8 Must-Know Patient Experience Metrics for Healthcare Providers

Key Learning Points

  • Healthcare industry is undertaking several new initiatives, such as digital tools for enhanced patient engagement and communication, to create a pleasant patient experience and improve healthcare outcomes.
  • Patient experience acts as a measure of balance which helps the hospitals to ensure that improvement in one section does not create a negative impact on the other areas.
  • Patient experience dataset is a prime indicator of more than just their experience; it is capable of providing a bigger picture of the entire hospital system and infrastructure.
  • Hospitals must develop a patient experience scorecard comprising both leading and trailing metrics to measure the performance and impact of each service or department on patient retention and experience.

Introduction

At this moment, the entire healthcare industry revolves around the patient as a core. In healthcare, consumerism is changing, the patients are demanding and expecting the same kind of treatment and quality as offered in other industries. Today the patient has become a more active and empowered consumer who is searching for answers across multiple sources of information and expects more participation from the hospital’s end. Patients desire better services and want medical institutions to play a significant role in their quest for wellness. They want the information to be shared quickly and transparently, and they anticipate constant updates.

Research studies reveal that patient experience can create an impact on major areas of the hospitals such as revenue, patient footfall, branding, trust, review, ratings, etc. Studies indicate that with 5 percent increase in the ratings leads to a 1 percent increase in profit margin.1 As per Accenture, hospitals that offer a superior patient experience tend to have 50 percent higher margins than their peers.2 Deloitte’s research study indicates that patient experience is mostly boosted by a highly engaged staff, thus translating into better performance. Patient experience scores pertaining to interactions with nurses have the strongest association with hospital financial outcomes.3  

Why Measure Patient Experience?

Patient experience encompasses all the interactions done by patients across the healthcare ecosystem by accessing multiple touchpoints. It includes various healthcare delivery elements that are of utmost value to patients such as appointment time, information access, and interactions with the hospital staff and physicians. To paint a whole picture of health care quality, it is crucial to evaluate patient experience alongside other factors like effectiveness and safety of care.

Patients today share their hospital experiences on multiple platforms such as social media, discussion forums, or via feedback and surveys. Studying this entire data together will assist in drawing valuable insights about the service quality and performance of the hospital in terms of the experience delivered to the patient. By leveraging sentiment analysis, the hospital team can quickly analyze the data from social media platforms and feedback forms. 

Sentiment analysis can be used for examining positive, and negative opinions and monitoring their emotions to improve the hospital’s performance. For instance, the patient has added a comment regarding the physician. AI and NLP can be utilized for analyzing their response. This will assist in finding out if the patient is frustrated with the physician’s experience.

Key Metrics for Measuring Patient Experience

Now we will discuss some of the key metrics and see how patient experience can be measured:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS): It provides healthcare providers with an instant view of how the business is performing with its patients at any time. Thus, it is considered a valuable KPI among the others. It is important to understand that one needs to focus on the promoters and figure out how we can convert the detractors into promoters. NPS doesn’t reveal the likes or dislikes of a patient specifically. However, it will act as a guide to reduce the overall churn rate for the hospital. If the hospital has a low NPS that stipulates that the hospital is at a high risk of losing its customers/patients. With the help of NPS, the hospital team can perform root cause analysis and improve their services.

2. Customer Effort Score (CES): CES is considered to be the loyalty driver and can be easily measured by a single question. Gartner research indicates that 96 percent of the customers with a high-effort service interaction become more disloyal compared to just 9 percent who have a low-effort experience.4 It is calculated by taking into account the total number of patients who agree that their interaction was easy compared to the total responses.

3. Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): CSAT helps in understanding how a patient perceives every specific contact made at the hospital. One of the major shortcomings of this metric is that patients mostly rate individual interactions as high compared to the overall organizational experience. However, when used in combination with NPS and CES metrics, it is considered to be the most powerful tool today as well. It can be easily calculated by considering the satisfied responses divided by the total responses.

4. Patient Retention Rate: It is known as the backward-looking metric. Research from Bain reveals that acquiring a new patient requires 5x-25x effort and cost than retaining an existing patient.5 There are two ways to calculate the patient retention rate. The first one is based on the number of sessions attended by the patients before completing the treatment plan among the total sessions suggested by the organization. Whereas the second method studies the number of sessions of the existing patients in a year or quarter compared to the sum of the total number of sessions for existing and new patients in the same period. Here, we are not focusing on the right number but on improvement in the rate over time.

5. Revenue Growth Rate:  This is the rate that can be observed over time and requires patients’ historical data. It will help the management to review the numbers and analyze patterns to generate insights for determining where the improvement can be done across the hospital to enhance the patient experience.

6. Number of Interactions: This comes under the operational KPIs and assists the management in learning how many interactions were done to resolve an encounter. Here, interaction refers to communication with patients over channels such as SMS, email, phone, etc. Encounter means the healthcare interactions required to provide a quality service to the patient.

E.g., a patient orders food using the BestDoc Concierge application. The request is raised in the in-house hospital restaurant. A message is triggered from the system to the patient. Now the patient can view the status of his/her request and the food gets delivered and the request is marked as completed. This entire process reduces the number of interactions from 10 to 4 when compared to the old day’s scenario. Additionally, saves nurses time spent on non-clinical tasks. It is important to determine the number of interactions based on the patient’s goal instead of the hospital’s service.

7. Number of Open Issues: This helps in observing how many issues are still in a pending or unresolved state for a specific patient or over a time period. The next step is to analyze the active issues and trends. This will help the management to understand whether the patient experience is going up or down in a particular department or for a specific service. The hospital staff can further examine the root cause of the multiple issues and if the patient is satisfied with the service or issue resolution. For example, BestDoc Surveys, our patient feedback, and analytics solution led to a 29% decrease in the overall tickets raised at one of our client hospitals. Consequently, the hospital observed a positive impact in their reviews and gained more patient footfalls and loyalty.6

8. Quality Metrics: It is used to assess how closely the service given matched the patient’s genuine needs. It is of two types: general quality measures and quality metrics specific to services. Regardless of the service being provided, generic quality measurements use the same measurement. E.g., patient complaints. The majority of metrics will be unique to the services rendered. For instance, quality criteria for scheduling will differ from those for nurse triage. Research reveals that patients who had a reasonable reason to be upset about interaction but had it exceptionally rectified by the staff are the most devoted. Knowing when these possibilities might appear is helpful. Hospitals can utilize these metrics to avoid these issues and enhance their processes.

To quote a practical example, for our clients we run IVR feedback calls to collect patient feedback. At one of our partner hospitals, our CXE team was able to identify the exact pain points faced by the patients during their visit. Those details were entered in the BD Analytics for the hospital management to review and take necessary actions. As a result, the patient experience improved considerably.6

These were a few key metrics that help enhance the overall patient experience and should be measured as per the hospital’s requirements. To survive the fierce competition and create a cultural change, hospitals must adopt a more proactive strategy for delivering excellent care to patients. Patients today value care over cure. They want to be sure that they will receive the utmost importance and the best quality care in the world. Hence, patient experience will continue to be a differentiating factor for healthcare services.   

