Catering to unceasing challenging situations and maintaining sanity control over senses are a few of the intrinsic characteristics of a daunting nursing occupation. Similarly, the nursing staff cannot utterly overlook the attendants of the patients and strictly deny their participation in attaining inclusive patient care. Thus, nurses are required to adeptly handle issues related to patients’ family members as well.
Apart from providing tailored service, nurses can play an active role in empowering patients and their attendants towards an extended rehabilitation process. For instance, nurses need to identify and disentangle barriers to a patient’s treatment. In addition, nurses should cultivate a conducive environment for the sake of patients. Similarly, engaging close associates to satisfy certain patients’ personalized needs can help achieve healthcare objectives holistically.
Hence, nurses’ contribution is vital to ensure patients’ well-being does not get compromised due to a tug of the war-like situation among different players. The following sections further explore what strategies nursing professionals should adopt to avoid such bottlenecks.
Acquire in-depth knowledge of the prerequisites
While addressing and resolving society’s diverse medical requirements, trainee nurses need to update and expand their awareness. Likewise, to execute medical procedures more efficiently, it is equally essential for learner nurses to adapt to socio-cultural and familial norms.
Hence, to efficiently understand and deliver as per healthcare-related requirements of the society, beginner-level nursing individuals should pursue advanced academic programs. Apart from that, advanced terminal degree programs like Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) can empower practicing nurses to make an impactful contribution to the overall healthcare sector.
Harris Healthcare’s Data Integrity Solution Business Unit – which includes patient data integrity powerhouses Just Associates, Inc., and QuadraMed Corporation – have entered a strategic partnership with RightPatient to integrate biometric patient identification into its existing suite of master patient index (MPI) management solutions.
Doing so provides important protections against front-end contamination of the MPI and EMPI and helps eliminate the patient misidentification and safety issues created by “dirty” patient identification data. This is especially important now as spikes in remote patient registrations due to COVID-19 have led to a sharp increase in duplicate patient records.
“Biometric protections from RightPatient perfectly complement our existing suite of patient data integrity solutions by guarding against creation of new duplicate and overlaid patient records at the point of registration, while we focus on creating and maintaining a pristine MPI/EMPI environment and supporting rapid and accurate patient identification,” said Lora Hefton, executive vice president of the Harris Data Integrity Solution (DIS) Business Unit. “This partnership advances our ability to address key health information issues by reducing the volume of potential duplicate medical records while securing patient information and minimizing the ongoing cost of maintaining quality patient data.”
Mohu Sultana, CEO of RightPatient adds: “We live in a very uncertain time. Increased cybersecurity threats put hospitals at risk of losing millions of dollars due to medical identity theft. The long-term impact of COVID-19 is also a critical factor in properly treating patients as we move forward – hospitals must know who is who to ensure proper treatment plans. Reliable patient identification is more important than ever. Our partnership with Harris demonstrates the commitment of both organizations to protecting the entire community against financial loss while ensuring patient safety.”
RightPatient provides the healthcare industry with the most accurate, scalable, hygienic, and versatile HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based photo biometric patient identification service that also publishes patient photos in health records, wristbands, and other applications to improve patient safety.
With easy implementation and seamless integration into any electronic health record (EHR) system – including the SmartID Platform from QuadraMed – RightPatient solutions reduce denied claims, lower medical errors because of misidentification, and prevent duplicate medical records. They also ensure accurate patient identification at any point along the care continuum while protecting medical records against unauthorized access, ransomware attacks and other data breaches.
From data analysis to cleanups, Just Associates performs the critical tasks necessary for hospitals and health systems to achieve and maintain a highly accurate and quality MPI. Its state-of-the-art suite of identity management solutions and services includes continuous duplicate detection with IDSentry – which features HIM workflow and dashboard tools and identifies more true duplicates than systems relying on basic and intermediate patient matching algorithms – as well as IDManage for ongoing MPI management and IDResolve for customized MPI clean-up services.
QuadraMed brings together the expertise, systems knowledge and technology that enable delivery of tailored, value-added solutions that improve healthcare organizations’ financial outcomes and business processes while supporting delivery of quality patient care. Its flagship SmartID Platform is a HIPAA-compliant EMPI management platform that diagnoses, treats, and cures errors, delivering real-time duplicate and overlay detection and robust enterprise-wide patient search based on a probabilistic algorithm with up to 99% accuracy in matching patient records.
To learn more about integration of RightPatient into the MPI/EMPI patient matching and data integrity management solutions from Harris DIS, visit Just Associates’ virtual booth during the AHIMA21 Virtual Conference, taking place through Sept. 22, 2021.
