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Red Carpet Customer Service: User Experience (UX) & Customer Experience (CX) in Healthcare Information Technology

We all know how important the user experience (UX) is in designing and evolving a healthcare information technology solution. We know that it’s important to design health IT solutions that are easy and intuitive to navigate and provide users with the information they seek.

Of course, as a healthcare data analytics technology company, we certainly appreciate and are mindful of the user experience when designing new products and evolving our existing solutions. But what about the human side of the user experience – the customer experience (CX)? In today’s uber-techie world, many companies are foregoing high-touch CX experiences in favor of email support, live chat and other technology-enabled support. And, for some products, that works just fine.

But for an industry like ours where we are serving healthcare analysts up to the C-suite within healthcare systems who rely on our data for business decisions with multi-million-dollar impact, support can’t end at UX. UX must be tied to meaningful customer experience (CX) to create a red carpet customer service approach.

Defining User Experience (UX)

UX is the customer’s experience with the technology, in our case our claims data analytics solution. UX is centered solely around the solution’s usability, structure, navigation and ease-of-use – all highly important. The ultimate goal of UX boils down to designing a product that efficiently and enjoyably meets the user’s needs.

Defining Customer Experience (CX)

Whereas UX is confined to the user’s experience within the technology, CX is broader in scope to include the customer’s experience with all aspects of the company, including:

• Customer service
• The sales process
• Pricing
• Branding and marketing
• Company operations
• Product delivery and updates

UX + CX = The Ultimate User Experience

Before the fancy UX and CX acronyms for user and customer experience came around, at Intellimed – for 35+ years – we have been rooted in two things:

• Providing the best-managed and most insightful claims data in the industry
• Offering a high touch solution-focused customer service experience

So, CX has long been part of our DNA. With our newest product IntelliMarket™, we are adding additional emphasis on UX with the goal of providing a customer experience that merges the best of both user and customer experience.

Here are some ways we have and will continue to support the full user experience:

• Multiple points of contact:Our clients have access to not just their designated account representative, but to multiple points of contact within our company, including developers; data specialists; sales and operations; as well as our management team.Two of our company’s core values are to be relationship-focusedand responsive. To that end, we work hard to make it as easy as possible for our customers to reach who they need to reach for what they need when they need to – they do not need to go through layers of support wasting their time and energy.
• Client-focused mindset:We are always asking the question “How can we make our clients’ jobs easier?” Being a data analyst within a hospital system comes with stress and pressure. From managers up to the C-suite, people are relying on the data teams to deliver insights from our solutions to inform strategic business decisions. We strive to stay in touch our analysts and ask questions to understand their pain points. We know first-hand that data teams have slept overnight at their jobs and worked long weekends to meet data deadlines for critical reporting. When we receive an SOS from an analyst, we take it seriously and collaborate until the problem is resolved or the necessary information is in-hand – hopefully avoiding as many long nights and weekends at the office, as possible.

Collaborative Product Development:

IntelliMarket™ was developed in collaboration with our customers, who helped create the use cases, test the product and provide critical feedback. As we iterate IntelliMarket™ as well as our original IntelliClient™  solutions, we will continue to seek our customer’s critical input along the way.

Nathan Schnell is Vice President of Service Delivery at Intellimed. 

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Intellimed Volunteer Day with Feed My Starving Children

Intellimed Volunteer Day with Feed My Starving Children

Our team had a great time taking a day off this week to volunteer with Feed My Starving Children, a national organization dedicated to providing nutritious meals to children worldwide. While we all work hard at Intellimed and it’s not always easy to find time to take a day to volunteer like this, we always find it’s well worth it for the contributions made and time together as a team.

Here’s the stats from our volunteer day:

• 214 boxes packed
• 46,224 meals
• 126 kids feed for a year

By Admin

Predictive Analytics in Healthcare: Trends, Challenges and Why We Need It

Predictive Analytics in Healthcare: Trends, Challenges and Why We Need It

Data from the National Academy of Medicine shows that the U.S. healthcare system spends $750 billion annually – almost a third of its resources – on unnecessary services and inefficient care.

Predictive analytics tools, long used in other industries like retail to forecast the likelihood of an event, are one of the critical tools for reducing healthcare waste and improving patient care and outcomes.