References:

7Mins Read

Author | Somya Rastogi

5G Patient Experience

Key Learning Points

  • The global rollout of 5G has started in earnest, and healthcare providers stand to benefit from the switch to this innovative technology
  • With new services and solutions built on top of it, 5G has the potential to enhance patient experience and spur industry-wide change
  • The healthcare sector is witnessing massive technology tailwinds recently, which is augmenting the rapid adoption of 5G
  • In order to gain any traction, healthcare providers, as well as policymakers, jointly need to actively pursue the transition and seek to overcome the challenges in adoption

Introduction

Over the past few years, the healthcare sector witnessed a multitude of new and exciting advancements. With 5G on the horizon, healthcare is set for a quantum leap forward.

The new cellular technology has the ability to revolutionize patient experience in healthcare and promises to open new avenues. 

As an emerging technology, there are many why, how, what, and other questions surrounding 5G.

This article will tackle these questions and provide a glimpse into how 5G will impact the healthcare sector.

What Is 5G?

5G is the fifth-generation wireless network technology capable of achieving speeds approximately 100 times faster than 4G’s while also handling vastly more connections. It also offers ultra-low latency (the time it takes for the network to process a request). For e.g., 5G can support speeds of up to 1 Gbps whereas  4G speed limit is between 20-50 Mbps. Similarly, 5G has an exceptionally low latency of 1-10 milliseconds as against 30-50 milliseconds in 4G.

Due to its technical superiority over other wireless protocols, 5G is expected to transform industries and their functions, including the healthcare sector.

In fact, research says, the global 5G market is expected to reach $667.90 billion by 2026, with a CAGR of 122.3% from 2021 to 2026.

Relevance Of 5G In Patient Experience

The healthcare sector already generates massive amounts of data every day. Various smart connected-care solutions such as IoMT, telehealth & remote monitoring are already delivering fruitful results in improving healthcare service quality, patient experience and reducing healthcare costs. However, widespread implementation of these innovations is constrained by the limitations of 4G, like network congestion and slow internet speeds.

The real-time experience is missing because 4G or the traditional fixed broadband infrastructure can’t transfer huge volumes of data at lightning speeds with extremely low latency. 5G technology has the potential to help resolve these challenges by offering some unique features of the most value to healthcare, such as high-speed data transfer rate, super-low latency, high bandwidth, and connectivity, etc.

5G offers immense possibilities for healthcare stakeholders to move to holistic data-driven personalized care, optimize medical resource utilization, offer care delivery convenience, and achieve increased patient satisfaction.

What Are The Healthcare Industry Trends Accelerating 5G Adoption?

Patient experience

Healthcare is already witnessing a digital disruption and with the rollout of 5G, this will be much faster. In fact, 5G in healthcare was valued at an estimated $215 million in 2021 and is projected to reach $3,667 million by 2026.

Let’s understand the recent trends in healthcare that may spur the adoption of 5G.

Rise In Remote Monitoring

The world’s population is anticipated to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, and 9.7 billion by 2050. With rising life expectancy, the global population will inevitably age. As the population ages and lifestyle diseases become more prevalent, the need for home care via remote monitoring increases. As per studies, 88% of hospitals have already made investments in remote patient monitoring technologies or plan to do so in the future.

While basic remote monitoring sessions are feasible over existing 4G and broadband connections, 5G can take these interactions a big step forward. With its ability to transmit sizeable data packages in real time, healthcare workers can add sensors and remotely monitor patients’ vital signs during calls.

Big Data Transmission Concerns

Big data analytics is making a remarkable impact on the healthcare industry helping medical researchers to use population data for new research and personalized care options. This report suggests that global big data analytics in the healthcare market is set to grow at a CAGR of over 19% and register a total market value of US$ 194.7 billion by 2032.

5G’s exceptionally high data throughput rate (approx. 10 Gbps) and support for massive connectivity across diverse devices (sensors/gateways/controllers) at the lowest latencies, create the ability to translate big data into real-time insights with actionable intelligence.

Advances In Internet Of Medical Things (IoMT) And Wearable Technology

The use of IoMT-powered healthcare devices and wearable medical equipment is gaining popularity, allowing patient data to be continuously monitored and transferred through cloud-based systems. In fact, 86% of doctors state that the usage of IoT devices like wearables allows them to increase patient engagement. Another study claims that the market for smart wearable medical devices was worth USD 13.8 billion in 2020 and is projected to grow to USD 37.4 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 13.1% from 2021 to 2028.

Due to its sheer speed (100X faster than 4G), power efficiency, much lower latency, and support for many devices per node, 5G is the ideal choice to meet the demands of an increasingly connected healthcare ecosystem.

What Are The Challenges In The Adoption Of 5G In Healthcare?

Privacy And Security Concerns

One of the things about 5G is that its range isn’t great, especially when obstructions such as trees or buildings exist. As a result, telecom carriers will deploy many smaller cellular radios or antennas, called small cell networks, in areas that get a 5G signal — as close to each other as hundreds of feet apart to make 5G signals available inside building premises.

With 5G, massive amounts of data will be flowing through a large number of connected devices via small cell networks, imposing security and privacy risks of data leakage.

Therefore, policymakers must tighten existing patient privacy laws (HIPPA compliance) and develop new regulations in line with 5G. Furthermore, network providers must provide end-to-end security of data across mobile and IoT platforms and adhere to the healthcare sector’s high privacy regulations.

Device Compatibility & Coverage

The current 4G/LTE smartphones and healthcare devices that interact wirelessly over the internet are not compatible with the new generation of 5G networks. Therefore, OEMs have already started rolling out 5G-enabled smartphones and similar devices. Also, 5G technology is currently only available in a few countries within their metro/ urban areas, and telecom providers need to build an extensive infrastructure to overcome this challenge.

But all of this requires extensive testing for compatibility, performance, device heating issues, etc.

As a result, the success of the manufacturers and telecom providers in overcoming the difficulties will still be crucial for the general availability and subsequent adoption of 5G.

Patient-facing digital health solutions, such as HD virtual consultations, will be dependent on the adoption of 5G among consumers.

How 5G Is Transforming Patient Experiences

Fast Transfer Of Large Medical Image Files

5G is around 100 times faster than existing networks. Therefore, the large images produced by MRI and PET scans will be easier to transfer to care providers in different departments for immediate diagnoses, streamlining referrals, and access to expert advice.

Although this may not make much of a practical difference when transferring a single image file, for hospitals that transfer hundreds of such images every day it could be significant.

Telemedicine

According to research, it’s projected that 20% of all medical visits will be remote soon, while the telemedicine market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16.5% from 2017 to 2023. Also, according to Deloitte, 77% of U.S. patients surveyed were highly satisfied with their virtual visit with a telehealth professional.

With 5G, telemedicine appointments can run smoothly without the disruptive lag or jitter that typically plagues VoIP communications.

Patient Monitoring

Through wearable medical gear and IoT-connected gadgets, 5G enables healthcare providers to stay informed about patient situations. It is possible to send a stream of data comprising a patient’s vitals for analysis and decision-making in real-time.

Robotics

By combining the 5G network with cloud healthcare platforms, big data, and AI, smart  robots can be developed, effectively improving overall medical efficacy and patient experience by delivering personalized medical services. Some of the types of robots that can be applied in healthcare are

  • Nursing robots
  • Logistic robots
  • Disinfection robots
  • Intelligent service robots

Conclusion

5G can transform healthcare as we know it. While 5G adoption in the healthcare sector is still at an early stage and there are certain challenges, thinking a step ahead and preparing for the coming advancements is crucial. That will allow healthcare providers to stay on top of the changes and provide the best possible outcomes and experiences for their patients.

