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Health System Earnings Rebounded in 2018 but Remain Well Below 2015 Levels, Navigant Analysis Finds
U.S. hospital operating margins rose 13% in 2018 after significant declines; Scale was negatively related to financial performance
WASHINGTON DC – Operating margins for major U.S. health systems rebounded in 2018 but remain an average of 30% below their 2015 levels, according to a new analysis from Navigant, a Guidehouse company.
The study of four years of financial disclosures of 103 large health systems that own 44% of the country’s hospitals found:
- Average operating margins rose by 13% in 2018 after a decline of more than 38% from 2015 to 2017.
- Sixty-four percent of systems improved their margins in 2018, a marked contrast to 2015 to 2017 when two-thirds experienced margin deterioration.
- The most significant margin improvements from 2017 to 2018 were in the New England and South Central regions.
However, more than half of the sample remains below their 2015 operating margin levels by an average of 30%. Only in New England, which has consistently had the lowest overall profitability of any region in the study, were margins higher than 2015 levels, and margins continued to decline in the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest.
Health system margin improvement was driven by vigilance in expense control combined with a notable revenue turnaround. Revenue growth exceeded expense growth in 2018 for the first time in three years, with revenues growing at more than double the rate of expenses from 2017 to 2018. The main reasons for the revenue increases were merger and acquisition activity, improvement in commercial revenue yield, and enhanced revenue cycle management and electronic health record optimization. Though expenses rose faster than in the past two years, margin improvements were the result of more effective expense control, particularly with labor expenses and corporate overhead reduction.
“While 2018 was a turnaround year for health systems, achieving sustainable margins over the longer term will require renewed focus on operational efficiency,” said Guidehouse Managing Director John Wiest, an analysis co-author. “Doing so necessitates not only better revenue analytics but active management and rebalancing of systems’ revenue portfolios.”
Health system scale as measured by 2018 total patient revenue was found to be a negative predictor of operating performance over the preceding four-year period. Smaller health systems had better financial performance from 2015 to 2018 as measured by change in operating profit, compared to larger organizations.
“These findings highlight obvious challenges for systems that have grown through mergers and acquisitions to actually realize the operational synergies they identified in their premerger planning,” said analysis lead author and Guidehouse National Advisor Jeff Goldsmith, PhD. “It is taking larger systems longer to achieve claimed synergies from mergers than perhaps their managements realized.”
To maintain operational improvements, analysis authors suggest health systems need to focus on:
- Better controlling labor, supply, and contracted services (e.g., clinical, support services, IT, finance) expense.
- Achieving return on investment on physician employment and clinical IT, including using data analytics to identify and correct variation in clinician resource use.
- Service line rationalization to reduce programmatic duplication in neighboring facilities and eliminate programs with marginal volumes and/or substandard quality.
- Active surveillance and management of revenue portfolios, and the willingness to make continual corrections in expense trends if revenue problems materialize.
- More aggressively competing with nontraditional providers, such as retail clinics and eHealth providers, which are increasingly vying for ambulatory market share.
“Our analysis reinforces our belief that rigorous control over staffing, improved clinical effectiveness, and better resource use are vitally important to the short- and long-term financial health of hospitals and health systems,” said analysis co-author and Guidehouse Managing Director Alex Hunter.
About Guidehouse
Guidehouse is a leading global provider of consulting services to the public and commercial markets with broad capabilities in management, technology, and risk consulting. We help clients address their toughest challenges with a focus on markets and clients facing transformational change, technology-driven innovation, and significant regulatory pressure. Across a range of advisory, consulting, outsourcing, and technology/analytics services, we help clients create scalable, innovative solutions that prepare them for future growth and success. Headquartered in Washington DC, the company has more than 7,000 professionals in more than 50 locations. Guidehouse is a Veritas Capital portfolio company, led by seasoned professionals with proven and diverse expertise in traditional and emerging technologies, markets, and agenda-setting issues driving national and global economies. For more information, please visit: www.guidehouse.com.Posted 11.27.2019 -
Annual Supply Chain Savings Opportunity Reaches $25.7 Billion for U.S. Hospitals, Navigant Analysis Finds
Average supply expense reduction opportunity per hospital up 23% since 2017; savings achievable without negatively impacting quality
WASHINGTON – Unnecessary U.S. hospital spending on supply chain products and related operations and procedures has reached approximately $25.7 billion a year, according to an annual analysis by Navigant, a Guidehouse company. The potential savings opportunity represents a 11.8% or $2.7 billion surge from 2017, the study of 2,127 hospitals finds.
For individual hospitals, the average total supply expense reduction opportunity by percent remained steady at 17.4%, but the dollar savings opportunity jumped 22.6% from 2017 to $12.1 million. This amount is equivalent to the average annual salaries of 165 registered nurses or 50 primary care physicians, or the average cost of 3,100 knee implants.
