Think about this healthcare scenario: Even though you scheduled an appointment with your doctor, you are forced to wait while they check your records. A staff member makes phone calls and sends faxes to schedule a specialist or testing facility. The referral is for a test or procedure you’ve already undergone, but the medical records needed to verify this cannot be accessed in the moment—costing you time and money, and creating an inconvenience.
Connecting Everyone
A connected health care system can act as each patient’s main entry point to health records that connect data systems concerned with your health and well-being. Federal and state regulations—such as “Meaningful Use” of EMR and implementation of HIEs—have fast-tracked the mobilization of healthcare information electronically, providing an improved and safer patient care experience.
In 2010, The Department of Health and Human Services awarded $385 million to 40 states initially, and then another $162 million to 16 states. State-designated entities received the money for the state HIE grant program. In the time that has passed, many states have made substantial progress working with the right partners, and acquiring the latest information and technological tools to develop stable and secure HIE infrastructure.
Cutting-edge healthcare technology companies are eliminating outmoded, costly, time-consuming faxes and phone calls by taking appointment scheduling online; and linking physicians, patients, and vendors. The physicians have a centralized location for all patient referrals. The burden of keeping track of which hospital or lab facility they sent a patient’s information to is removed. This becomes important when you consider that, on average, physicians work with upwards of 60 different facilities.
Embrace Change
These types of advances allow for up to 20 to 30 percent reduction in expenditures on scheduling, patient and physician communications, and insurance verification. As healthcare IT continues to grow, the difference between the traditional health information exchange model will become more exaggerated. The traditional models are based on large platforms that are extremely expensive, taking three to five years to populate with full data. Healthcare IT will follow a model that is based on sharing information securely and on demand.
TIBCO products, Formvine (to structure secure communication) and tibbr (for collaboration), facilitate this type of secure, yet powerful, patient record sharing. Formvine and tibbr can be tightly integrated and are cross-platform developed to provide seamless use on Android, iOS, and other devices to populate the solution through Internet and mobile platforms.
Healthcare companies should continue to improve the patient facility experience on a regular basis. Embrace the positive changes, regulations, investments, and technology innovations that are making healthcare patient-centric.
Learn more about our technology solutions in healthcare.