7Mins Read

Author | Sayan Nan

Battling Healthcare Burnout Through Tech

Key Learning Points

  • The Healthcare industry globally is reeling with acute burnout among nurses and administrative staff. Post Covid-19, the situation has grown into a pandemic in itself.
  • Excessive workload, long working hours, undue expectations, staff shortage, and inefficient processes are the major reasons behind this alarming situation.
  • Besides taking a toll on the health and overall well-being of nurses and staff, work overload-induced burnout is making a dent in the financial books of hospitals too.
  • Nursing and healthcare workers worldwide are advocating for the adoption of innovative technology and process automation in workflow for minimizing the impact of burnout.
  • Technological tools like virtual nurses, speech recognition, process automation, patient interactive tools, remote monitoring, etc. are promising a better scenario to combat healthcare burnout. 

Introduction: Staff Burnout in Healthcare

Healthcare burnout has long plagued providers and staff, particularly nurses, and has been a major source of concern for organizations. On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the situation.

In this article, we examine burnout: the factors that contribute to it, how widespread it scales, how it affects nurses and other healthcare workers, its negative impact on the business of healthcare organizations, and how technology can help avoid it.

Healthcare Burnout Statistics: What the Numbers Say

Burnout Among Nurses

According to Nurse.org, burnout in nurses is “a physical, mental, and emotional state brought on by continuous overwork and a lack of job fulfillment and support.

It frequently exhibits disengagement, alienation, and a persistent sense of helplessness.

Although burnout is a widespread occupational problem that affects every business, it is particularly common in nursing due to the high emotional and physical demands of the job.

As a result of their difficulty coping, nurses who are burnt out may start acting out negatively toward their jobs, their patients, and their coworkers.

Therefore, a hospital as a whole may be affected by burnt-out nursing staff, which can have an effect on everything from clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction to turnover rates and recruiting expenses.

A study spanning two years found that 54% of nurses surveyed experienced burnout, with 28% having high levels of burnout. The survey’s results showed a 10% rise in emotional weariness among those who completed it both years.

Burnout Among Administrative Staff

According to a recent study, healthcare administrators and leaders are equally plagued by burnout. The Medical Group Management Association studied the phenomenon and found that 45% of all healthcare workers reported burnout.

Adverse Impact Of Staff Burnout On Healthcare Business

  • A high nurse burnout rate can translate to costly turnover expenses, putting a large financial toll on hospitals. Recent staffing data revealed that registered nurse turnover costs the average hospital between $3.6 and $6.5 million each year in turnover and recruiting costs, considering that it costs between $28,400 to $51,700 to replace a nurse.
  • According to estimates, 17.5% of nurses quit their first employment within the first year, and an incredible 33.5% quit within the first two years.
  • In trying to combat nurse shortages, hospitals resort to hiring expensive travel nurses, who often receive high pay rates of up to $9,000 per week. In 2020, nearly 90% of hospitals hired travel nurses, though that number may have been high because of the pandemic
  • Globally, hospitals are facing an acute shortage of nursing staff, leading to hampered operations and poor patient experience. With one survey finding nearly 19.5% of nurses between 20 and 39 questioning their commitment to the profession, this unfortunate trend could continue in the years ahead.
  • Due to their direct involvement in patient care, nurses have a significant impact on patient satisfaction. Burnout among nurses has a negative influence on patient care and engagement, both of which have significant financial repercussions. Alienating patients is the worst of these.

Hospitals incur average losses of $506,755 for each patient lost. In most cases, unhappy patients bring their families with them as well. The decline in lifetime household healthcare spending is thought to have cost hospitals more than $1.5 million

How Technology Can Help in Reducing Burnout in Healthcare

Technology when used properly, can be the ideal solution to help reduce burnout among nurses and other healthcare workers. Here are just a few of the ways technology can be used to alleviate healthcare burnout.

For Nurses:

Improves Nurse Retention Rates

Research shows that at least 37% of nurses considered leaving their profession due to burnout and stress.

The attrition rate for registered nurses reached 27% in 2021, up 12% from 2019. When nurses leave health systems, those who remain are under additional strain because they must work more shifts and take care of more patients.

According to a survey of 600 nurses, 82% agreed that technology improves patient care. For them, technology in healthcare helps add time back into their day—and with nurse burnout on the rise, it may help nurses from leaving their practice setting.

Streamlining Communications

With an estimated 80% of serious medical errors resulting from miscommunications and misunderstandings, nurse communication with clinicians is essential to ensuring the best possible patient care. Poor communication is linked to lower morale, preventable mistakes, and high turnover rates, according to research from the Online Journal of Nursing Issues.

Effective communication in nursing can be a challenge in healthcare organizations using outdated and inefficient communication tools making it harder to reach the right person at the right time and burdening care teams.

By switching to a clinical communication and collaboration system that is mobile-ready and HIPAA-compliant, nurses can securely and instantly message members of the care team to quickly get their questions answered. So that nurses never have to figure out who is where, these solutions also contain current scheduling information.

For non-clinical communication, technology-based request management solutions can help direct non-nursing tasks to respective departments, such as housekeeping or maintenance. This can significantly reduce the workload of nurses. 

Reduces Medical Errors

No nurse plans to make a medication error, but inadequate nurse staffing and chaotic working conditions can lead to distractions and mistakes. Additionally, nurses who work long hours are at a higher risk of making mistakes. Innovative technologies can decrease the chance of human error and can simplify routine procedures. For example, with virtual monitoring services, nurses have an additional safety net to ensure patients are monitored. EHRs also help with decreasing mistakes at the bedside by making comprehensive patient data readily available. This way, EHRs can help reduce duplication of tests or delays in treatment.

Reduce The Pain Of Nursing Shortage

The shortage of nursing staff is one of the main causes of nurse burnout. According to the American Nursing Association, 96 out of 100 nurses report feeling exhausted at the beginning of their shift, and one-third of nurses feel that there are not enough personnel.

While there are many reasons for the nursing shortage, it was revealed in research that extended hours, tiresome schedules, staffing levels, demanding work and burnout, and the emotional toll of nursing contribute to nurses quitting their jobs at practices. In a 2021 study, 72% of nurses reported experiencing burnout while an alarming 90% of nurses stated they were considering leaving the profession altogether.

Eliminating tasks that can be completed by AI and automation is one strategy for addressing the nursing shortage. Redesigned roles and processes using digitization and automation, where appropriate, can reduce time spent on repetitive tasks, and increase flexibility.

Telehealth, virtual assistants, inpatient bedside modules, smart & connected rooms, and automated drug administration are some examples of tech that can ease the daily jobs of nurses.

Improved Accessibility To Information

By improving the accuracy and clarity of medical records, and making data easily accessible, EHR/EMR has improved data accessibility for care staff.

Additionally, improvements in the telehealth ecosystem have been a major factor in making accessibility easier, particularly for patients who are dispersed geographically. With the aid of mobile applications, video conferencing, and remote patient monitoring, patients can quickly receive nursing care.