A 2017 survey by the Society of Actuaries looked at the trends in use and future use of predictive analytics in healthcare:

• 57% of executives (providers and payers) forecast predictive analytics will save their organization 15% or more over the next 5 years, with 26% forecasting saving 25% or more over the next five years.
• 47% of providers currently use predictive analytics.
• 93% say predictive analytics is important to the future of their business.
• Providers cite patient satisfaction as the most valuable outcome for using predictive analytics.
• Payers cite controlling costs as the most valuable outcome for use of predictive analytics.

Despite what seems like strong support from this data, there are major barriers to the adoption of predictive analytics in healthcare.

Challenges to Using Predictive Analytics in Healthcare

The top 5 challenges for implementing predictive analytics from the Society of Actuaries study are:

• Lack of budget – 16%
• Regulatory issues (e.g. HIPAA) – 13%
• Incomplete data – 12%
• Lack of skilled employees – 11%
• Lack of sufficient technology – 10%

In addition, a recent Harvard Business Review article notes that the success of predictive analytics in healthcare depends less on the tool used and more on the buy-in at all levels of an organization from the start. The authors cite the following major challenges:

• Engaging the right people from the outset – Whether the tool is developed in-house or purchased off-the-shelf, the right people should be involved in the process, with a multi-disciplinary team comprised of clinical, analytics, data science, information technology and behavior change skill sets.
• Change agents and clinical champions – Change agents are essential to successfully implementing predictive analytics, particularly for sustaining its usage. These individuals often work alongside clinicians to map workflows and identify changes and new processes. In addition, clinical champions are a must to promote the tool among their clinical peers.
• C-suite commitment – Frontline buy-in is essential, but without the full commitment of the C-suite, predictive analytics won’t take off or be fully utilized. Identifying measures that resonate with management is important, such as financial penalties associated with hospitals readmissions.

Why Implement Predictive Analytics in Healthcare?

As noted in the HBR article, “Implementing predictive analytics is a means to an end – where the end should represent an improvement in health or health care outcomes, including lower costs.”

Additional major reasons as noted in Hospitals & Health Networks include:

• Success in the shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, which may be impossible without the use of predictive analytics, along with data warehousing and integration.
• Being able to understand a healthcare system’s current state is a must for being able to forecast a desired future state and associated plan to get there.
• The ability to get in front of healthcare consumer trends.
• Supporting population health initiatives.
• Improving patient care: reducing hospital readmissions, reducing hospital stays, anticipate staff needs and more.

Ultimately, predictive analytics in healthcare is about translating data and science into practical applications to solve complex clinical and business problems that improve care and control costs. The end game? Strategic, cost-effective high-value care.

By Admin

U.S. Hospital and Medical Associations’ Positions on the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), Healthcare Senate Bill

U.S. Hospital and Medical Associations’ Positions on the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), Healthcare Senate Bill

In my effort to stay current this week on the ever-moving Senate healthcare bill reform effort – the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BRCA) – I’ve been tracking the opinions coming from the major U.S. healthcare associations, notably the hospital and medical groups.

Just shortly before and after the much-anticipated analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Monday, letters to the Senate, press releases and other statements began pouring in regarding the BRCA.

CBO analysis on Monday found that:

• The Senate bill would increase the number of people who are uninsured by 22 million in 2026 relative to the number under current law, slightly fewer than the increase in the number of uninsured estimated for the House-passed legislation.
• By 2026, an estimated 49 million people would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.
• CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that, over the 2017-2026 period, enacting this legislation would reduce direct spending by $1,022 billion and reduce revenues by $701 billion, for a net reduction of $321 billion in the deficit over that period

The full CBO analysis can be found here.

As of today, here’s a roundup of where the various groups stand. Our intent is not to take a political position in this article, but rather to provide a roundup of hospital and medical association’s stance on the BRCA at this time.

Hospital Associations’ Positions on BCRA, Senate Healthcare Bill

American Hospital Association

In a public statement issued by Rick Pollack, President and CEO of the American Hospital Association, he stated:

Unfortunately, the draft bill under discussion in the Senate moves in the opposite direction, particularly for our most vulnerable patients. The Senate proposal would likely trigger deep cuts to the Medicaid program that covers millions of Americans with chronic conditions such as cancer, along with the elderly and individuals with disabilities who need long-term services and support. Medicaid cuts of this magnitude are unsustainable and will increase costs to individuals with private insurance. We urge the Senate to go back to the drawing board and develop legislation that continues to provide coverage to all Americans who currently have it.

