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Tag: digital apps

Healthcare technology in 2023 and beyond!

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Healthcare 2023

We’re not making definitive predictions here, but the rapid changes seen in healthcare have been remarkable these past years, and going into 2023 we can be certain there will be new challenges and opportunities. We do expect some themes to continue into 2023 and beyond.

Challenging margins for health systems and independent practices. As reimbursements to health care organizations has languished, the importance of ensuring the maximum returns on existing investments will be key. Over the past decade there have been massive investments in new systems and networks, every part of healthcare operations has been connected to a tech-enabled system. To realize the gains promised these networks need to be functional and reliable. Are your systems working like they’re supposed to? Or does the staff have the impression that ‘nothing works like it supposed to!’ Disconnected applications or unforeseen application issues can cause significant delays, frustrate staff, and waste valuable time. Applications and Integration monitoring can ensure those technology investments are pulling their weight and maximizing return, supporting clinical staff and powering seamless operations.

Healthcare worker burnout and moral injury are likely to be concerns into 2023 and beyond. Network reliability can be a source of frustration for clinicians, reliable systems are one component of providing a high quality experience, interfaces and tools that provide a better working environment will certainly be another. The proliferation of apps and tools to enhance user experience for both patient and clinician will likely continue, albeit at a slower rate than prior years. Having the best possible tools and apps can be a key strategy to keeping employees engaged and patient focused, whether it is a third party app or custom mobile and web applications, new solutions will continue to be front and center.

Over the past few years we have seen a massive shift in how healthcare is delivered, from a largely in-person environment toward more telehealth and virtual solutions than ever before. While there has been slowing in the market for many of these independent services, telehealth will continue to be a necessity for any health service moving forward. In a distributed clinical environment current systems may not be enough to have a fully functional clinic. EHRs optimized for in-person care may not work with distributed clinical staff, will other solutions be utilized? What portions of intake can be automated, how will those answers be populated into the EHR and get to right clinician at the right time? Is the right patient information populating over, medication history, allergies, radiology reports, the list can be daunting. If a new system is being implement over existing infrastructure ensuring adequate testing and integration will be key to enabling high quality patient care. Moving to a new EHR can pose even more challenges, migrating data is complex and requires a high degree of certainty. Managing these data sharing challenges will continue to be a priority as care becomes more distributed beyond a single physical site.

Maybe we’ll offer one prediction for 2023… Tido Inc. will be here and continue partnering with health systems and practices to face a challenging and changing technology landscape! Reach out today, we’re happy to work with you to face the healthcare challenges in this year, and beyond.

What’s on your wish list for the Holidays?

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Holidays Wish List for Healthcare

For many healthcare organizations software is a strategic priority for the coming year. According to a research paper by Klas Research and Bain & Company, 40% of provider organizations have software as their top strategic priority, for 80% it’s in their top three. Even for those provider organizations that did not list software as a strategic priority, 95% expect to make new software purchases.

Why a focus on software? Labor shortages are well known, physicians and other clinical staff are pressed to do more with fewer staff. Software can help ease administrative burdens, improve billing accuracy and receipts, as well as help clinical staff provide better and more accurate care faster to more patients. From the patient satisfaction perspective, the right software can improve patient engagement and experience from the first contact, improving outcomes and health.

According to he research linked above, Revenue Cycle, Security, Patient intake/flow, Clinical Systems and Telehealth were the top 5 solutions that provider organizations want to focus on. There are a lot of offerings out there promising solutions to these problems and many others. In the clinical space the internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, machine learning (ML) tools have exploded in the past few years, and there are more companies offering more solutions every day.

Beyond physician staff, nursing and other clinical support staff look to software and digital tools to improve care and coordination. Clinical staff want tools that work and ease their burden, allowing more time to focus on the patient’s that need care and attention. Nurses have been more vocal about getting the right tools for patient care, opinion pieces like this one in Nursing Times are appearing in forums more and more frequently.