Reducing Alarm Fatigue

While sensors can detect a patient’s physiological changes and monitor crucial information, the amount of information they generate leads to a well-known issue called alarm fatigue. According to research, nurses respond to between 150 and 400 alarms during their shifts. Studies have shown that 85-90% of these alarms do not require clinical interventions. Due to the overwhelming volume of alerts, care teams may ignore alarms, turn down the volume, or change the settings – actions that can have serious consequences.

The solution? An alarm management system that gathers alerts from various systems, enhances them with contextual data and directs them to the appropriate member of the care team. This strategy distributes responsibility for evaluating and acting upon alerts rather than placing it solely on the shoulders of nurses. As a result, nurses experience less alarm fatigue and interruptions. When this occurs, nurses are free to concentrate on developing care plans and spending time with patients.

For Administrative And Other Staff

Improved workflows

According to a report from Notable, repetitive tasks like data entry, documentation, and other menial tasks take up an average of 57.5% of staff time, which ideally should be devoted to meaningful tasks. Due to the volume of repetitive tasks, more than half of the respondents expressed concern about burning out.

Technology has the potential to reduce administrative staff burnout by enhancing workflow efficiency throughout a health system.

According to a report, raising automation levels can aid healthcare organizations in maximizing efficiency and cutting costs. Technology, like automation, stands out due to its user-friendliness, minimal operational burden, and ability to work alongside humans by taking on repeatable, menial tasks.

Workforce Management

Long hours and inefficient or insufficient staffing place a significant burden on healthcare providers and staff, which, if unchecked, can quickly lead to burnout.

Technology can assist healthcare executives in effectively managing their workforce by allocating the proper resources to locations and shifts where they are most needed. Effective workforce management not only eases the burden on healthcare professionals but also contributes to better patient outcomes and overall patient experiences.

Digital Health Tools for Preventing Burnout in Healthcare

Preventing burnout in healthcare

Here are some technology tools that can help prevent nurses and other healthcare administrators from suffering burnout:

Online diagnostic tools, Remote Monitoring and Telehealth

This digital technology secures health data from patients in any location and electronically transfers it to healthcare teams. Remote monitoring systems track patients’ vital signs, allowing the care team to decide whether chronic illnesses require intervention in real-time.

Healthcare providers can keep chronic disease management out of emergency departments and their own stress levels low when they can monitor the health information of high-risk patients from afar. By managing care more effectively, patients can be better engaged and achieve better health outcomes, reducing burnout.

Interactive Patient Tools

Patient-friendly digital tools, if executed correctly, assist in increasing patients’ satisfaction, and create patient empowerment, all while decreasing the nursing burden. With the right technology, there are ways to give patients some of the controls related to non-nursing tasks like requesting food & beverages, housekeeping services, electrical equipment servicing, and giving them access to their health data. Communication barriers can be successfully and efficiently removed by patient-facing technology. A broader patient care team is created through interactive patient care.

Interactive patient care also builds a larger patient care team. Interactive patient technology like QR codes, tablets, infotainment cum feedback modules, and other digital mediums can all be configured to provide key services and prioritizes patient needs while taking the burden off the nurses and other administrative staff.

Virtual or avatar-based nurses

Many prospective uses have become possible as healthcare software development has advanced. One such application is virtual medical assistants, which relieve the load on healthcare personnel. These assistants are being used increasingly to further humanize and improve the experience for both patients and providers. According to Research and Markets, the virtual medical assistant market is expected to grow to $1.73 billion at a CAGR of 34.6% from 2019 to 2024.

Virtual nurses/assistants can help in:

  • Transcription – Machine learning-powered virtual assistants can be trained to perform transcriptions of conversations between doctors/nurses and patients. An entirely formatted and transcribed clinical note is delivered by the assistant, which the doctor reviews and signs. Afterward, it is integrated into the patient’s electronic health records.
  • Medical Record Keeping – Medical record keeping is another time-consuming, tedious task that can be automated with virtual assistants.
  • Assistance in Radiology – While coming up with a diagnosis, radiologists are often overwhelmed with the amount of data they receive from different medical data sources. There is a lot of processing and analysis involved to produce the required radiology report. Virtual assistants can help radiologists at various stages of their workflows, enabling data integration and lookup.
  • Recovery and DischargeAccording to Harvard Business Review, virtual nursing assistants will save $20 billion annually on healthcare costs by 2026, by reducing the time nurses need to spend on their patients.
  • Patient SafetyAs per a report, overworked nursing staff may pose a serious threat to patient safety and well-being. Patient safety issues are 30% more likely to occur when a nurse’s workload is over reasonable levels. Virtual nurses aid human staff by automating repetitive tasks.

Process Automation

Some of the most significant opportunities to lessen nurse burnout and relieve overworked staff are offered by automated workflow technologies. By using voice recognition, NLP, and automation for data entry and other repetitive administrative tasks, these platforms and tools can reduce the workload in convenient ways.

Process automation is emerging as a valuable resource that the healthcare industry is adopting and implementing to drive positive results. In addition to easing worker fatigue, digital health solutions can significantly improve the patient experience too.

Perhaps if healthcare leaders take a different approach to how all healthcare staff interfaces with healthcare data, they can spend more time on their patients and themselves, leading to a healthier work environment.

Examples of process automation include:

  • Streamlined patient intake
  • Digital appointment reminders and notifications
  • Simple online scheduling abilities
  • Automated queue management
  • Online patient feedback solution
  • Automating patient discharge workflows

Conclusion

It is absolutely true that nurses and other healthcare staff are the backbones of the healthcare industry and we cannot disappoint them. With coming-of-age digital tools, we can better equip our healthcare workers to combat burnout effectively.

By integrating innovative tech into routine processes, health industry leaders can not only foster a better working environment for their staff but also achieve gains financially.

12 Mins Read

Author | Sayan Nan

Automated Patient Communication Software

Key Learning Points

  • Effective patient-provider communication lays the foundation for loyal and happy patients
  • A digital patient communication medium not only builds crucial patient-provider relationships but also brings about a plethora of other benefits to the entire healthcare sector
  • Similar to other communication mediums, digital communication also has its own ethics that must be followed strictly
  • There are certain essential features that are a must-have for any successful digital patient communication software
  • Before zeroing upon such software, healthcare organizations must adhere to certain best practices
  • Despite the benefits, widespread implementation of patient communication tools is not happening due to certain challenges and barriers. But thankfully there are practical solutions too

Introduction: Overview Of Patient-Provider Communication

Patient-provider communication is a vital component of the healthcare experience. It helps patients understand their care and provides providers with feedback on patient care. Additionally, patient-provider communication can help maintain trust and confidence between patients and providers.

When patients are more involved, they feel empowered and they’re more likely to participate and follow through with their appointments and care.

Importance of Effective Patient-Provider Communication

There are multiple dimensions to patient-provider communication, such as communication between patients and doctors, communication-related to care administration, and so on. 

For example, a study has highlighted gaps in doctor-patient communication with 39% of patients being unsatisfied with the outcome of the consultation and the behavior of doctors. According to research by CRICO Strategies, out of 23,000 medical malpractice lawsuits filed between 2009 and 2013, 30% were the result of communication failures that resulted in 1,744 deaths, $1.7 billion in hospital costs, and 37% of high-severity injury claims, indicating that the primary cause is inadequate communication between doctors and patients. As per a Joint Commission International study, poor communication between caregivers during patient handovers led to 80% of serious medical errors.