National Rural Health Association

Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association (NRHA), said, “Members of Congress seem to be working toward a solution that perhaps makes things even worse.” NRHA has acknowledged that while the goals of the ACA were laudable, the legislation has failed in part to provide for the needs of health care in rural America.

A statement issued by Erin Mahn Zumbrun, NRHA’s Government Affairs & Policy Manager further expanded on NRHA’s position of the Senate bill:

While the bill appears to have some changes from the House version, the bill maintains some of the provisions that led to NRHA’s opposition. NRHA is disappointed that the bill includes deep Medicaid cuts that change the program from an open-ended federal commitment to a capped federal payment that limits federal spending, leaving either states, patients, or providers to struggle with the loss of funds.

The Medicaid expansion is also eliminated, being phased out over a four-year period from 2020 to 2024. Tax credits to assist individuals in purchasing insurance remain but are substantially reduced, likely leading to many more individuals unable to afford health insurance. The bill also repeals billions of taxes included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to pay for the coverage expansion, as well as eliminating the individual and employer mandates.

Federation of American Hospitals

On the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) blog on June 22, the association stated its position on the BCRA:

Most providers and clinicians, including FAH, are deeply concerned by the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) discussion draft released today.  The opportunity is still there for the Senate to make critical revisions to keep the promise of accessible, affordable health care coverage and ensure Medicaid remains a viable program because it is essential to our most vulnerable neighbors. FAH has been explicit about our health reform core principles: maintain coverage levels, reasonable Medicaid structural reforms, sustain affordable, high quality individual coverage, protect employer-sponsored insurance and roll back untenable cuts to hospital reimbursement.  At this time, the BCRA draft does not sufficiently meet those principles which are so important to those Americans our community hospitals serve and our employees who care for those patients every day. Now is the time for the Senate to hit reset and make key improvements to this legislation. 

America’s Essential Hospitals

A press release issued on June 22 by America’s Essential Hospitals on BRCA stated:

Senate leaders today have put ideology ahead of lives with a plan that puts health and home at risk for millions of working Americans and that would badly weaken essential services for everyone in communities across the country.

Today’s Senate bill makes few material improvements to the deeply damaging House legislation, and might be worse overall. For the hospitals that protect millions of Americans and their communities — our essential hospitals — this bill might even accelerate decisions by some to reduce services or close their doors.

This could leave many people without local sources of lifesaving services, such as trauma, burn, and neonatal intensive care.

America’s Essential Hospitals stands by two guiding principles: affordable health care coverage for all Americans and sufficient resources for essential hospitals to meet their vital community mission. The Senate plan violates both principles and will make our nation sicker, less productive, and less secure.

We oppose this plan and appeal to senators to consider the needs of all Americans and work with us and other stakeholders — in an open and transparent process — to fix what’s wrong with our health care system while preserving progress made toward coverage and stability for all.

Medical Associations’ Positions on BCRA, Senate Healthcare Bill

American Medical Association

In a letter issued by the AMA CEO James Madara to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the BCRA on June 26, Madara wrote:

On behalf of the physician and medical student members of the American Medical Association (AMA), I am writing to express our opposition to the discussion draft of the “Better Care Reconciliation Act” released on June 22, 2017. Medicine has long operated under the precept of Primum non nocere, or “first, do no harm.” The draft legislation violates that standard on many levels. We believe that Congress should be working to increase the number of Americans with access to quality, affordable health insurance instead of pursuing policies that have the opposite effect.

The full letter can be read here.

American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American Osteopathic Association and the American Psychiatric Association

In a joint press release on BRCA issued June 22 by the above six major medical groups stated:

The physician leaders of six organizations representing more than half a million of America’s frontline physicians are strongly opposed to the Better Care Reconciliation Act. The U.S. Senate’s proposed health reform bill contains provisions that would do great harm to patients by repealing and undermining essential coverage and key patient protections established by the Affordable Care Act and make health care unaffordable for millions of Americans.

Given the broad impact of this bill and the magnitude of the changes made, including to the Medicaid program, our organizations are deeply concerned with the hidden and hurried manner with which this bill was drafted. We are concerned that no public hearings were held and no physician or patient expertise was sought during the bill’s development.

Payer Perspectives on BRCA

A spokesperson for America’s Health Insurance Plans told The Hill in a recent article, “We are not taking a support or oppose position.”

