ask multiple healthcare providers “what is value-based care,” and the answers likely will vary based on the individual provider, his or her specialty or type of healthcare system in which he or she practices. Yet, a key point that remains steadfast regardless of the care setting is that the patient is at the center of a value-based healthcare delivery system. Value-based care focuses on quality and outcomes and puts the patient at the heart of the healthcare experience. The shift from a fee-for-service model that pays providers based on volume to a value-based reimbursement method that rewards quality over quantity …

“Sooner or later, everything old is new again.” Stephen King fans may recognize the quote from his book Colorado Kid. Although the book and the author have nothing to do with healthcare, the sentiment is applicable to healthcare today. Medical care in our country in the early 1900s relied very much on a single doctor listening carefully to a patient describe their symptoms. Because the doctor probably treated the patient – and his or her family – for most of their lives, past illnesses, chronic conditions and injuries were known to the doctor.  In addition to the medical history, the …

The landscape for rapid decision-making capabilities is accelerating across healthcare and life sciences, but the ability to do so is not keeping up with the pace of need.  Historical data is available but not often accessible given it’s trapped in legacy applications, while new data sources, such as those generated from devices like FitBit, are becoming available but far from being integrated with existing patient records.  The challenge organizations are facing is one that requires a strategic vision with an eye on digital transformation as the engine to make change. Over the next few months, I’ll cover several concepts that …

The Telephone Game is a great icebreaker for parties, company retreats or classrooms. The rules are simple: The group stands in a line or circle, with everyone close enough to whisper into each other’s ear, and the person at the beginning of the line whispers a phrase or word into the next person’s ear. The game continues until the message has been passed along to everyone. The phrase heard by the last person in line is rarely the same one uttered by the first person – illustrating how information is transformed by factors such as personal experience, perception, listening skills …

Whether you live in an area where the leaves change color in the autumn chill or reside in a climate where the trees are evergreen and the sun shines all year long, fall is customarily a time for looking back on the year that will soon end. In the United States, it’s also a time to gather with family and friends for a feast and to express gratitude for the things we value the most. The Thanksgiving Day holiday is a tradition in the United States, but the spirit of gratitude that animates it resonates worldwide. In that spirit, we …

Hardly a week passes without a health care discussion, from collecting and protecting personal information to the emergence of population health intelligence practitioners. Recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) articles zeroed in on a very real issue: access to medical records and healthcare data is only part of the picture needed to accurately predict patients at risk. For hospitals in particular, knowing more about their patients can help them better predict and manage outcomes, especially with chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. But while access to data is expanding constantly; determining actionable steps from data can …

The big data revolution is in full swing, with enormous implications for the healthcare and life sciences industries. Data is flowing in from multiple sources — digital patient records, claims and payment information, R&D databases and data from manufacturers, hospital systems, providers and more. Meanwhile, new sources of information are coming online, including drug sentiment data from social media and personal health and wellness data from devices like wearable technologies as the Internet of Things picks up steam. Many organizations are understandably focused on the struggle to capture, integrate, store and manage this influx of data — that struggle is …

Atlanta is branded as The Health IT Capital of the US and this year’s Georgia HIMSS Annual Conference represented the entire state well, selling out with more than 500 attendees. John W. Showalter, MD, MSIS, Chief Health Information Officer, University of Mississippi Medical Center and Leigh Williams, Administrator, Business Systems, UVA Health System kicked off the day, discussing personality profiles within healthcare as a way to engage physicians to drive quality. Understanding how physicians think can help to engage them whether implementing a new EMR, enrolling them into an ACO, or trying to provide them with more data for research …

In my previous blog regarding transplant data, I outlined the difficult decision that blood and marrow transplant centers face when it comes to retrieving data from CIBMTR: do they choose to retrieve data that is easily accessible or data that is comprehensive? Pick just one! But putting aside this longstanding conundrum for a moment, let’s assume that your center has access to all the data it could possibly want. Now what? How will you maintain it so that it can ultimately be used to improve patient care? Many transplant centers manage their clinical data in spreadsheets. When you consider that …

Blood and marrow transplant centers have a unique set of requirements to manage Hematopoietic transplant data and then transfer that data to CIBMTR, the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. If you are in the blood & bone marrow transplant field, how much are you spending every year collecting, organizing, and submitting data to CIBMTR?  Do you feel like you are getting your money’s worth? Transplant center teams know that submitting outcomes data through CIBMTR’s FormsNet is important and serves a good purpose, but it can be a bit of a one-way street.  While CIBMTR does offer ways …