Anyone who’s ever been in a hospital emergency room
has likely
been struck by the intersection between the business and
clinical operations of health care. Triage nurses ask scripted
questions covering both medical and insurance issues, and
we as patients assume that information passes from one side
of the house to the other.
Building a Business Case
IntegrAtIng eHrs wItH
Supply CHAIn MAnAgeMent
for InCreASed effICIenCy
And IMproved pAtIent CAre
Table of Contents
why Integrating eHrs and Supply Chains Is a Must
...
3
Identifying financial risks and Benefits
...
3
Making the Case for Building a Clinical Bridge
...
4
Conclusion
...
5
About Infor Healthcare
...
5
IntegrAtIng eHrs wItH
Supply CHAIn MAnAgeMent
for InCreASed effICIenCy
And IMproved pAtIent CAre
3
A key area where healthcare organizations — from the largest hospitals to small doctors’ offices — are looking to improve operational efficiency and maintain high-quality patient care is in integrating two vitally important applications: electronic health records (EHRs) and supply chain management. Well-thought-out and smoothly executed integrations of those applications can go a long way toward generating demonstrable benefits in both patient outcomes and financial results. But decision-makers are looking for clear rationales for making the invest-ment in budget, time and staff resources to integrate EHRs with their supply chains, and need help in building a business case for that integration.
why Integrating eHrs and Supply
Chains Is a Must
By now, most healthcare organizations have at least started down the path toward adopting EHRs, and an increasing percentage of those organizations are well on their way toward making EHRs an integral part of their operations. The Centers for Disease Control pegged office-based provider adoption of EHRs at 39 percent at the end of 2011, and 33 percent for hospitals nationwide. The financial incentives associ-ated with adopting EHRs and demonstrating mean-ingful use under the HITECH Act — combined with the eventual Medicare reimbursement penalties for noncompliance — undoubtedly are a powerful cata-lyst for EHR adoption. But the most forward-thinking healthcare providers are taking the next step in inte-grating EHRs with back-office business applications centered on supply chain and revenue management. A study by the Rand Corporation noted that as much as $88 billion is wasted annually on ineffective use of information technology. In healthcare, this IT waste represents the largest area of operational waste identified by PricewaterhouseCoopers in their recent report on wasteful healthcare spending, and high-lights the urgent need for healthcare organizations
to identify, and immediately fix, costly bottle-necks that actually choke the flow of urgent information for patient care.
As a result, hospitals and doctors offices are moving quickly to unite clinical and business data through connectors that facilitate information flow from application to application, data source to data source, regardless of physical location or underlying technology environment.
For example, consider the situation where a man is brought in with symptoms related to his diabetes, in obvious distress. He needs an IV fast, and his electronic medical records indicate he is what clini-cians call a “difficult stick,” meaning it’s very hard to reliably start a line without using a vein-illumina-tion device. If the hospital’s EHR and supply chain system are integrated, the staff will know if the device is available and where it is. If not, they may be directed to immediately get a central-line kit as an alternative. Without that connectivity, the process would become a lengthy, manual exercise with high potential for medical risk and a poor patient out-come. With connected systems, an added benefit is that, if the central line kit is used, the supply chain application will know that the inventory is reduced and will reorders will happen automatically.
Identifying financial risks
and Benefits
As is the case with all investment decisions, health-care professionals must weigh the various risks and benefits of investing in a seamless set of connectors between EHRs, supply chain management and other revenue-generation applications. Among the signifi-cant risks associated with failing to have a reliable
As much as $88 billion
is wasted annually
on ineffective use of
information technology.
bridge linking clinical and business operations are:
p Lower or inaccurate reimbursements from
insurance bodies
p Lack of transparency into the availability of
impor-tant supplies needed for proper patient care
p Difficulty in monitoring supplies-related revenue
and usage, and an inability to cross-check supplies utilization
p Inaccurate billing p Excessive use of labor
The financial implications of these risks are clear, ranging from high out-of-stock situations on key supplies and use of personnel on physical inventory counts to lower patient satisfaction on Press Ganey reports.