“Our analysis does not point to aggregate improvement in hospital supply chain performance, with high-performing supply chains widening the gap as others tread water or lose ground,” said Rob Austin, director at Guidehouse. “It’s incumbent upon providers and suppliers, including pharmaceutical and device manufacturers and distributors, to attack these continually rising expenses to improve supply chain efficiency for all stakeholders, including patients.”
As with previous years, the analysis suggests lower supply spending doesn’t mean lower care quality. Supply chain savings opportunities continue to be lower for high performers in Medicare’s Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program and Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program. Furthermore, the analysis found that savings opportunities are once again relatively equal across hospital size, regional location, and whether the facility is urban or rural, for-profit or not-for-profit, system-based or standalone, or academic or non-academic.
High-Performing Supply Chain Best Practices
High-performing supply chain departments continue to leverage cost and quality data to reduce unwarranted care variation through the following:- Enhancing utilization – Identify which services, products, and procedures are truly needed and most efficient, based on clinical evidence.
- Increasing standardization – Partner with data-driven physicians to reduce physician preference item and medication options to those shown to produce like quality outcomes at a lower cost. Using a standardized set of supplies – or decreasing the variety used – reduces costs while helping clinicians better focus on care variation and the overall quality of care delivered.
- Integrating clinicians with supply chain, finance, and IT departments – Employ physician executives, such as chief medical officers or surgical subspecialty directors, to lead standardization efforts with clinicians, many of whom still see conversations about cost as a potential threat to how they deliver care.
“Physicians and other clinicians understand the significant savings to be had in decreasing variation, and they’re as frustrated as any stakeholder by the lack of progress,” said Guidehouse Managing Director Chuck Peck, MD, a former health system CEO. “Realizing these opportunities requires system and supply chain leadership to have more direct conversations that start at a place no clinician can walk away from—quality of care. Such conversations are best initiated by someone clinicians know has been in their shoes.”
In addition, high-performing supply chains are establishing strategic partnerships with key suppliers to more openly share cost information and conduct joint product development. Such collaboration allows entities to move away from what has often been an adversarial relationship between procurement personnel and their health system’s suppliers.
Analysis Methodology
The Navigant study found that if all analyzed short-term acute care hospitals could match the performance of the top quartile of hospitals for supply chain budget efficiency, $25.7 billion annually could be saved on supply chain products and related operations, processes, and procedures. Total supply costs include medical and implantable devices, medical/surgical and pharmaceutical supplies charged to patient care departments, and costs of supplies related to buildings/fixtures, maintenance, and plant operations. Capital equipment, labor, utilities, and some specialty pharmaceuticals were not included in the analysis. Data was extracted from Definitive Healthcare and covers 2016-2019.About Guidehouse
Guidehouse is a leading global provider of consulting services to the public and commercial markets with broad capabilities in management, technology, and risk consulting. We help clients address their toughest challenges with a focus on markets and clients facing transformational change, technology-driven innovation, and significant regulatory pressure. Across a range of advisory, consulting, outsourcing, and technology/analytics services, we help clients create scalable, innovative solutions that prepare them for future growth and success. Headquartered in Washington DC, the company has more than 7,000 professionals in more than 50 locations. Guidehouse is a Veritas Capital portfolio company, led by seasoned professionals with proven and diverse expertise in traditional and emerging technologies, markets, and agenda-setting issues driving national and global economies. For more information, please visit: www.guidehouse.com.Posted 11.27.2019 -
EHRs and Consumer Self-Pay Remain Top Revenue Cycle Challenges for Hospital and Health System Executives
Navigant/HFMA survey shows IT budgets growing as providers focus on revenue integrity, robotic process automation, and external collaboration
CHICAGO – More than 60% of providers struggle to derive optimal value from their electronic health records (EHRs), and 85% believe the increase in consumer self-pay will continue to impact their organizations, a Navigant (NYSE: NCI) analysis based on an executive survey conducted by Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) finds. According to the survey of 108 hospital and health system chief financial officers and revenue cycle executives, 62% suggest EHR adoption challenges have been equal to or outweighed benefits specific to their organization’s revenue cycle performance, up from 56% in 2018. In addition, more than half of executives say their organizations can’t keep up with EHR upgrades or underuse available EHR functions.
Consumer self-pay concerns also persist for provider executives. Eighty-five percent of respondents – including all large hospital executives – believe the increase in consumer responsibility for healthcare costs will continue to affect their organizations, up from 81% last year but down from 92% in 2017.
In an ongoing effort to better manage these challenges, 69% of executives predict their organization’s IT budgets will increase over the next year, up from 68% last year but below 74% in 2017.