Another dimension is communication between the healthcare provider and the patient. This covers communication-related to wait times, the ease of sharing feedback, billing-related information, communication when accessing non-clinical requests, and so on.

Healthcare being a people business, it is crucial to establish effective patient-provider communication. Sound communication between both parties increases satisfaction levels among patients, leads to higher NPS and CSAT scores and higher patient retention rates, reduces hospital re-admission rates, improves adherence to medication, and reduces costs for all parties involved.

What Is Automated Patient Communication Software?

Automated patient communication software is typically a cloud-based patient engagement solution that provides medical and healthcare facilities with tools and functionalities to aid in building trusting relationships and clear lines of communication with patients. The software manages and stores patient details, provides multiple always-on communication channels, facilitates appointment booking and re-scheduling, and much more.

Following the pandemic, the demand for and use of these tools has rapidly increased. According to this Accenture report, about 60% of patients are interested in using digital communication tools, and 63% affirm that the quality of their care was good or excellent.

These tools provide automated and customizable communication pathways across all service lines and cover the entire patient care journey delivering the right information at the right time.

Code Of Ethics Before Implementing A Patient Communication Software

Electronic communications also hold the same ethical responsibilities to patients as they do during clinical encounters.

Although extremely useful in healthcare, these channels can raise special concerns about privacy and confidentiality breaches. Apart from damage to reputation, breaches can cause real financial losses to healthcare providers. Annually, hospitals spend 64% more on advertising in the two years following a breach.

As per this report, there was an 80% increase in the number of people affected by health data breaches from 2017 to 2019. In the year 2020, confirmed data breaches in the healthcare industry increased by 58%

Additionally, this report found that healthcare data breach costs increased from an average total cost of $7.13 million in 2020 to $9.23 million in 2021, a 29.5% increase.

Due to these inherent risks, guiding principles in digital patient-provider communication should be strictly followed.

  • Maintain privacy, security, and integrity of patient information in line with professional standards.
  • Inform the patient of the inherent drawbacks of electronic communication.
  • Obtain the patient’s consent before continuing electronic communication.
  • Present medical information in accordance with professional standards.
  • Understand the laws that govern when a patient-provider relationship is established.

Essential Features In An Automated Patient Communication Software

1. Automated Appointment Booking, Reminders, And Re-Scheduling

As per a report, around 43% of patients prefer to book appointments online. Automated appointment scheduling is a must-have feature that allows patients to schedule appointments and confirm available timeslots.

Additionally, it should be able to easily cancel or reschedule appointments to avoid needless follow-up calls or visits to the facility and reduce no-shows. This will enable the administrative department to concentrate primarily on its core responsibilities.

Appointment automation also immensely reduces wait times and evenly distributes patients among providers.

2. Payment Gateway Integration

Research estimates the CAGR of medical billing software to grow at 5.1% from 2020 to 2027.

A patient communication system with an integrated digital platform for billing medical expenses is a win-win feature for both patients and healthcare providers.

Such integration can have benefits like

  • Keeps track of claim status
  • Manages patient accounts 
  • Automates the billing process
  • Sends payment reminders
  • Allows online payment

3. Data Collection And Management

Data collection and management facilitate reviewing a patient’s entire medical history on a single platform so that doctors can make timely and accurate recommendations based on the patient’s past medical history. Care providers can get easy access to patient records, such as

  • Demographic information
  • Drug and allergy information
  • Laboratory test records and results
  • Medical history
  • Vaccination status

4. Reports Presented Through Interactive Dashboards

Another must-have feature is presenting patient progress reports using interactive dashboards. These reports not only assist care providers in predicting what patients might require but also boost patient retention rates. The predictions can be based on their:

  • Actions and lifestyle
  • Medical and genetic history 
  • Hereditary conditions and allergies
  • Current health and existing illnesses

5. Collecting and Analyzing Patient Feedback

Patient communication software can help providers improve their non-clinical care. For example, patient feedback is a key aspect of patient-provider communication. By making it easy for patients to share feedback and for providers to analyze the feedback and take corrective action, patient communication software can help increase patient satisfaction. Also, linked to the point of presenting reports through dashboards, smart automated patient communication software helps administrators analyze patient feedback in detail at a department level. 

It is possible that a single patient communication software may not have all the features needed to improve patient-provider communication. In such cases, you may have to resort to multiple solutions based on the unique strengths of each solution.

Things To Consider Before Selecting Automated Patient Communication Software

The following factors are worth considering before exploring and selecting an automated patient communication software:

1. Security And Compliance

By 2025, cybercrime is estimated to cost $10.5 trillion globally, increasing by 15% year over year. Keeping in mind the inherent security risks, HIPAA compliance is of utmost importance as healthcare providers leverage digital tools for patient outreach. HIPAA allows healthcare providers to use electronic communication mediums to provide healthcare information and treatment options to their patients if they “apply reasonable safeguards.” Similar to HIPAA, ISO 27001 certification (an ISO standard for information security) is also a reliable indicator of information security.

2. Integrations

Second, it’s crucial to choose patient communication software that can be easily integrated with existing EMR and practice management systems. In addition to saving time and frustration during implementation and onboarding, this is the best way to guarantee that communications can be tailored to a particular population’s needs, behaviors, and history.

While integration is essential for clinical aspects of patient-provider information, you can also opt for non-integrated solutions for non-clinical patient-provider communication. For example, you can opt for a non-integrated patient feedback solution or a solution for patients to communicate their non-clinical requests during their hospital stay. 

3. Customization

Patient communication software cannot be based on a one-size-fits-all approach. The communication tool should be able to automate communications that still have a personal touch. Because of this, the majority of high-end patient outreach software enables providers to alter the content, including the message itself, the send date, the options for a response, the frequency, the language of communication, and more.

4. Ease of Use

Finally, for the care team to maximize effectiveness and evaluate the outcomes of patient outreach campaigns, the patient communication software must be simple to use.

Benefits Of Automated Patient Communication Software

1. Higher Patient Satisfaction

With patients choosing this type of caregiving on a bigger scale, patient communication software has emerged as a sure-fire winner.

2. Improved Workflows

Consistent patient engagement and communication can be a challenge, but it can be overcome with solutions such as automated appointment scheduling and reminders, digital feedback, and digital request management through interactive, multi-modal, and adaptable communication strategies. These communication workflows integrate into both clinical and non-clinical systems without difficulty, increasing productivity and minimizing hassles.

3. Increased Patient Involvement

Patients with chronic illnesses must continuously manage their health and continue receiving treatment. These patients can track their health and take an active role in their care, both clinical and non-clinical, by being given the tools they need through an active communication channel.

4. Increased Cost Savings

Telehealth access brought about annual savings of $100 in travel time per patient according to a March 2017 report from the University of California, Davis. Across the entire research population, telehealth reduced travel distances by 5 million miles, saving $3 million in travel expenses and nine years of travel time.

By involving patients in this way, healthcare organizations can maintain their presence in the digital health space.