Managed Markets Insight & Technology (MMIT) and Evaluate (a Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and Hg portfolio company)—which joined forces last month to become a $1.6 billion global pharma commercial intelligence provider—announced the acquisition of Panalgo, a premier healthcare data analytics company that serves many of the largest biopharmaceutical, medical device and contract research organizations around the globe.
“MMIT/Evaluate and Panalgo share a vision of generating evidence and insights faster, all to help patients get timely access to lifesaving therapies,” said MMIT CEO Mike Gallup. The addition of Panalgo fits perfectly into our strategy of building a best-in-breed technology and services-driven healthcare business servicing pharma, biotech and beyond.”
With this acquisition, MMIT/Evaluate aim to transform the process of bringing drugs to market. By incorporating Panalgo’s flagship Instant Health Data (IHD) software, MMIT/Evaluate will offer customers an end-to-end commercialization platform that provides critical, data-driven insights instantly, allowing life sciences leaders to make better decisions faster.
“The ability to quickly generate insights, inform decisions on the effectiveness and safety of new treatments, and reduce barriers to accessing care, all fulfill a huge need in the marketplace,” said Panalgo CEO Joseph Menzin, Ph.D. “With Panalgo’s best-in-class platform, MMIT’s expansive base of over 1,300 biopharma and payer customers, and its gold-standard formulary data, we are well-equipped to support clients from end to end.”
On Nov. 1, 2021, Jordan Menzin, CTO, will become CEO of Panalgo, and Joseph Menzin will transition to the role of Executive Chairman. Panalgo will continue operating under its brand to provide the same innovative IHD software and high-quality customer support.
“I’m excited to lead this next phase of Panalgo’s growth,” said Jordan Menzin. “Together, we’ll help clients solve problems by leveraging quicker, more efficient insights—and, ultimately, get therapies into the hands of the patients who need them.”
Greenway Health, a leading health information technology services provider, today announced enhanced offerings with Greenway Revenue Services (GRS), which provides revenue cycle management support to clients. Due to clients placing a stronger emphasis on the revenue cycle in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced GRS Select earlier this year, which delivers more flexible support options for swift and targeted relief to healthcare practices. Greenway will continue to expand GRS services over the next 12 months to further assist clients with their financial relief strategies. The company will also further leverage AI automation and build additional GRS analytics that improve productivity and efficiency within the revenue cycle.
According to a recent MGMA study, 44% of healthcare leaders reported their 2021 visit volumes are below their pre-pandemic levels and ambulatory practices are still facing negative financial impacts due to the pandemic. Greenway developed its GRS offerings based on such emerging needs of its clients, to further help ambulatory care practices improve their financial health. The company is already seeing significant interest, with longstanding EHR clients such as Tier 1 Institute Orthopedic and Neurosurgical adding GRS.
To lead this expansion, Greenway has appointed its Chief Compliance Officer, Susan Kohler, to a new role as senior vice president of Revenue Services. A tenured employee with more than 15 years of experience leading healthcare operations in revenue cycle, claims, payer and provider network management, and electronic data interchange (EDI), Kohler will now oversee operations for both GRS and Greenway Clearinghouse Services.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today awarded $73 million in cooperative agreements as part of its Public Health Informatics & Technology Workforce Development Program (PHIT Workforce Program). Announced earlier this year and funded through the American Rescue Plan, the program aims to strengthen U.S. public health information technology (IT) efforts, improve COVID-19 data collection, and increase representation of underrepresented communities within the public health IT workforce. ONC will support the overall administration of the program.
“While we work to tackle the pandemic, we won’t take our foot off the gas when it comes to preparing for any future public health challenges,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we can invest in growing our nation’s public health workforce today to better meet the needs of tomorrow. And as we work to expand talent, whether it’s in the field of technology or public health informatics, we will do so with an eye towards promoting diversity.”
The 10 awardees, comprising Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), other minority-serving institutions (MSIs), and other institutions of higher education, will form multiple consortia to collectively train more than 4,000 individuals over a four-year period through an interdisciplinary approach in public health informatics and technology.
Healthcare consumers (aka “your patients”) have easily purchased goods and services on the Web for years and now expect that level of ease with their healthcare experience. So, what’s the problem? Unfortunately, the healthcare industry lags at least a decade behind e-commerce giants like Amazon and travel industry leaders like Expedia that set the standard for intuitive, consumer-friendly online engagement.
Now, more than ever, patients are demanding the same conveniences from their healthcare, but the specialized tools needed to deliver an excellent patient financial experience are missing from many EHRs.