Improving revenue cycle performance
When asked which strategies they’ve already implemented to successfully decrease revenue cycle costs and increase economies of scale, 46% of executives selected collaboration with external entities, including outsourcing and vendor partnerships. In addition, one-in-four of both health system and large provider executives cited advanced health IT, including robotic process automation (RPA).“It was anticipated that EHRs would be the main driver of broad performance improvement, but that has not occurred in many cases,” said Timothy Kinney, managing director at Navigant. “Instead, providers are now taking other steps, including looking outside their organizations to collaborate with external entities and leveraging advanced technology solutions, and they’re seeing successes.”
Executives also suggest their organizations have implemented solutions to better engage consumers on healthcare costs, offering comprehensive financial counseling and payment plans (40%) and online portals for price estimates and payment (32%).
Integrating revenue cycle operations with clinical operations is an area where providers aren’t seeing enough success – just 3% of respondents feel their organizations have been entirely successful at doing so.
Continued focus on IT capabilities
Moving forward, the majority of executives (87%) again suggest they’re most focused on technology-related capabilities to drive future revenue cycle improvements. Revenue integrity was the top area of focus for the third straight year, cited by 28% of executives, a 21% increase from 2017. Furthermore, RPA saw a major jump among health system executives – 15% cited the capability, which wasn’t selected by any health system executive in 2018.“New technologies leveraging RPA, artificial intelligence, and machine learning have unlocked significant opportunities to reach previously unattainable levels of revenue cycle performance,” said Navigant Director Kent Ritter. “As we’ve learned with EHR implementations, there are no silver bullets. These tools are not ‘plug and play,’ and the ability to integrate operational and technical expertise remains key to provider success.”
Navigant’s Healthcare segment is comprised of consultants, former provider administrators, clinicians, and other experts with decades of strategy, operational/clinical consulting, managed services, revenue cycle management, and outsourcing experience. Professionals collaborate with hospitals and health systems, physician enterprises, payers, government, and life sciences entities, providing strategic, performance improvement, and business process management solutions that help them meet quality and financial goals.
About Navigant
Navigant Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: NCI) is a specialized, global professional services firm that helps clients take control of their future. Navigant’s professionals apply deep industry knowledge, substantive technical expertise, and an enterprising approach to help clients build, manage, and/or protect their business interests. With a focus on markets and clients facing transformational change and significant regulatory or legal pressures, the firm primarily serves clients in the healthcare, energy, and financial services industries. Across a range of advisory, consulting, outsourcing, and technology/analytics services, Navigant’s practitioners bring sharp insight that pinpoints opportunities and delivers powerful results. More information about Navigant can be found at navigant.com.Posted 11.27.2019 -
Vital is hosting must-attend events featuring customer insights, innovation and discussions around Enterprise Imaging
November 26, 2019 — Minnetonka, MN — Vital, a Canon Group company, will join Canon Medical in booth 1933 at this year’s Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting in Chicago, December 1-6. Join us for special events within the Canon Medical booth 1933 for discussions around enterprise imaging, implementation and interoperability. Learn more vitalimages.com/RSNA.
Accelerated Performance: Advanced Visualization
With the latest release 7.11, Vital expands its legacy Advanced Visualization product Vitrea with product enhancements that help improve workability and support performance with innovative modality applications. Vital relies on innovative technology providers like NVIDIA to accelerate its solutions for clinicians. NVIDIA Quadro GPUs power Vital Images to enable higher quality, interactive 3D patient imagery in their diagnoses.Why Enterprise Imaging, Why Now? with Baptist Health
Tuesday, December 3 at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. | Booth 1933Hear Baptist Health’s decision to implement an enterprise imaging strategy and the accompanying phases of the process including the analysis of their organizational needs, the exploration and selection of the solution and vendor as well as planning the implementation.
Together, with the global power of Canon Medical, discover a complete solution for the entire care path: Scan, Diagnose & Treat, Share, and Analyze. Our comprehensive enterprise imaging solution seamlessly integrates, optimizes and shares data across all networks, regardless of vendor or system. With Canon Medical, we make collaborative imaging possible. Learn more and register today at vitalimages.com/RSNA.
Innovating the Future of Collaborative Imaging
Sunday, December 1 at 3:30 p.m. | RSNA Innovation TheaterJoin us at the RSNA Innovation Theater for a presentation around the future of imaging. Learn how Vital is embedding automation services in line with Vendor Neutral Archive message orchestration and data flow services in real time, bringing the AI algorithms to the data versus sending the data to the AI algorithm. “We continue to help advance the healthcare solution of organizations, like Baptist Health, using the latest technology that Vital has to offer,” says Jim Litterer, President and CEO of Vital. “For the last 3 decades Vital has leveraged smart algorithms at the click of a button. Now we’re removing those clicks making Vitrea even more intelligent, enabling precision diagnostics, smart actionable workflows, clinical decision support and imaging-centric population health management – defining the future of collaborative imaging helping to improve patient care.”