5. Faster Issue Resolution

The predictive analysis of numerous aspects of healthcare, such as early disease detection, customized care management, optimizing electronic health records, etc., has now given a boost to patient communication solutions. Automated patient communication software can also help in faster resolution of non-clinical issues such as complaints about the front-office staff, unnecessary paperwork, or simple things like the quality of room cleaning during inpatient stays.

6. Higher Profits

A study from RevenueWell found that automated patient communication software translates into an average 6% annual revenue increase among practices that utilize it.

Challenges In Adoption Of Digital Patient Communication Software And Possible Solutions

1. Patients See Limited Use For Patient Communication Software

According to this 2017 report, very few patients actually think they need to get involved in a dedicated patient communication tool. For example, patients who are mostly healthy and who are not managing a chronic illness may not think they need regular access to their medical records and therefore write off the patient communication tool. 

Solution: Experts say providers should emphasize the tools according to user demographics, age, and other preferences. For example, a younger patient may not need to become familiar with lab results, while they could benefit from digital appointment scheduling tools or tools that helps syncing data from wearable devices to health records.

2. Patient-Physician Resistance To Change

The use of electronic communication is hampered by patient-physician resistance to change and lack of computer/email experience. Electronic communication is a completely new means of communication for some. The biggest challenge to getting people to opt in is educating them because many patients are used to the “old-fashioned model.” For example, in the case of non-clinical aspects, patients may prefer to stick to traditional solutions like a paper-based feedback form or a nursing bell for non-clinical requests. 

Solution: There is a need to train health care providers and patients on the use and benefits of automated patient communication software. This will address the issue of resistance from both sides. The patients should be trained on the proper use of these applications to make it easier for them to familiarize themselves with these applications and break their fears. The training should address all the concerns of both parties.

3. The Interface Is Not Usable

Sometimes users of the patient communication software find the interface too complicated for any meaningful use.

Solution: Healthcare organizations should ensure the patient communication tool communicates data to the patient in a way that is useful to the patient. If the data is communicated in a difficult-to-access way, it simply buries the underlying utility of the tool. Apart from communication, the solution should be easy to use for patients across digital literacy levels. There are several considerations in designing patient-friendly solutions such as clearly outlining the designing goals, regular feedback from users, and so on.

4. Low Health Literacy

Patient health literacy is critical to increasing the adoption of any patient outreach software. Patients want to see the features they value in an easy-to-navigate format, but they also want to understand that information. A patient with low health literacy is unlikely to benefit from a patient communication tool.

Solution: Some health IT developers have begun to leverage natural language processing (NLP) to make patient outreach mediums more accessible for patients with lower health literacy. NLP helps to translate certain clinical terms used in the software to make them more understandable for patients.

5. Providers Not Promoting Digital Communication Mediums

Making the patient communication tool more attractive for patient adoption is only half the battle, the other half is to bring the provider to the software too.

Solution: According to research, patients are more likely to use the patient portal if they hear a provider recommend it. Higher adoption rates are typically observed among providers who firmly believe in the patient portal and incorporate it as the cornerstone of interactions between patients and providers. Providers can also promote patient adoption by enrolling patients in the clinic, explaining the key functions that can benefit patients in their healthcare management, and explaining how the tool will improve their patient-provider relationships.

6. Lack Of Financial Aid

The adoption of digital patient communication tools in various regions may also be impacted by financial limitations. For the effective adoption of such innovations, especially for the health systems based in rural areas, the health sector does not currently receive the funding that it should.

Solution: Technology should be developed in such a way that its useful for users across income levels. For example, there are still many who are using feature phones and not smartphones. Solutions should be designed in such a way that even people with feature phones can benefit.

7. Security And Privacy Concerns

Concerns about security and privacy continue to be significant obstacles in the use of automated patient communication software. This is because it is sometimes difficult to determine whether the patient is who they say they are. It is important to ensure that extremely sensitive data is shielded from hacking attempts by individuals with ulterior motives.

Solution: Any digital communication medium must meet the security and privacy requirements provided by the state and international agencies. One major way to improve the security and privacy of such tools is to make sure that patient data is encrypted. It is an effective way to ensure that the data is protected when it is in transit or stored in some locations. Role-based access control is another way to implement security and privacy. Choose providers with certifications such as HIPAA compliance and/or ISO 27001 to ensure your patient information is in safe hands.

Conclusion

Effectively communicating with patients is a fundamental aspect of providing quality healthcare. Communication helps build lasting provider relationships with patients. Digital communication tools are an effective way to achieve that. With a proper approach and mindset, the underlying obstacles can be easily overcome.

12 Mins Read

Author | Sayan Nan

SaaS in healthcare

Key Learning Points:

  • SaaS has taken multiple industries by storm, but healthcare has been lagging behind in the adoption of SaaS
  • SaaS provides multiple advantages over on-premise software, such as faster implementation, lower upfront costs, ongoing upgrades and more
  • Healthcare can get many benefits from SaaS, such as scalability, operational efficiencies, and better security
  • Common challenges in the adoption of SaaS are concerns around data security, slow adoption of cloud computing, bottlenecks around integration with legacy software, etc. 
  • Healthcare providers can overcome these challenges by leveraging benefits of SaaS, such flexible pricing, opting for providers with existing integrations, and choosing vertical (healthcare industry-focused) SaaS solutions

Introduction

SaaS or Software as a Service came about as part of the cloud computing revolution and took over almost all the industries by storm. According to Deloitte, the global SaaS market has grown at an annual rate of 25% from 2011 to 2020. But the real question is, did the healthcare industry miss out on this opportunity? While the fact is, healthcare is lagging way behind most of the industries in adopting cloud computing and its key feature, that is SaaS. 

Following statistics, however, throws a positive light on what is in store for the healthcare industry. Healthcare cloud computing is estimated to grow to USD 64.7 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 18.1% compared to 2020. Another research shows that the healthcare SaaS market is expected to reach USD 51.7 billion by 2028.

SaaS IN healthcare sector

Let’s look at some of the reasons why this is an attainable estimate, what can possibly be the challenges to achieve these and finally, how to mitigate such challenges.

Background: Why is SaaS growing rapidly?

On-premise software comes with high costs as well longer time for implementation. In comparison, SaaS solutions are ready-made solutions, which can be deployed at much lower costs. Also, SaaS solutions can be implemented in a relatively shorter time period. 

Secondly, in the case of SaaS, the software provider is responsible for maintaining the software as well as upgrades. Whereas in the case of on-premise software, the internal IT staff has to look into the various aspects of software maintenance, such as dealing with bugs, ensuring security and managing upgrades. To illustrate the potential of SaaS, Oracle Cloud released 1,700 new features in a single year. It’s hard to imagine the complexities associated with a similar number of feature upgrades with on-premise software.

Why is SaaS in healthcare attractive?

Just like other industries, SaaS is an attractive option for healthcare too. Healthcare SaaS companies offer solutions across applications such as EMR, EHR, PACS, telehealth, billing, revenue cycle management, patient feedback, inpatient care administration, etc. Let’s look at the top reasons that make SaaS a good fit for healthcare.

