Let me start with what I define as revolutionary healthcare information technology. It offers clinicians, researchers, and administrators potent tools to drive the clinical and administrative processes to deliver high-quality, safe, accessible, and investment-responsible medical outcomes. Note that I include administrators in my definition. Administrators keep our business and partnerships intact and thriving with payers and government agencies. Although there may be friction, the clinical-administrative relationship must be nurtured as rigorously as the clinician-patient relationship.
Six Part Platform
Successfully achieving the desired outcomes requires us to focus on specific objectives. I call these the revolutionary HIT platform, which has six parts.
- First and most important is devoting the proper time to each patient. The patient’s needs, not reimbursement, should determine how long we spend with a patient.
- Second, we all know that computers have no bedside manner. Although essential in the delivery of healthcare, tasks that computers are good at should be handled by computers. Similarly, activities that demand the human touch require doctors and nurses.
- Third, workflows are the way we get things done. Processes guide our workflows toward our organization’s objectives. Having both clinical and administrative workflows in synch gives us more effective, efficient business process management.
- Fourth, sound business process management always results from implementing healthcare information technology.
- Fifth, better integration of healthcare IT makes better outcomes more consistently possible.
- And sixth, revolutionary healthcare information technology uses analytics to improve processes, facilitates evidence-based medicine at the point of care, and affirms the workflows to guide clinicians to the best outcomes.
Defined Methodology
Using this platform, I developed a methodology that organizations can follow to plan their use of healthcare IT to improve outcomes. The methodology leverages analytics to assess pertinent data and guide the clinician and patient to achieve a positive result.
Metrics assigned to a particular process allow us to evaluate, learn from, and then integrate meaningful change within that process for the highest quality of care achieved at an investment-responsible cost. This approach leads to more efficient and effective processes and workflows, improving patient care.
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