Find Vital at RSNA 2019 in booth 1933 in the South Hall of McCormick
Place Convention Center in Chicago, December 1-6. Learn more at vitalimages.com/RSNA.###
About Vital®
Vital, a Canon Group company, has a legacy of leadership in healthcare imaging using smart algorithms and techniques of innovation spanning 30 years. As a premier provider of an Enterprise Imaging (EI) solution focused on interoperability, Vital transforms and seamlessly connects disparate PACS and other data into an efficient, perceptive and interoperable EI solution. Through modular and scalable enterprise message orchestration, enterprise visualization and enterprise analytics solutions, Vital’s Vitrea® Enterprise Imaging solution makes data accessible across the entire enterprise when and where providers need it.Today, Vital is selectively embedding intelligence and leveraging decades of smart algorithms in advanced visualization to give clinicians the ability to make real-time decisions for today’s empowered healthcare consumer and enhancing the patient care experience. For more information on how Vital is shaping the future of healthcare technology, visit www.vitalimages.com, or join the conversation on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
Posted 11.26.2019 -
Edward Marx and John Glaser join the board of advisors of digital transformation and growth advisory firm Damo Consulting.
CHICAGO (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 14, 2019
Damo Consulting, a leading digital business enablement platform for healthcare enterprises and technology firms, today announced the addition of John Glaser and Edward Marx as Advisory Board members.
John Glaser Ph.D was the founding chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Past-President of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Since 2015, John has been a senior executive with Cerner. He joined Cerner as a part of the Siemens Health Services acquisition, where he was Chief Executive Officer. John is focused on advancing Cerner’s strategies and thought leadership position in the industry. Prior to Siemens, John was Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Partners HealthCare. He also previously served as Vice President of Information Systems at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has been a Senior Advisor to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). He is the former Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Digital Health, World Economic Forum.
John is currently a member of the boards of InTouch Health, the American Telemedicine Association, the eHealth Initiative, PatientPing, and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)
Edward Marx has served as Chief Information Officer at Cleveland Clinic, a $10 billion medical system where he was responsible for the development and execution of IT strategic planning and governance, driving optimal resource utilization, and team development and organizational support. He was also responsible for developing leaders and leveraging digital healthcare technologies to enable superior business and clinical outcomes. Prior to joining Cleveland Clinic, Edward served as Senior Vice President/ CIO of Texas Health Resources. In 2015, he spent over two years as Executive Vice President of the Advisory Board, providing IT leadership and strategy for New York City Health & Hospital.
Edward began his healthcare service as a janitor while in high school where his commitment to patient care began. He later served as an anesthesia technician before transitioning to the information technology field. Concurrent with his healthcare career, Edward served as an Army combat medic before becoming a combat engineer officer.
“I am very pleased to join Damo Consulting as a Board Advisor and am looking forward to helping the firm build out their thought leadership and serve health systems in their digital transformation journeys,” said John Glaser.
“I have worked with Paddy and his team previously on the important work his firm is doing in helping healthcare with digital transformation. I am pleased to be on their advisory board to help health systems accelerate their digital transformation journeys,” said Edward Marx.
“We are extremely fortunate to have two well-known and highly experienced industry leaders join our inaugural Board of Advisors,” said Paddy Padmanabhan, CEO of Damo Consulting and author of The Big Unlock: Harnessing Data and Growing Digital Businesses in a Value-Based Era. “I am looking forward to their mentorship and support as we invest in capabilities to enable healthcare enterprises and technology firms build digital businesses for the future.”
About Damo Consulting
Damo Consulting is a growth strategy and digital transformation advisory firm that works with healthcare enterprises and global technology companies. We help develop and implement digital transformation strategies and enable market growth strategies. We specialize in thought leadership led brand transformation and actionable healthcare market intelligence.
For media enquiries, write to [email protected]Posted 11.21.2019 -
CynergisTek’s Privacy Operations Center Scales With a Multi-Year Partnership Between CynergisTek and a Top 5 U.S. Health System
User Behavior Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Seasoned Investigators Monitor the Privacy of Healthcare Records in CynergisTek’s Privacy Operations Center
AUSTIN, Texas–CynergisTek (NYSE AMERICAN: CTEK), a leader in cybersecurity, privacy, and compliance, today announced that one of the nation’s largest health systems will expand its Patient Privacy Monitoring Services (PPMS) across the enterprise after completing a successful pilot at five facilities. At a time when Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) is being leveraged and used in new ways, the privacy of that information is being questioned and this is for good reason. Fifty-nine percent of threat actors in healthcare organizations come from the inside and breaches of medical information are 14 times more likely to be caused by healthcare employees than an outside actor.
