Unlocking Innovation And Achieving Organizational, Employee, And Patient Benefits

Hospital Throughput 

Hospital throughput is an essential metric when measuring a provider's treatment productivity. Often defined as the flow of patients from one stage of treatment to the next, efficient hospital throughput ensures patients aren't subjected to dangerously long triage times as they wait to speak with their physician about a potentially grave medical condition. A quick transition from the waiting room to the doctor's office is integral when fostering a positive patient experience throughout your organization. This is extremely important as patient dissatisfaction can directly make or break your organization's Hedis score, which can strike a blow to the core of your health plan due to the implication of low-quality patient outcomes. Not only will it be hard to gain new patients, but health plans with low Hedis scores can miss bonus reimbursements and incur penalties from CMS.

One of the easiest ways to mitigate the likelihood of low patient satisfaction levels is to facilitate an efficient treatment workflow. Fortunately, those interested in improving their hospital throughput don't have to look further than FHIR, as providers who adopted open interoperability standards experienced a 57% improvement in hospital throughput optimization! This research from Forrester reaffirms the importance of interoperability when optimizing healthcare processes and the positive impact it can have on the patients in your hospital. 

Virtual Care

Virtual care is any remote interaction between a patient and their circle of care. More importantly, it is a necessary healthcare service for providers looking to leverage the connective advantages of the digital age. As providers respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and the influx of burnout affecting healthcare employees nationwide, it's essential to invest in technological services that can alleviate the foot traffic in your hospital. Robust virtual care does just that. It allows medical professionals to do their job without needlessly burdening the patient or themselves with the demands of an in-person meeting. One of the best and easiest ways to elevate your virtual care service is through adopting FHIR, as providers who embraced open standards experienced a 55% improvement in virtual care!

Evidence-based medicine outcomes

Evidence-based outcomes are achieved when medical professionals use prevailing healthcare evidence to guide their critical analysis or decision-making when approaching a medical problem. It is regarded as a highly effective healthcare methodology and can be a key contributor when trying to save a patient's life. However, evidence-based care is only as effective as the research it's based on, which is why it's important you possess a network that can easily pull the research results, appraisals and summarizations needed to gather an exhaustive data pool of evidence.

For this to be accomplished, your organization will need to leverage the power of FHIR so that your system has the intolerable functionality to pull the necessary data for your healthcare professionals to make an informed, evidence-based decision. Fortunately, providers who adopted open standards experienced a 54% improvement in their evidence-based medicine outcomes. Therefore, if you want to elevate the efficacy of your organization's quality care, embracing open standards is a surefire way to ensure your employees always have access to the correct data to make the most impactful healthcare decision. 

Care Coordination

Accurate and timely care coordination can be the difference between a dissatisfied and a satisfied patient. This is because when a patient's critical medical data follows them, it makes their experience more positive, along with their attending medical professional.

In short, interoperability empowers providers with the connectivity required to pass along vital patient data to each one of their patient's medical professionals. This not only assists in creating a high-quality patient experience that can be positively reflected in your Hedis score, but it avoids the strains of employee burnout as less time is spent toiling over the tedious administrative task needed to pull patient information from disconnected data silos. As a result, providers who've adopted open standards experienced a 51% improvement in care coordination (in network and out). For organizations that feel bogged down by the growing demands of data exchange, FHIR is one of the easiest ways to ensure your system has the functionality to easily coordinate your patient's healthcare journey. 

Self Appointment Scheduling

Self-appointment is a simple way to remove the administrative burden of scheduling from your organization and put it into the hands of patients who want more control of their healthcare journey. Additionally, by minimizing the manual work needed to schedule appointments, your organization can help combat the administrative-induced burnout affecting countless providers nationwide. FHIR is a proven way to improve your network's ability to support self-appointment scheduling, as it provides your organization with the connectivity needed to facilitate self-appointments online. The Forrester research supports this, as providers who adopted open standards experienced a 51% improvement in their ability to facilitate self-appointment scheduling.

Hospital at Home

To effectively facilitate hospital-at-home care, there needs to be an integration of various medical devices, applications, EHRs and the seamless flow of medical data running back and forth between each data point. This is because patients receiving at-home care often live in remote areas that need the connectivity and coordination of a hospital to be brought to them instead of the other way around. The most effective way to accomplish this is through leveraging interpolable open standards, as it allows the data liberation needed to offer high-quality care in a patient's home regardless of location. Once again, this is reflected in the Forrester research, as providers who adopted open standards experienced a 45% improvement in hospital-at-home care.

The above statistics showcase the wide range of positive benefits FHIR can have on your organization when you adopt open standards. Whether it's alleviating employee burnout or improving your Hedis score, every organization can experience significant improvement in their operations when they automate and innovate their data using FHIR. If you have any questions regarding FHIR, please contact us here at Smile, and we'll show you the best way to leverage the power of interoperability throughout your organization! 

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