In episode 3 of this series, I shared the pillars of a new, expanded Hippocratic Code updated for today’s information-driven healthcare. The Code includes four mission-critical tenets: Quality care and patient safety, care access, outcomes, and investment-responsible cost of care. While many organizations use their financial statements to evaluate their success in providing patient care, financial reports poorly measure how effectively organizations excel in honoring the tenets of the Code.
Healthcare is a Business
I understand that healthcare is a business, but the most successful companies, even not-for-profits, deliver high-quality products and services while generating positive cash flow. This excess cash helps expand services and upgrade systems. Industries from retail to banking to transportation expanded their use of information technology to increase worker productivity and the quality of their product and service offerings. Better use of IT led to improved cash flow and increased investment in their businesses.
While healthcare significantly increased its investment in information technology due to the subsidies provided by the HITECH Act, many organizations only use these systems to digitize existing processes and workflows. Therefore, these providers have yet to realize the potential benefits offered by these systems.
Healthcare information technology tools can help deliver investment-responsible care while guiding your organization away from doing things that are costly, harmful, counterproductive, or a waste of time, to either the patient or provider. It is time for healthcare to embrace these IT tools to change how we do things and allow our organizations to advance the tenets of the new Hippocratic Code.
Time for Change
I propose we adopt revolutionary healthcare IT, which offers clinicians, researchers, and administrators potent tools to drive clinical and administrative processes so every organization can deliver high-quality, safe, accessible, and investment-responsible medical care to their patients. The more we practice healthcare that encompasses the Hippocratic Code tenets, the more likely we will find ourselves doing more with less while producing better outcomes.
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