Using tools, techniques, and procedures similar to what you would find on a Security Watch Floor, CynergisTek’s specialized privacy and security experts will leverage user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) to automatically screen and report suspicious behavior found for up to 100,000 health system users. As part of the PPMS service, CynergisTek will proactively identify aberrant activity within the medical record, support the health system with related investigations, and provide training to reduce the overall number of patient privacy violations across the enterprise.
The Privacy Operations Center, housed in CynergisTek’s Austin, Texas headquarters, has a unique approach that can effectively identify and manage client privacy incidents using near real-time data with a low rate of false positives. The health system decided to expand its PPMS contract to all regions across the enterprise under the terms of the three-year, multi-million dollar contract after a successful implementation at the five facilities.
“The cost of a data breach in healthcare is more than in any other industry and most breaches in healthcare start with an insider,” said Caleb Barlow, President and CEO at CynergisTek. “We’re seeing increased demand for our patient privacy monitoring services from even the most established provider networks. They are realizing that identifying unauthorized access early can mitigate what might grow into a much larger breach if left unchecked. Our unique combination of real-time monitoring solutions and on-mission human capital is similar to the approach taken by a security operations center, and is absolutely necessary to surface and respond to compliance and privacy incidents as they occur.”
To learn more about CynergisTek’s Patient Privacy Monitoring Services, visit https://cynergistek.com/privacy/patient-privacy-monitoring-services/.
About CynergisTek, Inc.
CynergisTek is a top-ranked cybersecurity firm dedicated to serving the information assurance needs of the healthcare industry. CynergisTek offers specialized services and solutions to help organizations achieve privacy, security, and compliance goals. Since 2004, the company has served as a partner to hundreds of healthcare organizations and is dedicated to supporting and educating the industry by contributing to relevant industry associations. The company has been recognized by KLAS as a top performing firm in healthcare cybersecurity and was awarded the 2019 Top Healthcare Cybersecurity Consultants in Black Book IT Advisory Outcomes Survey.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of CynergisTek that can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “may” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including uncertainties relating to product/service development, long and uncertain sales cycles, the ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection, market acceptance, future capital requirements, competition from other providers, the ability of our vendors to continue supplying the company with equipment, parts, supplies and services at comparable terms and prices and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Certain of these risks and uncertainties are or will be described in greater detail in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. CynergisTek is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contacts
Investor Relations Contact:
CynergisTek, Inc.
Bryan Flynn
(949) 382-1419
InvestorRelations@cynergistek.comMedia Contact:
Aria Marketing
Danielle Johns
(617) 332-9999 x241Posted 11.21.2019 -
Projects Are Extension of CareConnect Program
Optimum Healthcare IT, Optimum Healthcare IT, a Best in KLAS healthcare staffing and consulting services firm, announced today that in October 2019, the firm completed the go-live of the Epic electronic health record (EHR) system at Ferrell Hospital and Gibson General Hospital. Both organizations went live on an instance of Epic through host organization Deaconess Health System’s CareConnect program, which is the name of the organization’s Community Connect program. These go-lives follow the July 2019 go-live at Methodist Hospital of Henderson, KY, which was also through Deaconess’s CareConnect Program. Community Connect enables larger healthcare systems to extend their EHR system to smaller organizations in the community – resulting in the practice or hospital having access to a more integrated and robust EHR.Optimum was exclusively awarded the at-the-elbow support project through a competitive review process based on pricing and quality history. Go-live activities began at Methodist Hospital in June and at Ferrell Hospital and Gibson General Hospital in September, with Optimum providing Project Management and highly skilled Epic at-the-elbow support specialists. With a dedicated practice that has completed 125+ successful projects, the services provided by Optimum promoted a smooth transition to the new system with proven tools and methodologies.
Deaconess Health System chose Optimum Healthcare IT as our CareConnect go-live partner because of their history of delivering quality resources and successful projects, said Lisa Hobgood, CIO at Deaconess Health System. Optimum’s Skillmarket tool and their absolute ability to provide quality support, dispatch and monitor resources in a highly effective manner, all within very flexible pricing boundaries highlight why we selected them for these projects and why we’ll continue to partner with them for future needs.
Optimum Healthcare IT offers highly-rated KLAS training and activation services to assist healthcare organizations in bringing their EHR systems live, and ensuring users are fully trained and supported throughout their strategic initiatives. Optimum can customize our offering to fit the needs of your organization. Whether it is a phased approach or a big-bang go-live, our leadership, training, and support experts are ready to provide the best solutions and services the industry has to offer. With our staff, methodology, and tools, Optimum has the experience to organize, schedule, and manage any size go-live.
