Thanks to stellar clinicians and research, healthcare treatment in the U.S. is world-class. We are home to exceptional doctors, nurses and provider organizations who deliver the best care. However, the tech underpinning that care is in need of change. We need to focus as much on healthcare technology innovation as we have on the innovation of drugs and devices.
This lack of IT infrastructure manifested during the pandemic. Government agencies had a difficult time knowing where the disease was spreading, what supplies and therapeutics were available and how long it would take to replenish stockpiles. A common refrain during the pandemic was that it’s easier to get data from AIDS clinics in Africa than Covid data from U.S. providers.
The truth is private companies – Premier included – had more real-time data than our government to inform our public health response, and they provided as much as they could. However, America needs more tech-enabled insights across manufacturers, distributors, and providers. It seems so simple, but our government lacks and is in need of:
- A real-time national surveillance system to identify a disease threat as early as possible
- Predictive analytics to forecast geographical disease progression and surge
- Data on supply sources and locations, including raw materials, throughout the supply chain
- AI-enabled inventory monitoring and advanced alerts of surge demand
The value of tech-enablement in a clinician’s day-to-day goes beyond outbreak scenarios. So much is done by hand and faxed around that it screams of mid-90s nostalgia, but not in a charming way.
In healthcare, technology is most needed to automate processes, ensure appropriate care, extend the reach of providers and enable payment models that lower costs, improve outcomes and enhance value. To that end, we need to see some real change across the ecosystem.
Embrace the seniors
Many long-term care facilities are still relying on paper records and low-tech means of capturing patient information and coordinating care. Think Word documents with lists and charts and sticky-notes. The spread of Covid across these facilities made clear how real the need was for robust, clean and actionable data to better control such an outbreak in the future.
Public-sector subsidies of electronic health record (EHR) deployments in nursing homes are a good first step to remediate this problem. To truly bring these facilities into the 21st Century, we need to incentivize the adoption of clinical surveillance tools to reside within those EHRs.
Simplify the buy
Other systems like Premier’s e-Commerce platform, stockd, need to be developed. These types of systems help to close a critical gap in the traditional med/surg supply chain – more valuable amid a pandemic – and serve as a resource to access vital supplies. Buyer information can be leveraged to drive data-driven decision-making helping to strategically onboard new sellers and products based on the evolving needs and demands of customers.
We observed that as the industry began to understand the implications that Covid-19 would have on the supply chain, thousands of critical products were placed on allocation, a protective measure that limits orders to a percentage of historical purchases. Organizations without a prior purchasing history of products like N95s cannot buy off of allocation. For them, a marketplace like stockd. could be a lifeline during a scary time.
Simplify the pay
The complex processes and fragmented back-office technology platforms utilized by those in healthcare have impeded the adoption of automated purchasing and payment solutions. As many as 70 percent of all invoices are paper-based, and nearly 85 percent of healthcare purchasing is still done via paper checks. Across healthcare, these manual, paper-based processes may add as much as $18 to $22 billion in unnecessary annual expenses.
A cloud-based, digitized accounts payable system helps manage and automate the entire process, resulting in greater efficiencies, visibility, and savings.
Bring prior authorization into the 21st Century
The lack of a streamlined, automated, easily accessible approval process for medical tests and therapies wastes time and money and delays care. Ninety-one percent of the physicians surveyed by the American Medical Association (AMA) in 2019 reported delays in care due to prior authorization (PA) and 29 percent reported a wait time is at least three business days. From a cost perspective, the AMA reports that 30 percent of providers have hired staff who are dedicated to management of PA.
Digitizing the interactions with payers saves time and money and ensures physicians are practicing evidence-based medicine. With artificial intelligence (AI) using natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and clinician codified and validated PA policies, we can streamline this burdensome aspect of healthcare. The industry could see $454 million in annual savings by transitioning to fully electronic PA.
Over the next five years, our industry’s focus should be on upgrading technology in healthcare to cut waste, improve outcomes and catalyze change. We deserve better than a slow, expensive and disconnected system that flies in the face of clinical progress. Through collaboration and public-private partnerships, we can meet these goals.
Photo: LumineImages, Getty Images