Finding the right software is the first part of the challenge, and for clinicians the evaluation of software may be the easiest part to answer. There are still a variety of other questions that need to be answered before implementing a new solution. As anyone involved in healthcare knows, it’s never as easy as downloading an app from the Google Play Store.

Is the solution going to solve your problem?

How will the software be implemented?

Is the infrastructure in place to support the software?

Does the implementation require EHR integration?

Will it actually work when the switch is flipped to go live?

With any integration and roll-out there will always be more questions that come up during the process. All of these questions will need to be answered to ensure seamless integration and roll out of software packages. Patient care should be a seamless journey, so should software integration and upgrades. IT systems should work just as hard as the clinical staff to provide a seamless experience for all users.

Since 2007 Tido Inc. has a history of partnering with healthcare organizations and hospitals to help answer these questions and many more. Contact Tido Inc. to talk about their integration and test automation packages to leverage your existing infrastructure and maximize the ROI on software investments.

An app a day keeps the doctor away.

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Healthcare applications on phone

Apps for digital health are proliferating throughout the healthcare ecosystem. Not just consumer facing, apps for clinical teams are growing as well. EHR companies have their own app stores, there’s the SMART App Gallery, and more apps are being created every day for use by healthcare professionals. As federal regulations start to kick in, the proliferation of digital apps for clinical use is only likely to increase. According to the ONC research, it shows more than 20% rise in the number of apps that integrate with certified electronic health records (EHRs) at end of 2020. The number of new clinical and administrative apps with SMART on FHIR integration is increasing at a very rapid rate.

There are many benefits of apps used by clinicians, better patient care and engagement, increased efficiencies, time management, records access, clinical decision support, education and training are just some of the tools available in app stores today. They have the potential to help clinical staff perform and manage their day better, improving patient care and staff satisfaction. It is widely reported that clinical staffing is becoming an increasing challenge to healthcare organizations, frustration with ineffective or difficult technology is just one of the issues, and it can be an important barrier to enabling staff to provide the best possible care to patients.

While there is a lot of news focused on the shortages of nurses and doctors, IT teams are also feeling pressure. Competition for healthcare IT personnel is increasing, new digital app developers, virtual first practices, and existing brick and mortars are just some of the employers seeking to hire experienced IT staff. Is there a plan to maximize the expertise and focus of these teams? What is the core competency of the healthcare organization’s IT team? Is it new app development and integration, or is it ensuring a safe and secure IT network and connectivity of existing physical infrastructure?

Much like patient care has become highly specialized, IT teams are becoming more focused to respond to increasing threats and internally connected equipment. Additional resources are often not allocated to allow IT teams to focus on adding to digital apps to the clinical toolbox. Doctors and clinical staff asking for more tools and integrations can often get lost in all the background noise, or are just told “we don’t have the bandwidth for that right now”, especially if its a small specialized department. Does the organization want to hire and train a professional team to assist in one-off choices or development?

Apps and other tools that do not meet the needs of clinical staff are a wasted use of increasingly scarce resources. Anyone working in Healthcare IT or Biomedical engineering can tell you, clinical staff are very creative when it comes using tools and equipment. Nurses and doctors will find all sorts of new uses for existing tools and infrastructure that was never envisioned by the creators, or it just won’t be used at all. But, they also have great ideas for new tools to help make their job easier and better. An organization seeking to harness this creative energy will likely need help managing the myriad of choices, or the creation of new tools.

How are new apps implemented? How are they supported? Maybe the Physical Therapy team has an idea that will save hours per day, how do we get that developed? Maybe there’s an existing app out there? If healthcare organizations are looking to increase employee engagement and efficiency, these are questions that will need to be answered moving forward. Whether a smaller physician practice, or a large multi-hospital system, retaining and maximizing existing staff resources will be key to success in the current healthcare environment. Apps and other tools can help improve efficiency and effectiveness, but getting them done right is just as important as getting them in the first place.

Tido can help healthcare organizations manage these questions. Check out Tido’s Digital Apps Strategy and Management and Custom Mobile and Web Applications solutions. See how Tido can help healthcare organizations implement existing tools, or help to harness the power and creativity already inside.