The simple truth is EHRs were developed to help physicians and other clinicians manage clinical data, not promote and encourage consumerism. Currently, most EHRs are not optimized to provide the administrative, financial or customer engagement solutions needed to transform time-consuming and manual administrative and financial interaction into safe, efficient, digital information exchange. Hospitals and health systems can add a complementary system to their EHR that can easily improve the non-clinical patient experience. Incorporating digital patient engagement into EHRs is a smart investment because it can help providers address the following operational pain points:
Patient Demand: Patients want more control over their healthcare experience, yet there is a chasm between patient expectations and what healthcare organizations provide. More than 90% of patients said they would leave providers offering an inferior digital experience.
Patient and Staff Safety: The pandemic led patients and staff to demand safer visits and access to virtual tools that reduce contact. It’s a catalyst for consolidating disparate vendors and upgrading functionality by utilizing a single, integrated platform for patient alerts, pre-registration, eligibility verification and price estimation.
Efficiency: Embracing digital patient engagement technology means transferring many tasks registrars perform to patients, freeing those employees to perform higher-touch patient-centered activities.
Government Policy: Forward-thinking hospitals embrace price transparency regulations not only for regulatory compliance but also to provide meaningful price insights patients want and deserve — a better patient financial experience.
Pricing Pressure and Volume Shifts: Patients who obtain accurate price estimates will seek care where perceived quality is equal or better and provided at a lower cost. If you’re delivering value and can demonstrate it, you’ll attract and retain patients.
By Nicole Leisle, vice president product marketing, Centripoint.
Organizations that serve adults with disabilities often operate on shoestring budgets, forcing spending to stay at a minimum and technological advances not prioritized. Many are still using legacy systems and processes that require manual input, whether that be writing it down on a piece of paper or entering it into Excel.
This is an inefficient method of operating, and often leads to many errors that impact the person being served. While technology can be seen as an expensive investment, the reality is that over time there is a return that benefits the organization, employees, and clients. For those serving these groups of people to be efficient and create a better experience for those being served, the adoption of technology is the path forward.
Existing Systems and Processes Need to Be Modernized
Antiquated systems and processes lead to inefficiencies that end up being detrimental to patients being served. The method of manual input, whether on paper or Excel, can create real problems, from double-booking to not accurately inputting information, which can consume time for patients and staff. Appointment setting must be handled with care, especially for those with disabilities, as some require additional support like transportation.
When that’s the case, the importance of accurate information is even clearer. If a patient isn’t transported because of clerical errors, this creates a bad experience for an already underserved population, which makes them less likely to continue with existing care. On the other hand, if a driver is mistakenly dispatched to the wrong location, that is a waste of time and money for the organization. With more than 60 million Americans living with disabilities, the importance of having efficient operations can be critical toward maintaining care for these individuals.
You may not pay them much attention. It’s like they’re part of the furniture. Part of both every day and emergency healthcare for patients young and old. But on closer inspection, the medical carts in your facility play an important role in the safety, health and wellbeing of your patients and the medical proficiency of your healthcare teams.
It’s easy to think that all medical carts are created equal, but in reality, the condition and the equipment available on your carts can make a real difference to the wellbeing of your patients and those administering healthcare.
A patient may wonder – what are medical carts used for? But doctors, nurses and consultants know that they keep a medical facility moving and help them provide first-class medical intervention in both day-to-day and emergency scenarios.
Want to know more? Here we’ll explore the importance of the medical carts in your healthcare facility and why you should only invest in the very best.
Medical Equipment Access
If everything doctors and nurses needed was stored away in a stock room, the chaos that would ensue as medical professionals tried to access what they needed quickly (especially in emergency situations) would not only make their jobs incredibly difficult but also put patients’ lives at risk. Medical carts provide immediate and organised access to medical equipment, medications and apparatus for patients, what’s more, these carts are organised to make treating adults and children easier, reducing confusion and medical errors. You can even upload your medical chart on any online pharmacy store such as https://www.90daymeds.com/ and get your prescription medicines delivered wherever you want.
An Emergency Life Line
Whether you’re in the ICU, in an operating theatre, emergency department or any other area that deals with high-risk patients, you’ll find a medical cart, also known as a crash cart. Stocked with specific types of equipment that gives doctors and nurses the tools they need to save a life, and work on a patient as quickly as possible, medical carts provide an emergency lifeline in times of high pressure and danger.
Catering to unceasing challenging situations and maintaining sanity control over senses are a few of the intrinsic characteristics of a daunting nursing occupation. Similarly, the nursing staff cannot utterly overlook the attendants of the patients and strictly deny their participation in attaining inclusive patient care. Thus, nurses are required to adeptly handle issues related to patients’ family members as well.
You may not pay them much attention. It’s like they’re part of the furniture. Part of both every day and emergency healthcare for patients young and old. But on closer inspection, the medical carts in your facility play an important role in the safety, health and wellbeing of your patients and the medical proficiency of your healthcare teams.