Leveraging technology to increase care coordination in healthcare
Danielle K Miller
Infor Healthcare, USA
: Androl Gynecol: Curr Res
Abstract
Health Information Technology (HIT) offers hospitals and healthcare systems the tools that integrate data from a clinical, financial, and operational perspective that yields analytical insight into their healthcare organizations. Leveraging technology to manage labor costs can be used by collecting the data from the electronic medical records that drive clinical staffing and clinical assignments to deliver superior patient, clinical and financial outcomes. Technology can be leveraged by healthcare organizations as they pursue the quadruple aim, which includes adding the goal of improving the work life of health care providers, comprising clinicians and staff, as well as seeking better cost, quality and outcomes. This allows for an increase in the coordination of care across all continuums. Healthcare organizations need a strategic clinical and operational plan to assist them in their efforts to optimize patient outcomes, improve employee satisfaction and maximize revenue. This can be accomplished by leveraging technology to increase the care coordination received in patient care. Implementing a solution will allow your organization to operate at maximum efficiency. Increased engagement with the patient throughout their continuum of care and increased communication amongst the entire healthcare team leads to better patient outcomes. The increasing advances and development of technology in health care offer the opportunity for increased availability of data to drive operations and the potential to support evidence-based management decisions (Hyun, et al, 2008). As challenges continue to rise, there is an enormous opportunity to leverage technology to provide better patient care to patients and improve clinical outcomes using real time, actionable data. Combining the best science-driven processes with patented technology and years of experience provides a solution that allows you to decrease turnover, improve performance, streamline hiring processes, and reduce risk. Once you have hired the right person, you can base staffing decisions on matching patients with the best healthcare providers who possess clinical competencies and behaviors that match the unique care needs of your patients. Patient characteristics play a large role in acuity-based staffing as not all patients with the same disease or disorder have the same needs (Mensik, 2014). Technology allows for evidenced based staffing with a real time clear visibility and tools into the individual and unique needs of patients where front line leaders can make more efficient and effective staffing decisions that are data-driven to help optimize outcomes. This allows for better and more informed staffing decisions that have an enormous financial and clinical impact on the organization. Optimal staffing should be based on the needs of the patients. Those needs extend beyond those that can be captured in a typical patient classification system. Unfortunately, a patient classification system may not be accurate enough to be used for resource allocation or for decision making (Fasoli, Fincke & Haddock, 2011). The standard patient classification systems fail to adequately capture the workload of the nurse or accurately predict the nurse staffing requirements needed to provide great patient care. When deciding on technological tools for clinical decision support, it is important to choose tools that are valid and reliable. Utilizing an evidenced based methodology to determine patient needs and staffing requirements, healthcare organizations can provide their front-line clinicians with support to staff and manage communication care requirements for each patient. Managers will have the data they need to build budgets, and leaders will have the data they need to help maintain equitable workloads. Finance can easily align patient workload requirements to the organization’s fiscal standards, while IT can interface with applications to meet system requirements that meet the needs of the patients.
Biography
Danielle K Miller is the Chief Nursing Officer of Clinical Applications at Infor Healthcare. She has almost 15 years of experience in nursing. She began her career in obstetrics, earning National Certification and became a published author in her specialty. She is an international speaker and presenter, lending her expertise and thought leadership on leveraging technology to impact patient care and patient outcomes. She has also worked as a Clinical Nurse Educator for the University of Chicago Medical Center and was a Visiting Professor at Chamberlain College of Nursing. She has received her Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University and a Master of Science degree in Nursing from Chamberlain College of Nursing. She is currently a PhD candidate at Capella University. Danielle.Miller@infor.com
