With so much news, advertising, promotion and discussion
revolving around HIPAA IT, “meaningful use”, EMR, security breaches and a
seemingly un-ending list of other related Health IT security and compliance
subjects, it is easy to lose sight of the fact there is still a business to run.
All this noise can easily impact and distract IT decisions or derail IT
initiatives that can improve how a hospital or home care business can and
should be operated in this day and age. What I call the ‘other side of the
hospital’ is a back office that needs to run and that has significantly real
business process automation needs.
It seems that everyone has become so HIPAA IT and EMR
centric that sustaining attention on the business side has been relegated to a
remote and distant second tier. Almost with a, “Oh yeah, there is that to get
to too” attitude. There are clearly needs outside of EMR centric systems. A/P,
H/R, workflow processing, business document management, contract management,
project management are still central requirements of any well run health care business.
As I also work with non-hospital or home care businesses I see firsthand the
strides that those businesses are making in advancing their business processes
into the digital age with forms automation, mobility and workflow processing,
A/P and H/R on-boarding and fluent system integrations for example.
Driving a health care business solely from an EMR centric
focus creates severe debilitations on efficiency and profitability. While an
EMR initiatives are indeed critical and necessary in health care services,
those systems and that as a strategy simply does not address enterprise wide
business operational needs. There is a lot more that needs to go on in a health
care business than automating patient records. I see real dangers ahead if
health care IT doesn’t begin a re-focus attention and investments on the ‘other
side of the hospital’.
There are a significant number of forms that surround health
care business management that EMR systems do not address. There are a
significant numbers of A/P invoices that need approval and processing. There is
the ever constant on-boarding of staff in H/R. There are numerous sometimes
hundreds of contracts and business associate agreements that need management.
EMR systems do not address those areas yet, somehow, we are being led to think
they might, can or will. That’s not happening.
Today’s advances in business process management technologies
out classes what I have seen in EMR. Hospital IT leaders and home care business
operators would do well to take a pause and revisit the IT agenda on the other
side of the hospital or their home care business. If you haven’t looked
recently, today’s business process technologies have exponentially advanced the
‘state-of-the-art’. Bringing the other side of the hospital into the digital
age can provide a dramatic boost to profitability. What is available in
business process automation today is fast to achieve, unbelievably easy to do
and extremely cost efficient. Amazing, really.
While the subject of business process automation in health
care may not have the ‘hair-on-fire’ glamour of EMR, it is like oxygen- you
won’t miss it until it starts to deplete. There is still a business to run on
the other side of the hospital.
I look forward to a discussion with those hospital leaders working to run the 'other side' of the business at mike@chartacloud.com
No comments:
Post a Comment