The partnership between Optimum and Deaconess made it possible to deliver the top-rated Epic EHR quickly and effectively to these communities,” said Jason Jarrett, CEO of Optimum Healthcare IT. The healthcare landscape continues to evolve, and partnerships like this one are helping to redefine the advanced tools & technologies that are available to communities across the country. It was an honor to partner with these organizations.
About Deaconess Health System
Deaconess was founded in 1892 by a group of Protestant ministers and laymen who felt called to care for the sick. More than 125 years later, Deaconess Health System continues to provide high-quality health care with a compassionate spirit, just as our founders envisioned. Deaconess Health System is the premier provider of health care services to 26 counties in three states (IN, IL, and KY). The system consists of seven hospitals located in southern Indiana: Deaconess Midtown Hospital, Deaconess Gateway Hospital, The Women’s Hospital, The Heart Hospital, The Orthopedic and Neuroscience Hospital, Deaconess Cross Pointe, and Encompass Health Deaconess Rehabilitation Hospital.About Optimum Healthcare IT
Optimum Healthcare IT is a Best in KLAS healthcare IT staffing and consulting services firm based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Optimum provides world-class professional staffing services to fill any need as well as consulting services that encompass advisory, EHR implementation, training and activation, EHR optimization, community connect, managed services, enterprise resource planning, security, and ancillary services – supporting our client’s needs through the continuum of care. Our organization is led by a leadership team with extensive experience in providing expert healthcare staffing and consulting solutions to all types of organizations.Visit www.optimumhit.com or call 1.904.373.0831 to find out how your organization can take advantage of our solution offerings.
Posted 11.20.2019 -
Vaco Launches VacoLive Podcast Radio Network with Pivot Point Consulting’s “Get to the Point”
NASHVILLE, TENN. (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 20, 2019 — Vaco, a global talent and solutions firm, today announced the launch of its podcast radio network, VacoLive. The network will host a range of podcasts focusing on healthcare IT, accounting and finance, technology and more. VacoLive’s first show, “Get to the Point,” showcases the healthcare IT consulting expertise of Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco company and KLAS-ranked healthcare IT leader. Tune in as their experts share insights and guidance on how to navigate topics like clinical documentation improvement, interoperability challenges and other healthcare IT hot topics.
“As healthcare IT professionals, we understand executives don’t always have the luxury of being at their desk, or have the time to keep up with changes in the industry the way they would like,” says Rachel Marano, Pivot Point Consulting Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “’Get to the Point’ keeps you in the loop between meetings, in the car or on an airplane. We’re getting straight to the point of topics you really care about, with practical expertise that accelerates the time from listening to doing.”
Jerry Bostelman, Founder and CEO of Vaco, adds, “Vaco is committed to investing in relationships with those we serve and tirelessly seeks new ways to inform, engage and delight. We are grateful we live in such a magical age where technology enables us to enrich our clients’ lives at their leisure. As excited as I am about the first series hitting the network soon, I can’t wait to see how our collaboration with clients creates even more relevant content over time.”
“Get to the Point” on the VacoLive network is available to stream now. Tune in here.
About Vaco
Vaco provides boutique level service with global reach in the areas of consulting, consultative project resources, executive search, permanent placement, and strategic staffing. Areas of expertise include c-suite search, accounting, finance, technology, healthcare IT, operations, administration and international managed services. Since its founding in 2002, Vaco has grown to serve over 40 markets across the globe, 1,000 employees, 5,000 consultants and $750M in revenue. Vaco has been named to Inc. magazine’s list of the fastest-growing private companies for the past 13 years and was named to Forbes’ 2018 & 2019 Lists of America’s Best Recruiting Firms.About Pivot Point Consulting
Pivot Point Consulting enables healthcare organizations to realize the most value from their technology and data through their KLAS ranked advisory, implementation/optimization, managed services and talent solutions.
The company provides strategy and consulting services for providers, payers and life sciences organizations – with 450 employees serving 85+ clients across the United States. Pivot Point Consulting has earned many industry and workplace quality awards including: Top three Best in KLAS for HIT Implementation and Support for four years running (2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018), Highest Rated Vendor in KLAS Implementation Services in the Select Category (July 2017), #1 in KLAS for Epic Consulting in the Select Category (2016), #9 in Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in 2016.For more information about Pivot Point Consulting, visit https://pivotpointconsulting.com. Follow us on LinkedIn.
Contact Information
Emily Brock
Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company
http://https://pivotpointconsulting.com/2055861366
Posted 11.20.2019 -
Vocera and Spectralink Announce Reseller Partnership, Systems Integration
Joint solution gives clinicians a new product choice for enterprise mobility and communicationTuesday, November 19, 2019
SAN JOSE, Calif.SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA), a recognized leader in clinical communication and workflow solutions, today announced that Vocera mobile applications have been certified for use with the Spectralink Versity smartphone. Additionally, Vocera will be a select reseller of Versity, giving the companies’ joint customers a seamless way to improve clinical communication and patient care, safety, and experience inside and outside the hospital.
