Perspectives
Perspective:
CIO
Setting priorities
When surveyed, CIOs see improving care quality, Medicare cutbacks/managed care fee reductions and patient satisfaction as increasingly critical business drivers. It's not surprising, given that by 2011 there will be 14 times more CMS Core Measures and non-reimbursable conditions as there are today.
In response, CIOs list implementation of clinical information systems, medical error-reducing technology, and an EMR as number one, two, and three on their lists of IT priorities today with delivering clinical knowledge rising in importance. But satisfying these priorities won't be easy.
Feeling the economic sting
The economic downturn has pushed total margins into the red, turning investment gains to losses, further worsening hospitals' financial condition. Medicaid expenditures have increased with rising enrollment and dropping tax revenues. As the credit crunch increases, hospitals struggle to find financing for facility and technology improvements. Forty-five percent are delaying purchase of clinical technology; 39 percent are putting it off altogether.
Meeting the challenge
For CIOs, the challenge is using existing systems to satisfy upcoming care and data requirements. They need to give clinicians patient data in a format that can help them provide better care from the systems they already know. They need to change everything without changing anything. And what's the biggest challenges associated with those challenges? Adoption, systems integration, and funding — in that order.
Today's CIOs are change agents. Innovators. Visionaries. They have to be. Because as critical as it is to fight today's fires, it's even more important to have a plan and the systems to deal with what's coming tomorrow. The systems are there.
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Perspective:
Physician
So much clinical data, so little time
Doctors spend a third of their time recording and synthesizing information. Hospitals and IDNs spend a third of their costs on personal and professional communication. Data is not easy to come by. And it's getting more complicated every day: the biomedical knowledge base doubles every 19 years, which means that medical knowledge will increase fourfold during a physician's lifetime.
If you install them, they will come
Yet, when asked, 86 percent of physicians and 84 percent of nurses said clinical information technology will improve practice within the next few percent of them believe the technology that can have the most impact on quality already exists. Adoption happens — when the systems work.
The continuum of care is no place for gaps
Individually, the systems do work well. Collectively, they don't work at all. They're disjointed, so workflow is bumpy. They don't connect, so data is lost in transition. They provide atomistic data, so clinicians can't provide holistic care. But for all that's wrong with them, clinicians don't want to change the systems they use; they want to change the way they use them.
We can help. Talk to us.
Perspective:
Quality Manager
An explosion of measures
By 2009, the number of CMS Core Measures and non-reimbursable conditions will more than triple from nine to 30. By 2010, there will be 72; by 2011, there will be 127. Quality's direct impact on the bottom line has made improving it a board-level priority for many organizations. Hospital CEOs look to quality managers for review reports, metrics and targets with hospital leadership — whatever they need to read and react to the scorecards and regulatory agencies.
Technology in support of quality
Clinical systems collect and manage patient data. Financial systems collect payment and costing data. To support quality initiatives, hospitals and IDNs must link financial and clinical data to improve processes, inform strategic business decisions, support detailed business analysis and ensure compliance with quality measures.
The cost of care
Today, quality is both a clinical and financial imperative. Managing it requires the ability to correlate care to its cost. But how? With the increasing cost of care, the answer cannot be new systems. Existing systems must collect, connect and communicate quality and compliance data across systems, across departments, across care sites.
We can help. Talk to us.
Perspective:
CFO
The big issues
In a recent national survey, healthcare CFOs identified the seven most critical issues reshaping healthcare
- Rising costs
- Shrinking capital
- Physician retention
- Workforce supply and demand
- Quality and pay-for-performance
- Demand for new technologies
- Transparency and compliance
To help ensure the survival of their organizations, CFOs must stay ahead of the curve, initiating business transformation before public policy demands it.
The big challenges
CFOs must improve margins to support growth and ensure quality. Develop mutually beneficial relationships with physicians and encourage them to take ownership for quality. Manage a growing compliance agenda and integrate it into operations. And they must do it in a tight economy made tighter by recent downturns. With few options, CFOs are seeking greater consolidation of resources and ways to make the most of what they already have.
What price technology
Even if they could afford new technologies, CFOs don't always see significantly improved outcomes or return on investment for installing them. What they do see is a significant investment in existing systems and organizations willing to use them. What they would like to see is those systems operating in a new way — connected, integrated, effective.
We can help. Talk to us.
