- Value Behind Building a Virtual Health IT Infrastructure
- Management Tools Vital to Continued Health IT Cloud Adoption
A Black Book Market Research report conducted late last year found that the healthcare industry is still underinvested in resource and performance management solutions. This underinvestment comes from other infrastructure technology taking priority over management systems, such as cybersecurity, population health, and analytics.
The biggest challenge healthcare organizations face when the proper resource and performance management solutions are not in place is redundancy in IT systems.
Many advanced health IT solutions come with different features so the technology can more easily integrate into an environment. Several different solutions may contain the same features that are working simultaneously to achieve the same goal.
"Crucial back-end software that manages finance, supply chain and inventory management, purchasing, payroll and coding have been disregarded into a confused entanglement of different products that don't communicate and left executives with the inability to realize cost savings in preparation of value-based care," Black Book Managing Partner Doug Brown said in a statement. "There has been user opposition to deploying a new or upgraded ERP, perceived as carrying a high price tag in a time when clinical deployments overwhelmed hospital staff and budgets."
For example, a cloud solution may have built-in app security, but the deployed applications may already have adequate security protecting them. Having two security solutions performing the same task is redundant and can cost an organization money.
The redundant technology has no value and takes up space in the environment that could be used for a more advanced solution that has a better return, such as more storage space or a virtualization solution.
Healthcare organizations are being recognized for managing their health IT systems in the face of value-based care.
St. Luke’s Health System recently achieved a five-star quality rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) due in part to its value-based performance management platform. CMS evaluates the quality of care by measuring mortality, readmissions, patient experience, and hospital-acquired infection rates.
St. Luke’s Health System implemented WhiteCloud Analytics’ value based platform to gather information on the internal workings of its health IT systems to improve its performance.
"Irrational variation is the enemy of quality and safety, and WhiteCloud ensures our care providers have the essential data for optimizing care and standardizing evidence-based best practices," St. Luke President and CEO David C. Pate, MD said in a statement.
Value-based performance management has emerged over the past year, using analytics to give organizations a detailed look into their IT infrastructure. The statistics include workflow, change management, and accountability capabilities that influence system-wide behavior for improvement.
As healthcare organizations continue to introduce new technology systems into their IT infrastructure, the need to manage performance for value-based incentives becomes more vital for the success of a healthcare organization.
Transitioning to value-based care includes knowing which systems are performing and which systems or features are redundant to save on costs. This can also make room for more advanced solutions that will help clinicians treat patients quickly and more accurately.
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