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which represents insurers covering more than 100 million Americans stated in the same article, “We are encouraged that the draft Senate legislation funds cost-sharing reductions.”

Bill Goodwin is CEO of INTELLIMED, a leading healthcare analytics company.

By Admin

Healthcare Cybersecurity: The Current Landscape and Critical Prevention Steps

Healthcare Cybersecurity: The Current Landscape and Critical Prevention Steps

Last month Ascension Health, which runs Seton Healthcare Family hospital network in Austin, TX, announced that a computer virus was discovered on its computer network.

Seton’s response? They shut down around 3,600 devices as a precautionary measure while the incident was investigated. Fortunately, Seton was prepared for such a cyberattack, implemented a fast response and was able to reduce the impact of the attack.

Cybersecurity continues to rank a major concern for healthcare executives. HealthIT Security recently reported that with two years of a steadily increasing cyber threat landscape with record number of patient records compromised, health organizations extorted financially and hospital operations disrupted, things will continue to be challenging in this space.

Furthermore, on average, a single cyberattack instance costs a whopping $4 million.

Digital transformation is fueling changes to security strategies and is rapidly occurring and reshaping all businesses, including healthcare. In a recent Forbes Insight report entitled Enterprises Re-Engineer Security in the Age of Digital Transformation, 69% of senior executives surveyed believe that digital transformation is forcing them to rethink their cybersecurity strategies.

The Forbes Insight report notes the following four assets executives cited as most important to protect against a security breach:

• Corporate financial information
• Customer information
• Brand reputation
• R&D and other intellectual property

The report notes the following technologies with the biggest security implications:

• Public-cloud software
• Big data applications
• Mobile business applications
• Hybrid clouds

At INTELLIMED, a healthcare IT data analytics company, we provide data that becomes part of a hospital’s larger big data set. We know how important protecting data is, notably around patient privacy and safety.

A January 2017 article in HealthcareITNews notes the following as critical steps for healthcare systems to take to reduce their vulnerability to cyberattacks, according to security experts:

• Risk Assessments – With the limited funding most healthcare organizations experience, risk assessments help identify what most needs protected.
• Disaster Recovery and Contingency Plans – These plans should include not only medical and billing records, but contingencies for email, departments reliant upon the network and departments with high-tech equipment like lab, pharmacy or imaging.
• Dedicated Sec-Op Teams – These dedicated teams handle security, hunt threats, educate staff and perform pen tests.
• Business Associate/Vendor Security – Proper vetting of vendors’ risk assessment, requirement of indemnification provisions and cybersecurity insurance in business associate agreements along with selecting vendors with a demonstrated track record with ‘security by design.’
• Employee Training – Simplifying the education so it’s easy to remember and practicing the action plan for an attack often. Create a secure-aware organization with customizable digital online cyber security training.
• Layered Defense – Looking to target areas where layers of cyber defense can be added.
• Improved Tech Hygiene – System upgrades and patches should be kept up-to-date and routinely checked to minimize system vulnerabilities.
• Cybersecurity Partnerships – Finding the right partners can greatly reduce the chances for attack and increase the cybersecurity strategy.
• Better Software – A short list of technologies includes next-generation firewalls, advanced malware detection, email and web gateways, multi-factor authentication, encryption, vaulting solutions and outsourcing security information and event management.
• Forensic Consultants – Before a crisis does occur, it’s good to have a forensic consultant on-hand to provide insights on weaknesses, liabilities and security reports.

The earlier referenced Forbes Insight report notes the four areas as primary initiatives undertaken by organizations to be less attractive to hackers, which aligns with the recommendations from HealthcareITNews.

• Expanded vulnerability discovery and breach remediation
• Invested in employee security training
• Upgraded or introduced antivirus software, anti-malware software or intrusion detection/prevention systems
• Put more resources into defending against zero-day exploits

The report notes these areas for the highest security investments in the near-term:

IT and automated patching systems

• Cloud-based security tracking and management systems based on data analysis
• Break detection systems
• Data protection and compliance, such as encryption and data-loss prevention systems

Cybersecurity within all industries, including healthcare is a never-ending challenge as well as a moving target. It’s worth a final note that while this article focuses more on the technological issues around cybersecurity, preventing cyberattacks has as much to do with culture and organizational structure as it does with technology.