“In fast-paced environments like hospitals, nurses, doctors, and other care team members need smart, durable mobile solutions that make their jobs easier,” said Doug Werking, CEO of Spectralink. “We are excited to integrate Versity with the Vocera solution to reduce information silos and provide meaningful patient information to clinicians at the right time, helping them make informed decisions quickly.”
The Spectralink Versity smartphone is sleek, light, rugged, and purpose-built for healthcare. Versity provides unmatched Wi-Fi voice quality and is the ideal complement to the Vocera Platform’s unique voice-driven user experience that allows clinicians to securely call by name, role, or group across the hospital or health system.
The integrated Vocera smartphone app, Vocera Vina, enables clinicians to manage all communication, including voice calls, secure text messages, alerts, and alarm notifications on one device. Accessing the app on Versity is fast and easy with single sign-on activated by a quick tap of a proximity badge. The intelligent Vina app, powered by the Vocera Platform, shows which care team members are logged in and who is available.
Health systems can now purchase Versity directly from Vocera, gaining the benefit of single-vendor continuity across their communication solution. Vocera is both a Spectralink Engage Channel Partner and a Spectralink Application Integration and Management Solutions (AIMS) partner. Through these partnership programs, Vocera and Spectralink work closely on product design, technical validation, and interoperability. Coordinated deployment, implementation, and technical support, including timely software and security updates, allow for a seamless experience for hospital IT teams and care teams.
“We are excited to partner with Spectralink and provide valuable solutions that help ensure frictionless workflows across sites and shared devices,” said Brent Lang, president and CEO of Vocera. “The integration with Versity gives our customers the freedom to choose the best device for the job.”
To learn more about the Spectralink and Vocera partnership, click here.
About Spectralink
Spectralink leads the enterprise mobility market with the industry’s most deployed mobility solution portfolio optimized for mission-critical healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and hospitality applications. As enterprises transition to mobile workflows, Spectralink is at the forefront of the industry transformation through its innovative end-to-end mobility portfolio. Designed for challenging RF environments, our mobile solutions enable enterprises to streamline their workflows and deliver a positive customer experience. To protect our customers’ investments in UC platforms, we offer the best interoperability in the industry with leading call control platforms. Since 1990, Spectralink has deployed millions of mobile devices worldwide – providing enterprises with the industry’s most reliable, high-quality and secure mobility solutions. For more information, please visit www.spectralink.com.
About Vocera
The mission of Vocera Communications, Inc. is to simplify and improve the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, while enabling hospitals to enhance quality of care and operational efficiency. In 2000, when the company was founded, we began to forever change the way care teams communicate. Today, Vocera offers the leading platform for improving clinical communication and workflow. More than 1,850 facilities worldwide, including nearly 1,600 hospitals and healthcare facilities, have selected our clinical communication and workflow solutions. Care team members use our solutions to communicate and collaborate with co-workers by securely texting or calling, and to be notified of important alerts and alarms. They can choose the right device for their role or task, including smartphones or our hands-free, wearable Vocera Smartbadge and Vocera Badge. Interoperability between the Vocera Platform and more than 140 clinical and operational systems helps reduce alarm fatigue; speed up staff response times; and improve patient care, safety, and experience. In addition to healthcare, Vocera is at home in luxury hotels, aged care facilities, nuclear power facilities, schools, libraries, retail stores, and more. Vocera solutions make a difference in any industry where workers are on the move and need to connect instantly with team members and access resources or information quickly. In 2017, Vocera made the list of Forbes 100 Most Trustworthy Companies in America. Learn more at www.vocera.com and follow @VoceraComm on Twitter.
Vocera® and the Vocera logo are trademarks of Vocera Communications, Inc. registered in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other trademarks appearing in this release are the property of their respective owners.
Shanna Hearon
Vocera Communications, Inc.
669-999-3368
[email protected]Posted 11.20.2019 -
CHIME19: Highlights for Those Who Missed It
11.20.2019
Cletis Earle, CHCIO, Chair, Foundation Board; SVP & CIO, Information Technology Kaleida Health
The 2019 CHIME Fall CIO Forum offered an opportunity to update members and Foundation firms about what CHIME and the CHIME Foundation achieved during the year, plus what’s ahead. For those who couldn’t attend in person, here is a recap.
Shafiq Rab, MD, chair of the CHIME Board of Trustees, provided an account of CHIME19 announcements and updates in this article. It describes how CHIME is growing in depth and breadth, with more educational programs launched this year and more being offered in 2020. Membership also is growing domestically and internationally. CHIME now has 10 international chapters, with Canada coming on board on Nov. 5.