Instead, healthcare organizations are moving to appli-cation connectors that provide such benefits as:
p Improved reimbursement rates and speed,
through the use of a closed-loop data capture system
p Improved workflow, by eliminating manual
process-es for inventory adjustments and requisitioning
p Enhanced patient safety and quality
p Improved standardization of service delivery
With those risks and benefits clearly identified, many organizations have put in place different solutions to link the key clinical and business systems. But there are important cost implications to making the right decisions here, too. For instance, some hospi-tals — either with in-house staff or outside software developers — have installed numerous point-to-point interfaces, rather than a comprehensive, permanent connectivity bridge. Those interfaces can be extremely costly, running anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 to manually build, with the potential for even higher maintenance costs. For connectors among EHR,
supply chain and revenue manage-ment applica-tions, organiza-tions are facing at least eight
different interface points for each element of data that needs to be exchanged. This represents a dif-ficult integration and ongoing management scenario, and makes it evident that the costs for even modest levels of data integration can quickly escalate.
Making the Case for Building
a Clinical Bridge
Instead of having a network of ad hoc connection points that add cost and complexity to what is sup-posed to be seamless, continuous data flow among key applications, healthcare organizations are now selecting an alternative approach. A clinical “bridge” can provide a permanent middle layer for manag-ing data flow
among disparate applications on the clinical and business sides of the organiza-tion, reducing supply-chain-related expenses and meeting the
demands set in motion by the adoption of EHRs. But which solutions help turn data into insight, and then into more efficient processes to reduce risk and improve patient care?
Infor Lawson Clinical Bridge represents an important step forward in the integration of EHRs and supply chains. The platform acts as a seamless, permanent connector to bridge data from these and other applica-tions. Built to match the structures of different data sources, it maps data to appropriate fields and makes
Point-to-point interfaces
can cost between $10,000
and $50,000 to build —
and even more to maintain.
A clinical bridge provides
a permanent, seamless
middle layer for managing
data flow among disparate
applications on the clinical
and business sides.
5
it available in real time to the department personnel that need to link business and clinical systems. Infor Lawson Clinical Bridge is configured with pre-built, fully tested adapters that connect different solutions with robust, reliable functionality. It is designed for ease of deployment and lower ongoing management cost compared with individual point-to-point solutions, and promotes tighter collaboration among IT, clinical and business departments. The result is a powerful combination of lower supply chain costs and a more reliable process for meeting government mandates to implement EHRs and demonstrate meaningful use.
Implementing this purpose-built connectivity solution helps healthcare organizations achieve important goals such as tracking supplies used by high-revenue areas (for example, catheter labs or interventional radiology departments); automating the patent rev-enue posting process; capturing supply demand au-tomatically from clinical systems; and tightening the critical ties between clinical and business systems.
Conclusion
Until recently, healthcare probably was the last major industry where “islands of information” still existed at unacceptably high levels, robbing organizations of financial efficiency and negatively impacting patient outcomes. Today, EHRs are no longer just a compli-ance mandate but a part of the healthcare industry’s most essential business processes, and organizations are dramatically stepping up their efforts to link EHRs to such important operational applications as supply chain management.
Solutions such as Infor Lawson Clinical Bridge provide the vital connectivity links that unite clini-cal, financial and operational systems with data to ensure accuracy, responsiveness and even predict-ability. By adopting a well-engineered solution such as Infor Lawson Clinical Bridge, hospitals and other
medical practitioners can immediately share data across systems, resulting in reduced operating costs, ongoing compliance and improved patient outcomes by ensuring that patients receive the right care — at the right time and at the most efficient cost.
About Infor Healthcare
You’ve known us as Lawson Healthcare. Now get to know us as Infor Healthcare. We bring more than 25 years of experience creating healthcare-specific technology solutions to help you face the challenges ahead. With more than 3,000 customers in 30 countries, we have a very clear understanding of what drives success for today’s healthcare organizations. Our market-leading supply chain, finance, human capital, and integration technologies are adopted by healthcare providers large and small — from lead-ing research institutions, to renowned supply chain leaders, to global integrated delivery networks to healthcare’s best places to work — to drive operational efficiencies, reduce expenses, and most importantly, ensure they have the best resources to deliver safe, effective, quality care.
For more information, please contact us by email at [email protected] or call 1-800-260-2640.
