Health IT Leaders Prioritize Care Efficiency and Organizational Productivity
Now more than ever, healthcare IT executives are under immense pressure to leverage technology deployments to increase efficiency.
At the Scottsdale Institute Annual Conference in Arizona earlier this year, “digital health and the patient experience” and “IT cost containment and value realization” were among the top priorities discussed by hospital CIOs. Attendees talked about the need to simultaneously better serve their patients and improve the value of care delivered while also getting the most out of their investments.
Organizations today take a variety of approaches in the quest to maximize productivity and care efficiency.
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Healthcare IT Leaders Prioritize Data and Time
For North County Health Services, based in San Marcos, Calif., and serving 65,000 patients across 13 clinics annually, network reliability is key to supporting clinicians in the delivery of patient care. The organization turned to software-defined WAN technology to ensure constant connectivity and support for its nearly 800 users. The deployment allows NCHS to set policies regarding network traffic and to prioritize specific users and applications, such as data coming to and from the electronic health record application.
At Vidant Health in Greenville, N.C., videoconferencing solutions enable cancer specialists to remotely attend monthly tumor boards. That decreases the amount of time spent traveling and increases the time available to see patients.
Meanwhile, former National Coordinator for Health IT Dr. Karen DeSalvo, now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, believes that providers can improve the quality and efficiency of care delivery by using technology to leverage information around social determinants of patient health.
As the industry looks to reward providers for the quality of care they deliver to patients, efficiency will only grow as a priority.