As the CHIME Foundation Board chair, I had the chance to shine the spotlight on the Foundation’s accomplishments, too. Here are a few key points:
- The annual CHIME Partner Education Summit in Chicago was elevated this year with a site visit to Rush Medical Center, a whole new curriculum and more opportunities to interact and network.
- The Foundation’s credentialing program, the CHIME Foundation Certified Healthcare Executive (CFCHE), is gaining momentum. It is only two years old and already has certified 45 Foundation firm members.
- Foundation firms continue to make exceptional contributions to the industry, as shown by this year’s awards. Congratulations to First Health Advisory Solutions for winning the 2019 CHIME Foundation Partner Award, and to Cerner and Encompass Health’s Rusty Yeager for winning the 2019 CHIME Collaboration Award.
- Mac McMillan, founder and CEO emeritus at CynergisTek, became only the 14th person in CHIME’s 27-year history to receive the CHIME Foundation Industry Leader Award for his contributions as a healthcare cybersecurity pioneer. This is the highest honor CHIME gives to a Foundation firm partner. The recipient is invited to speak from the stage, and Mac used his opportunity to thank his family for their support and guidance. It was a wonderful and heart-felt speech.
The theme for CHIME19 was “Into the Future.” As I said during opening remarks on Tuesday, healthcare is shifting to give patients care when, where and how they want it. It is our future, and CIOs like me in provider settings have Foundation partners we can collaborate with to help us get there.
Speaking of the future, mark your calendars for CHIME’s next big event, the 2020 CHIME HIMSS CIO Forum. I will be held March 8-9 in Orlando, Fla. Stay tuned for more details.
More Foundation Insight:
Posted 11.20.2019 -
Use 2019’s Remaining Benefits Before 2020
11.20.2019
Arika Lycan, Director, Corporate Partner Services
With less than two full months left in the year, now is the time to make use of any CHIME Foundation benefits you might have “left on the table.”
Take advantage of the post- CHIME19 momentum to continue the conversations you started at the Fall CIO Forum. Holding an Online Focus Group, an Online Survey, or a College LIVE Presentation are all valuable points of interaction and engagement with CHIME provider members.
Below is a helpful reminder of the various types of online benefits available to you and some best practices for each:
- Conduct an educational webinar (preferably in partnership with a CHIME member)
- 60 minutes in length
- Held Wednesdays and Thursdays at 12 p.m. ET
- Topic, title, speakers, etc. are determined by your team
- Event is recorded and archived on CHIME’s website
- Best for disseminating best practices/insights
- Conduct an interactive discussion session with 10-12 CHIME members
- 60 minutes in length
- Held Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2 p.m. ET or 4 p.m. ET
- Topic, title, speakers, etc. are determined by your team
- Event is recorded for your team’s reference
- Best for gathering input
- Conduct a short survey of CHIME members to gather data
- No more than 8-10 questions
- Pushed out to CHIME membership over a 1- to 2–month period
- Best for gathering data
CHIME Foundation wants to make sure you have maximum points of connection with CHIME members; making sure to schedule your online benefits is a great way to do this. Do you have questions about how to utilize benefits, which benefit might be most appropriate for the use you have in mind, or other logistical barriers we can help overcome? Please reach out to your account director more information or check out the helpful resources we have on the CHIME website here.
More Foundation Insight:
Posted 11.20.2019 -
CHIME19 Fall Forum Focus Group Reflections
11.20.2019
Charles Russell, Corporate Partner Services AssociateArika Lycan, Director, Corporate Partner Services
The CHIME19 Fall CIO Forum has come to an end, and there were many highlights and takeaways from this event. One of those highlights was the Foundation Focus Groups.
On Nov. 4 and 5, CHIME members participated in Focus Groups in droves, which spurred a lot of feedback and tons of interaction with Foundation partners. Foundation partners provided and facilitated a total of 118 Focus Group sessions, with over 450 CHIME CIOs and provider members participating in these sessions.
2-day program – Nov. 4 and 5
118 Focus Group sessions facilitated by Foundation partners.
Over 450 CHIME members
(CIOS and other provider members) participated in Focus GroupsEvaluation results for each firm’s Focus Group(s) have been provided by the respective account directors– reach out if you have questions. Foundation partners are encouraged to review and analyze the feedback with their teams and to prepare for the next time they hold a Focus Group.
In-Person Focus Groups will be held at the 2020 CHIME HIMSS CIO Forum in Orlando, Fla., from Tuesday, March 10, to Thursday, March 12, at the Hyatt Regency Orlando Hotel. More details are to come, but now is the time to start thinking about your session. In addition, please visit the CHIME website to review guidelines and tips for planning and holding a Focus Group.
To share your Focus Group experience during the CHIME19 Fall Forum, please complete this brief evaluation.
More Foundation Insight:
Posted 11.20.2019