Scalability

Legacy systems come with a lot of baggage, the key one being difficulty to scale. Legacy systems work fine until the transactions are minimal but once it starts to move up, the scaling becomes more and more difficult. Not to mention the cost associated with such scaling, which often includes buying more servers. With SaaS products, there is very minimal effort required to scale the services required by the care provider and very minimal expenditure related to it. For example, BestDoc started with its SaaS-based patient feedback solution at three locations of Narayana Health. Within 15 days, we were able to scale to 26 hospitals across India.

Operational Efficiency

SaaS systems make it easy to communicate between existing systems thereby ensuring that the information flow is much more seamless than existing systems. Especially when we think of electronic medical records (EMR), cloud computing, with its real-time update capabilities, ensures that the same EMR is visible across all the stakeholders involved., in a much secure way. Another way SaaS systems help the stakeholders is by providing a holistic view of the patient journeys. For example, when did a patient visit an orthopedician and when was the x-ray taken to when did the patient do the follow-up visit etc. These data points are updated in real-time, helping care providers to make informed decisions. Cloud-based EMRs also allow healthcare brands with multiple units get real-time data updates across locations.

Better Security

Healthcare SaaS companies ensure data security through continuous monitoring and maintenance by highly-skilled professionals. There are various standards in place to ensure no data breach happens at any point in the data transfers. Healthcare SaaS companies have taken inspiration and learnings from other industries and implemented contingencies to support data security. SaaS also comes with the benefit of safeguards put in place by cloud service providers. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is HIPAA compliant and SaaS-based solutions hosted on AWS benefit from these safeguards.

Lower Upfront IT Costs

SaaS provides zero-capital models where the care-provider has to pay only for the services used and not for the entire infrastructure behind the service. Also, many healthcare SaaS companies offer solutions come with a per-user cost, allowing IT leaders to rationalise their expenses. With healthcare CIOs under constant pressure to justify the ROI of new technology investments, SaaS gives them an opportunity to demonstrate results with lower upfront costs. This will also provide a competitive advantage for care providers with smaller practices to attract more patients. While the care provider can put all his effort into care, the SaaS provider will help them to maintain the service with minimal or no interaction from the care provider. This ultimately results in a reduction of IT costs.

What are the challenges that stand in the way of SaaS adoption in healthcare?

  • Slow adoption of cloud
  • Practice of customisation
  • Concerns about data security
  • Integration with legacy infrastructure
  • Lack of dedicated resources to manage, scale and maintain smooth functioning of the cloud environment

Slow adoption of cloud

While the benefits are loud and clear, the adoption of cloud in healthcare is still in a nascent state. A major reason for this is the lack of awareness of the benefits of a cloud-based ecosystem in healthcare. As long as the adoption of cloud technology is not promoted in the healthcare industry, solutions offered by healthcare SaaS companies will also have challenges with the adoption.

The practice of customisation in healthcare

SaaS products usually come up with a set of modules with predefined features. These may not be readily welcomed by the care-providers or the hospitals. And that is when customisations come into the picture. These SaaS products would have a set roadmap of the features which they intend to provide to their customers. But when a hospital requests/demands for a new feature to be added, healthcare SaaS companies often end up building those features even if such features are not part of the roadmap. And this customisation can sometimes move into an endless loop which hinders the product from going live at all.

Integration with legacy systems

Most of the care-providers and hospitals currently use legacy systems and it is difficult to move them from such a stable system. The weightage of the added feature doesn’t normally outweigh the fact that they are used to the legacy systems. A solution for this is to integrate the SaaS with the existing system, but that comes with its own issues. There are thousands of systems working across the globe and for a SaaS product to integrate with all of them is not a scalable solution, even though certain providers do it.

How healthcare providers can overcome the challenges and reap the benefits of SaaS-based solutions?

Leverage Pay-per-use or other Flexible Pricing Models

Many healthcare SaaS companies follow the pay-per-use model to make it affordable for the care-providers. In healthcare, there are providers who charge on a pay-per-patient model for services like OPD automation, video consultations, queue management etc.SaaS solutions, such as BestDoc Concierge, come with a differential pricing model, based on the features being made available. Providers can get started with certain basic features, and get an upgrade once they see an uptick in adoption.

Integrating into existing systems

This was pointed out as one of the challenges that SaaS providers face and the easiest way to mitigate this is to integrate with existing systems for easy adoption. It is interesting to know that healthcare SaaS companies like BestDoc have integrated with more than 15 HISs (Healthcare Information Systems) to support more than 200 hospitals across India. This improves the adoption of SaaS systems drastically. Integrating with HISs is not the only way to go ahead, making sure the SaaS product perfectly sits within the operational processes also ensures that the system is adopted well. BestDoc Concierge is one such solution which does not need any kind of HIS integration to drive adoption since it perfectly fits within the operational processes.

Opting for a vertical SaaS solution

Vertical SaaS solutions are those which concentrate on a specific industry for eg, healthcare. There are so many healthcare SaaS companies like BestDoc, Practo, Athena and much more. This ensures that the value and performance of the system is scaled up to match the healthcare industry standards.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, the SaaS model has a big role to play in the digital transformation of healthcare. For SaaS to truly deliver its potential in healthcare, the entire ecosystem needs to embrace it wholeheartedly. Healthcare SaaS companies should understand the concerns of care providers and make integration-friendly solutions. On their part, care providers need to be more willing to test out SaaS solutions and promote adoption among staff for long-term business benefits.

10 Mins Read

Author | Tijo Peter

Data Analytics in Healthcare Operations

data analytics in healthcare

Leveraging Data Analytics For Hospital Operations

Key Learning Points

  • Operational analytics, a subset of business analytics, is a useful means of tackling some of the most significant issues faced by healthcare
  • Hospital core areas where operational analytics can help enhance efficiencies include patient experience, optimisation of scheduling, ancillary tasks, resource allocation and optimisation, etc. 
  • Operational analytics can benefit all key stakeholders in healthcare facilities, including CXOs, quality and compliances, nursing leaders, and other administrative departments
  • Hospital leaders can refer to industry practices to make the most out of operational analytics
  • There are many advantages of investing in data analytics in healthcare operations, including improved decision making, better patient experience, greater cost savings, streamlining of processes, and optimal allocation of resources

Globally, the healthcare industry is undergoing digitization leading to phenomenal growth in data in every aspect of our life, with no foreseeable end. Market research indicates that an average of 300 petabytes of data is generated by healthcare organizations daily. With the heavy data flow, it becomes crucial to streamline, manage and analyze data in real-time. Hence, data management and analytics are the two valuable assets required for spotting trends and unlocking insights.

Introduction: The growing role of data analytics in healthcare operations

Due to various factors like the pandemic, inadequate patient care, increased treatment costs, decreased patient engagement, etc., the global healthcare analytics market is expanding at a CAGR of 15.3% and is estimated to reach $96.90 billion in 2030. The use of data analytics in healthcare operations help the leadership and hospitals to make informed decisions by combining historical and real-time data to spot trends, unlock insights and drive growth. These insights assist in enhancing the patient experience and hospital operations. 

Today, hospitals are looking forward to reducing operational inefficiencies and enhancing patient engagement and experience. In this blog, we will discuss how Operational Analytics helps the hospital in tweaking the overall service experience and driving change across the industry.

