"Fighting fire with fire."
Above is a term we have all heard at one point or another. But, have you ever thought it could apply to the healthcare industry? Let's breakdown what many provider organizations will face in 2013:
Fire #1: The rising cost of care
We are now seeing new payment structures that focus on quality and outcomes, rather than quantity. This has caused a frantic rush for many healthcare organizations to understand the true cost of care across the continuum as opposed to just in individual silos. What else has it caused? Limitations on a revenue cycle management strategy that finds itself in a system of outcome-based payments.
Fire #2: The rate of change
The number of new systems, structures, incentives, partners, payers, and data could be overwhelming to many. Information technology, accountable care organizations, business intelligence, decision support...the list goes on and on. The question is, will your healthcare organization welcome these changes and leverage them? Or will you refuse to take action and be left behind?
Example: hospital-acquired or healthcare-associated infections (HAI) cost the American healthcare system over $30 billion annually. A hospital in Indiana tackles this problem by pushing real-time information from the medical laboratory to the appropriate individual. How? By using the hc1.com Healthcare Relationship Management solution, they now can pinpoint infection patterns as quickly as possible, enabling them to prevent outbreaks and thereby reduce the number of infections.
Healthcare organizations can fight back against the rising cost of care by using one of these new technologies or systems now available to our industry. Listen to these new ideas, take the appropriate action, fight this fire with a new fire that can build a different and better healthcare system.
To see more on this topic, read Dan Michelson's post "Commentary: Healthcare's perfect fire" from Healthcare IT News.
To learn more about the hc1.com lab CRM and healthcare Business Intelligence solution, view this 2-minute video.