Social Determinants of Health and Network Reliability… Is there a connection?

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Healthcare Virtual Visits

Are my cables crossed? Perhaps, but consider the different systems that can power payment and insurance verification.

For the majority of readers of this blog it is probably an inconvenience when insurance verification services are down, but for people with limited income, and little to no savings, this can be an insurmountable barrier to accessing healthcare.

Increasing the utilization and access to telehealth and virtual services is one of the goals of Healthy People 2030 to improve access and quality. While we have seen a proliferation of expanded virtual health options during Covid, there can still be barriers to accessing care beyond internet availability.

Virtual urgent care or virtual ER visits can vastly improve easy access to care with a connected smart phone to access these services. While this can still be a challenge for many, they are becoming far more ubiquitous and affordable than ever before. With a connected smart phone there is no need to take time off work, or travel to a physical location with an unknown wait time to seek care. Virtual visits can be powerful tools for those in society who are not economically stable, where each hour of pay is allocated to purchasing necessities.

Most virtual visits require upfront payment or insurance verification of coverage. This author’s recent experience to a virtual urgent care visit highlighted this. Due to a recent upgrade the health system’s insurance verification was unable to be completed, requiring a credit card and upfront payment of $70. I’m fortunate in that I have both readily available, but does everyone?

Submitting a claim to an insurance company is complicated, to put it mildly. It is highly unlikely this task could be completed easily on a smart phone. Factor in that reimbursement may not arrive before the credit card payment is due. Assuming the patient has access to a credit card, will they be able to pay that balance before reimbursement? If they have to wait until they receive reimbursement they are now subject to late fees and interest charges, which will quickly add up.

If the patient cannot pay the upfront costs, will they go somewhere else? Will they just delay care? Delaying care can lead to a downstream effect of worsening outcomes and greater expenses later on.

Studies regarding medical debt are focused on amounts greater than $250, like this study from Kaiser Family Foundation, and these large amounts can be devastating. But we also know from other studies that even small amounts of medical expenses can be enough to delay care or avoid care totally. Avoiding care can ultimately lead to more expenses and missed work later on. In the event care is paid for, what necessities may be skipped? Food? Rent payment? Vehicle Repairs? The downstream impacts can be significant.

Even as more American’s have been able to get health insurance, co-pays or up front payments can be still be a barrier to accessing the healthcare system. Automatic insurance verification is a good step toward reducing unnecessary up front payments, if it’s working. If it’s not working, it can be another barrier for those seeking healthcare.

Increasing access to care is a capability which many health systems are expanding. Once the resource is built, is it functioning as intended, or just creating another to barrier to care. Check out Tido’s end to end monitoring and digital apps test automation solutions. Ensure the most vulnerable customers are able to easily access high quality affordable care.

How to keep healthcare uninterrupted; staffing challenges

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healthcare applicationsAll health systems, no matter if they are small, medium, or large are dealing with increasing number of applications. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in every major sector, vastly increasing our reliance on technology to meet many of our daily needs. And healthcare is no exception! Our health systems have greatly expanded their digital footprint to better serve our patients, empowering them to perform routine tasks without leaving the comfort of their home—such as paying bills, requesting medication refills, and even receiving personal health updates digitally.

More than 30 percent of health systems are reporting that they can’t locate enough candidates to fill open positions, and all are feeling the effects of staffing shortages. Beyond recruiting, retention is even more difficult with the increase in turnover and employee burnout.

On top of this the applications that health system IT deals with are becoming increasingly complex. Most if not all applications whether it’s a desktop application, web, or mobile, integrate with each other to transfer information in real-time.  There are very few standalone applications in today’s integrated environment.

So we have increasing number of complex and integrated applications in a health system with fewer people to manage and support them. This presents a significant challenge for IT departments and can also impact patient care. Helpdesk ends up relying on end-users to report production application issues to start the process of diagnosing and resolving the issues. Reliance on manual identification and reporting causes significant delay in diagnosing and fixing issues. This interruption can impact patient safety and outcomes.

