3 Innovative Steps to Make Big Business Leaps in 2018

This article is part two of our three part series on top strategic initiatives and goals we’ve heard from organizations (missed part one? See how you can improve Patient and Staff Engagement.). This series highlights specific pain points, and then provides a quick rundown on how to leverage MedBridge to meet your business goals.

In this article, we will dive into three ways your organization’s embrace of interoperability and innovation can improve the lives of your clinicians and patients.

According to one study, a full embrace of digital health tools to aid in population health management could lead to an annual health savings of $46 billion.¹ To fully achieve those lofty savings and the see the benefits in their patient outcomes and staff satisfaction, it’s critical that organizations take a proactive approach to innovation and interoperability.² If you use MedBridge in your organization, you’re already witnessing firsthand how an all-in-one solution can achieve these bold claims. (Not using MedBridge at your organization? Request a demo to get started!). Outlined are three examples where our forward-thinking products have spurred positive results across patient and staff engagement.

Have You Requested EMR Integration?

The 2015 ONC roadmap on interoperability laid out their goal for 2018 as to, “Expand data sources and users in the interoperable health IT ecosystem to improve health and lower costs.”³ It’s 2018, and data sources like the MedBridge Patient Engagement platform can, in fact, be easily added into a patient’s electronic health record to improve health and lower costs! The collection of patient data in one centralized record can lead to better and more personalized patient care. Additionally, with our HITRUST certified platforms, your organization will never need to worry about patient data breaches either.

To help quickly and accurately collect this valuable data (like tracking and reporting on a patient’s adherence and activation outside of their time with a clinician), MedBridge can be integrated with your EMR software. While EMR integration is not essential for adherence tracking within MedBridge, it does provide a streamlined data-flow. We’ve already achieved this seamless networking with Casamba TherapySource, Raintree, and Epic. Contact us to get started with EMR integration for your EMR/EHR software of choice.

Patient care is not the only benefactor of interoperability. When MedBridge is integrated into an EMR, clinician workflows are simplified with features like single sign-on and automated documentation. One outpatient system saw a 3 – 5 minute time savings per patient after integrating MedBridge into their EMR (Raintree). Read their complete case study to see how this equated to nearly a $300,000 cost saving annually. Another private practice experienced 400% increase in HEP utilization after bringing MedBridge into their clinics.

Cloud-based with a High Chance of Staff Engagement

It can cost over $3,000 for one of your clinicians to attend a live continuing education seminar this year (registration, flights, hotel, meals, etc.).⁴ Live education, while offering unique advantages, is expensive, takes valuable time, and can inconvenience many of the involved parties. Even if you decide to bring an educator into your setting, that’s still a disruption of normal schedules. Plus, costs can add up quickly if you have multiple worksites and need to schedule this educator across different states and regions.

Cost Savings

Cloud-based education offers an innovative work around to all of these issues. Courses can be taken anytime, anywhere (see below), and progress can be tracked by an administrator via an LMS to ensure accountability. Group subscriptions knock down the price for organizations, and is surely more cost-effective than booking flights, hotels, and reimbursing meals for weekend conferences. One organization attributed a cost savings of $773,600 to the MedBridge continuing education product without even considering travel costs and time out of the office into that number. Plus, if you have multiple locations, you can ensure uniformity of care because all the education is prebuilt and lives in the cloud – there’s no differences or changes in presentation between learner visits.

Staff Satisfaction, Retention, and Recruitment

Clinician satisfaction, retention, and recruitment can benefit greatly from cloud-based services. Not having to take a weekend or time out of their workday to complete continuing education can increase happiness and satisfaction. One health system noted a 100% retention rate while using MedBridge. Another reduced staff attrition by 75% for new grad hires while more than quadrupling in size from 60 to 250 clinics over two years.

Both these organization’s success can be directly attributed to the organization taking the initiative to bring continuing education out of the dark ages of live seminars and into the illuminated and convenient screens of their clinicians. Staff are empowered and supported when the latest technology is made available in the workplace, especially if that technology provides opportunities to continue advancing their career.

The mHealth Revolution

95% of Americans own cell phones⁵, and collectively phones are checked over 8 billion times a day.⁶ Your organization needs to be taking advantage of this modernized facetime with both patients and clinicians.

For patient-facing apps, it’s important to look for the following features to aid and encourage home program participation, open lines of communication, and gather insightful data points on patient activation:

• Notifications and gamification ensure timely participation
• In-app messaging services help address issues outside the clinic or hospital
• Adherence tracking can provide actionable data points on a patient’s health record

Our own patient mobile app combines these features to encourage exercise activation outside the clinic or hospital, in turn leading to improved long-term outcomes.⁷

Beyond patient care, mobile learning for staff reduces costs and saves time. Learning on their own time (but held accountable by an LMS) means clinicians are available more and are granted the freedom of convenience. Our own mobile app is free with a MedBridge subscription and is available for iOS and Android.

Welcome to the Future

Interoperability and technology in healthcare are here to stay. How you act and onboard to these initiatives will dictate your success in 2018 and beyond. All of these ideas and products are intertwined (with MedBridge at the center, from our perspective), and are essential to facilitating the growth of your patient care and staff development.

Request a demo today to see how MedBridge can improve your patient outcomes with data-driven insights, and deliver unmatched staff engagement, retention, and acquisition with streamlined systems.