There are many benefits to Health IT, but when it comes to these business drivers there is one that leads the charge: increased efficiency.
The motivation to increase efficiency is on the lips of healthcare executives in both provider and health plan circles across the nation. Controlling and being aware of the cost of care is important. By including costs in the exchange of clinical information, providers can begin to understand the correlation between the quality of care and the costs associated with that care across the continuum.
It is just these types of efficiencies that drive government incentives towards a more connected healthcare environment. From EMRs to HIEs and beyond, the Healthcare CIO is involved in a slew of activities aimed at providing increased efficiency across the organization.
Increased Efficiency Also Saves Lives
However, while driving efficiency reduces costs and makes for a much healthier organization, in healthcare greater efficiency also means increasing the health of patients that an organization serves. Better efficiency facilitates treatment across all of a hospital’s facilities and helps a patient get well instead of experiencing a rapid decline in health that inefficiency can cause.
These cost savings, and increased health, ultimately come in the form of reduced readmissions, which is why HHS released Partnership for Patients back in April. The partnership calls on hospitals to focus on nine specific medical errors with the goal of reducing readmissions by 20% by 2013. These errors include adverse drug events, obstetrical adverse events, and surgical site infections to name a few.
Health IT can have an incredible impact on the efforts of Partnership for Patients. In an article by Healthcare IT News, four hospitals were highlighted for leading the way in increasing efficiency around these nine medical errors. As shown by these great examples, the key IT solution to these nine medical errors is found in Business Process Management (BPM). BPM can help an organization by improving processes around dispensing and administering medications, post-surgical procedures, and a host of other processes that comprise care. Healthcare systems that begin to address the question of efficiency through process improvement and enabling technologies will be able to control cost, improve margins and drive improved patient experiences.
In a set of future posts we will identify all of the ways that increasing efficiency through Health IT saves lives. In the meanwhile, you can leave a comment below with some of your thoughts.