Nathan Schnell serves on INTELLIMED’s leadership team as vice president of service delivery, where he focuses on providing stellar customer service to clients, expanding products and market growth.

By Admin

Big Data in Other Industries & Lessons for Healthcare

Big Data in Other Industries & Lessons for Healthcare

While other industries like retail and entertainment have been able to leverage big data in impressive ways, healthcare has struggled to do so. Issues unique to the healthcare system do, however, make leveraging big data for better business intelligence a challenge:

• A fragmented system of providers
• Dated and/or inadequate IT infrastructure
• HIPAA and other regulatory concerns
• Interoperability challenges
• Lack of standardized data

Let’s look at other industries and the role of big data in them and some examples of similar activity within the healthcare industry.

The Internet of Things

A recent Forbes article predicts that the Internet of Things (IoT) – fueled by big data – is and will continue to revolutionize retail:

• 73% of retailers rate managing big data as important or business critical to their operations.
• 78% of retailers say it is important or business-critical to integrate e-commerce and in-store experiences, so an omnichannel experience is delivered to every customer.
• By 2021, 70% of retailers are planning investments in the IoT to bring greater visibility into supply chain operations to alleviate out-of-stocks and optimize selections based on customer preferences as well as give a greater voice to customers and improve the customer experience.
• By 2021, nearly 79% of retailers will be able to customize the store visit for customers as a majority of them will know when a specific customer is in the store.

Connecting the dots between the IoT and healthcare, a HIMSS article highlights three ways the IoT can improve healthcare in ways not unlike the world of retail:

• Operational Efficiency: Anyone who works in healthcare knows that operational issues from tracking patients to managing inventory, equipment and time (to name just a few) are big challenges. Implementing solutions such as RFID and mobile scanners connected with cloud technology can help alleviate and even resolve many of these challenges. It can help hospitals and their people have the resources on hand when and where they need them and avoid overstocking. Real-time location systems (RLTS) also have dozens of different uses within healthcare, from tracking and locating patients to keeping track of expensive medical equipment.
• Improved Patient Care: Better allocating time to patient care versus manual tasks like documentation can be assisted with mobile devices and wearable technologies with comprehensive electronic medical records stored on them. These tools can help clinicians spend less time doing needless testing, asking redundant questions and eliminating errors.
• Leadership and Innovation: Healthcare organizations can use big data to find common patterns and anticipate what’s on the horizon. IoT technologies can help the healthcare industry improve performance and innovation.

Big Data for Better Patient Experiences

In retail, market-basket analysis, customer segmentation and centralized customer data and intelligence are the top tech initiatives retailers are prioritizing. Within healthcare, similar tech priorities will be needed to meet patients’ expectations and for healthcare organizations to stay competitive.

Here are a few interesting examples that we found where healthcare systems are leveraging big data for better patient experiences.

An article from Kaiser highlights how hospitals in Alameda County (San Francisco, CA) – fueled by a desire to avoid hospital readmission penalties – are teaming up to share patient health records and other data in real time among their emergency departments to prevent frequent ER visits. The effort is also focused on better serving patients who do visit multiple ERs by sharing data to prevent duplicate testing and other services.

Another example of improving the customer experience and providing better care is taking place at The University of Pennsylvania. Oncologists and data scientists are digging into patient data to generate a formula to predict ER visits among oncology patients. They are using big data to prevent cancer patients from needing to go to the emergency room by developing alerts that prompt physicians to intervene earlier and provide service at a clinic or at home.

On a population health level, as a diagnostic tool, big data allows doctors to build patient profiles and diagnostic maps for diseases and disorders. Diseases as common as the common cold to large-scale epidemics and pandemics can be better treated and managed.

An example of this can be seen in the Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2014, where big data was used to combat Ebola’s spread. The effort started with mobile mapping, allowing the CDC and Swedish non-profit Flowminder to both map typical population movement patterns as well as measure where cases seemed to be popping up. By tracking sources of calls to helplines, they could understand and predict outbreak locations. 

Summary

Given the pace of technological advances across all industries, it’s only a matter of time before big data transforms healthcare as it has and continues to do in other industries. Healthcare has some unique challenges to overcome. But, as you can see by the examples we’ve shared here, innovative healthcare systems are already leveraging the power of big data to improve their operations, patient care and bottom line.

Bill Goodwin is CEO of INTELLIMED, a leading healthcare analytics company.