Currently, most healthcare organizations have basic monitoring in place for their digital assets, such as operating system errors and breaks in connectivity. However, typically there is no active end-to-end monitoring of the production environment that would catch issues in real-time and alert the appropriate staff proactively. To keep healthcare uninterrupted, we recommend using end-to-end monitoring of applications and interfaces in your production environment.

At Tido, we realized that there had to be a better way to proactively monitor applications and interfaces in production, to make IT staff aware of the issues immediately; before the end-users are even aware that there is an issue with the system. To address this ongoing problem, we have developed high-quality automated monitoring services for healthcare systems.

  • Tido’s monitoring framework uses Microsoft Azure Monitor to reduce reliance on manual reporting—helping to detect 95% of application and integration issues automatically in the production environment.
  • Tido’s end-to-end monitoring framework automates application, interfaces, and data checks in EHR and all downstream applications in the production environment: PACS, Pharmacy, LAB, Cardio, Ambulatory, and more.
  • Tido’s monitoring solution sends automated notifications to responsible parties and the IT help desk within seconds, alerting them about live application or interface issues to avoid unscheduled downtime and reduce patient safety issues.

Contact us to find out more about how your healthcare organization can subscribe to Tido’s end-to-end monitoring packages, to proactively maintain the quality of all the applications and interfaces in your digital health system and keep healthcare uninterrupted.

 

 

HIMSS Conference 2021 Review

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In the latest episode of This Week in Health Tech, Vik and Jimmy review the 2021 HIMSS Conference that took place in Las Vegas, NV.

Here is what they discussed:

  • “The main topic of the conference revolved around interoperability and digital integration, something that TWITH has been talking about for months!”
    • Jimmy and Vik discuss what the hot topics were at the conference this year. Since the onset of the pandemic, the digital transformation within the industry has been drastic. As value-based care and personalized care become more valued, it makes sense for organizations to invest in the right strategies and technologies. Vik delves into these strategies, focusing on integration between EHR’s, hospitals, and new innovative applications to provide the best user experience for patients and providers.
  • “I attended this years conference digitally and the digital experience could have been better.”
    • This years HIMSS conference was held in-person as well as virtually. Attendees were down from the usual 50,000-60,000 to around 18,000 participants. Vik explains to Jimmy that there was a web and mobile app for virtual attendance but overall virtual experience could have been better with more online sessions and interactive sessions. He elaborates on the limited number of digital sessions and the difficulty in connecting to these digital sessions.
  • “The number one reason to attend is networking.”
    • Jimmy asks Vik what he looks most forward to in attending these types of conferences. For Vik, its all about networking. He explains that there is great value in being able to talk with industry peers about what new technologies are coming out and what the future holds. For CIO’s, the conference allows for insight into outside perspectives within the industry, such as finance, marketing, etc.
  • “Can you walk us through what the virtual experience was like?”
    • HIMSS offered a mobile app that listed all the digital events and also a digital directory to find individuals. Vik explains that while it was easy to locate certain individuals, being able to connect with them directly was difficult. Vik states that a round-table session would have been preferred. Another criticism Vik talks about is how not all events were available digitally.

Listen to the full episode:

Click below to learn more about Tido’s Integration Packages:

Tido’s Integration Packages

Click below to learn more about Tido’s Digital Packages:

Tido’s Digital Packages

Accelerate Healthcare Digital Transformation with APIs

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In this episode of This Week in Health Tech, Vik and Jimmy discuss the basics of an API and its impact on digital transformation in health systems.

Here is what they discussed:

  • “What is an API?”
    • Vik explains to Jimmy  how APIs work together with other apps. APIs act like a bridge that connect different systems and make it easy to share data.
    • The digital transformation happening now requires APIs to be able to connect apps such as telehealth and remote monitoring.
  • “With the Cures Act coming from the government, health systems have to enable data sharing..”
    • COVID has certainly accelerated the digital transformation shift, but the shift had already been started. Vik explains the incentives for customers, healthcare, and the government to push for more data sharing, starting ultimately with better patient care.
  • “From a CIO standpoint, what do I need to have to run everything efficiently?”
    •  Vik states that its starts with having the correct strategy. This means being able to plan for the use APIs over the traditional approach for integration.
  • “Once you do all the hard work and have the infrastructure in place for APIs, then you can simply reuse it.”
    • Vik explains the pros of using APIs over traditional integration.
  • “What is the ROI for using APIs over the traditional approach?”
    • Vik explains the competitive advantage of using APIs over traditional integration, ranging from reduced work time to providing a better user experience for all parties involved.