Operational analytics is a subset of business analytics that focuses on monitoring real-time operations. The use of data analytics in healthcare operations offers a means of tackling some of the most significant issues that healthcare is currently facing, such as long patient wait times and a lack of available equipment when it is needed, which again prolongs wait time and can have devastating outcomes. Everyone in the healthcare industry is concerned with these issues and requires swift action. The research also predicts that healthcare operational analytics will grow at a CAGR of 8.8% by 2025. Additionally, it has made it possible for large data organizations to increase quality at a lower cost, a crucial component of putting into place successful value-based care (VBC) programs.

Opportunities for Increasing Efficiencies through Data Analytics in Healthcare Operations

Data analytics in healthcare operations

Now let’s look at some of the hospital core areas where efficiency can be enhanced using operational analytics:

  1. Patient Experience: Because the healthcare sector is progressively embracing a value-added business model, it is more crucial than ever to provide patients with superior customer services, such as individualized care, quick turnaround times, and better and more accurate healthcare services. When it comes to patient service, data analytics plays a significant role. The technology helps healthcare practitioners to add a personalized experience to the treatment while also fostering a seamless healthcare experience by streamlining the billing and payment process through structured and filtered data.
  2. Optimize Scheduling: Because labour costs make up half of a hospital’s budget, accurate staffing is crucial. Hospitals can offer multiple options for the appointment like emergency walk-ins, session-based slots, etc. Data analytics uses intelligence to forecast and examine past workforce numbers, regional weather patterns, seasonal diseases, holidays, and more, all of which are available to the hospital team. Thus, leading to reduced labour expenses and improved shift management. 
  3. Ancillary tasks: With a single touch, the ancillary staff can now assign, accept and resolve patient service requests. This helps in maintaining records and tracking requests individually in a specified time. Thus, operation analytics can capture parameters such as TAT, the number of requests completed successfully, etc., which helps in reducing their service TAT  and resolving more requests along with quality management.
  4. No show appointments: Patients not showing up for their scheduled appointments leads to a negative financial impact on the physician’s workflow and leaves unanticipated gaps in their daily schedules. Physicians can offer these open slots to other patients, reduce revenue loss, and improve the patient experience by using operational analytics to identify patients who are likely to miss appointments without notice.
  5. Resource acquisition and allocations: The complexity of hospitals has made it difficult for administrators to manage resource allocation. Analyzing the past and current data helps in understanding patient utilization patterns, in turn assisting the administrators in allocating and acquiring the right resources like devices, etc., at the right time.

The Benefits of Operational analytics for Various Stakeholders in Healthcare:

Here with the help of some examples, we will understand how operational analytics is beneficial for the various stakeholders in hospitals:

  1. Leadership: Operation leaders can go through the data and make decisions concerning billing, staffing opportunities, streamlining workflows, services mode preferred (kiosk, web application, etc.), and quality management.
  2. Quality & Compliance: With operational analytics, the quality department can ensure that NABH quality indicators such as OP/IP satisfaction index, average waiting time, etc., are improved.
  3. Physicians: Medical practitioners can have a well-maintained schedule with a streamlined appointment scheduling process. Thus, assisting them in providing consultation to more patients and improving their TAT.
  4. Nurses: As they are always on foot, utilizing digital solutions will aid in reducing their number of rounds. Also, they can focus on the quality of care delivered.
  5. Ancillary staff: Now, the employees can utilize digital solutions to mark the service as completed improving their performance and efficiency.

Best Practices to Improve Hospital Operations Through Analytics:

  1. The hospital leadership must place higher precedence on operational enhancements, which require support at the highest levels to implement a new operational strategy. Given that operational performance affects every aspect of the business, chief operating officers cannot be the only ones working to improve operations. It must be understood by the whole C-suite and board members as a strategic requirement for the overall performance and health of their organization.
  2. Software integration can be used to streamline operational procedures. Leaders can eliminate redundant processes, increase operational efficiency, and strengthen data integrity by aligning software and data throughout an organization and implementing solutions tailored specifically for the healthcare industry.
  3. It is the data that acts as the core of healthcare operations. Hence, it becomes crucial for the leadership to focus on enhancing the data and analytics quality by leveraging solutions that assist in streamlining data management.

Why should Hospitals Invest in Operational Analytics?

  1. Rapid and efficient decision making: Organizations that use operational analytics can make significant changes to workflows and processes in real-time, which gives them a greater chance to boost profits and eliminate waste. Additionally, this would enable them to identify issues and inefficiencies in real-time.
  2. Enhanced patient experience: Through real-time response to business situations, operational analytics can enhance the patient experience. For instance, a patient provides a feedback rating of less than 3 on a 5-point scale. The system raises a ticket, and the third party or the hospital team immediately connects with the patient to understand the issue. The issue gets resolved in real-time, improving patient satisfaction.
  3. Increased Cost-saving & streamlined processes: It enables organizations to save administrative costs, monitor fraud, and abuse, and enhance departmental collaboration.
  4. Effective staff management: During a pandemic, effective staffing is critical for avoiding physician burnout. In a traditional scenario, staffing is an enormous expense for any hospital providing patient services. With the optimum utilization of data and AI-based insights, hospitals can quickly estimate workforce numbers with high accuracy and efficiency.
  5. Optimal Resource allocation: By benchmarking the resource utilization data, it becomes possible to allocate optimum resources and helps in reducing the overall costs. E.g., if a radiology department requires only 1 ultrasound machine depending on the demographics and seasonal patient count, then only 1 radiologist can be aligned with the machine instead of 2 or more.

Conclusion

Operation analytics is the key to solving issues like staffing, costs, patient satisfaction, long waiting times, and soon. Furthermore, operational analytics can aid the hospitals in determining how their staff and departments are contributing to the overall performance and quality of care provided to the patients. The hospitals must recognize the potential and utility of employing operational analytics to enhance their operational performance.

References:

9 Mins Read

Author | Somya Rastogi

Online Reputation Management for UAE Healthcare Brands

Healthcare Online Reputation Management for UAE Brands Table Of Contents Introduction The Need for Hospital Reputation Management In The UAE The Role of Patient Reviews In Reputation Management for Hospitals How Technology Can Help In Healthcare Reputation Management Introduction In Dubai and all over the UAE, hospitals, clinics, and healthcare facilities are making significant investments … Read more

Designing Patient Friendly Experiences

Designing Patient Friendly Experiences: All You Need to Know Table Of Contents Introduction Set The Objectives What Are The Design Goals? Factors Affecting The Design Importance Of Feedback The BestDoc Way Of Designing Patient-Friendly Solutions Introduction Digital transformation has significantly impacted healthcare and COVID-19 accelerated this transformation. In recent years many companies/startups have launched digital … Read more

How Patient Management Software Can Help Streamline Your Workflow.

One of the methods has been setting standard operating procedures (SOPs) for every procedure. Setting SOPs is the first step in the right direction. The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) has standardised these SOPs. It has also provided a scientific method and tool for implementing and evaluating hospital procedures. This blog highlights how NABH standards help in adhering to SOPs.

Best Practices for Hospitals for Better Technology Vendor Selection

One of the methods has been setting standard operating procedures (SOPs) for every procedure. Setting SOPs is the first step in the right direction. The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH) has standardised these SOPs. It has also provided a scientific method and tool for implementing and evaluating hospital procedures. This blog highlights how NABH standards help in adhering to SOPs.