Listen to the full episode:

 

Learn more about Tido’s Integration Packages:
Tido’s Integration Packages


Click below for more information regarding Tido’s test automation packages:

Test Automation Packages

The Inpatient Digital Experience

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In this episode of This Week in Health Tech, Vik and Jimmy are joined by Jeff Fallon, CEO and Chairman of eVideon, where they discuss the digital transformation happening to the hospital inpatient experience.

Here is what they discussed:

  • “About 75 percent of hospital rooms have not changed much since the 1970’s…”
    • Jeff and Vik discuss the current state of hospital rooms and how the digital transformation can be achieved in hospital rooms.
  • “Why now do you see this different approach for providing inpatient healthcare?”
    • Jimmy asks Jeff why the digital transformation has taken so long in healthcare. Jeff answers that the pandemic has certainly accelerated the transition, and compares it to the changes happening in telehealth. Jeff also mentions value-based care being a big driver for hospitals to make the change.
  • “The right approach is to provide an experience where the patient doesn’t feel like a guest in someone’s hospital.”
    • Vik brings up the idea of smart hospital rooms, and Jeff agrees that the technology is there to provide better patient engagement.
    • The use of smart TVs and smart speakers can help give patients more control over their experience in the hospital.
  • “It looks like eVideon is making a more interactive/pleasant experience for patients..”
    • Jimmy asks Jeff about how eVideon is providing an overall better inpatient experience. Jeff elaborates on the importance of providing entertainment for patients and being able to give patients control over what apps they want to use.
  • “You better have a smart digital strategy for all types of folks.”
    • Vik makes a good point that everyone is not on the same level when it comes to using technology. Jeff addresses this as well and comments that a smart digital strategy is one that can benefit everyone, regardless of an individual’s comfortability with technology.

Listen to the full episode:

Learn more about Tido’s Digital Packages:
Tido’s Digital Packages

Learn more about Tido’s Integration Packages:
Tido’s Integration Packages

eVideon Healthcare: https://www.evideon.com/

Patient Engagement and Digital Strategy During a Pandemic

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In this episode of This Week In Health Tech, Jimmy and Vik are joined by Alan Shoebridge, Director of Marketing for Salinas Valley Memorial Health System. The trio discuss implementing digital strategy during the current pandemic.

Here is what they discussed:

  • “We started the podcast because we wanted a better way to get the message out.”
    • With the rising number of cases, Alan and SVMH created a podcast to get the word out on COVID-19. The trio discuss why cases are rising and what needs to be done to slow it down.
  • “What are some of the strategies that healthcare providers can implement to inform the general public about the pandemic?
    • Jimmy asks Alan what providers are doing to put patients minds at ease. Alan elaborates on strategies that hospitals have implemented, including working together to deliver one strong message.
  •  “Let’s talk how you pivoted your digital strategy now that COVID is here.”
    • COVID has definitely accelerated digital transformation in the health space. Alan elaborates on pre-COVID digital strategies vs digital strategies today. Some challenges that Alan talks about include accessibility, in particular with different languages and differences in tech comfortability.
  • “What are your thoughts on the marketing and information being sent out during this time?”
    • Alan describes what good marketing and strategy looks like when dealing with patient engagement. Vik adds on that mobile services are one area that providers can shift their strategy towards.

Listen to the full episode:

Learn more about Tido’s Digital Packages:
Tido’s Digital Packages

Learn more about Tido’s Integration Packages:
Tido’s Integration Packages

Salina Valley Health Care System:

https://www.svmh.com/