Unify clinical automation with business processes
The value of clinical automation systems to deliver real operational and cost benefits depends on the ability to integrate their information-rich data stores with established clinical and operational processes. Using the QlikView business intelligence solution, healthcare clinicians and administrators have been able to:
- Simplify compliance reporting, patient administration, and transitions to Electronic Medical Records
- Improve patient flow models and monitoring metrics
- Benchmark and track performance against similar facilities
- Institute clinical care optimization methodologies
Expedite access to critical information for better patient care
Advocates of EBM believe this approach will indeed improve care and reduce costs. Difficulties lie in searching for and getting access to evidence data. Using the QlikView business intelligence solution, healthcare physicians and supporting medical staff have been able to:
- Save precious time in ERs and ICUs
- Improve decision-support for Computer-based Patient Record systems
- Streamline and track the effectiveness of EBM processes
- Identify and track key patient safety and care quality metrics
Optimize resources based on demand
Healthcare facilities experience fluctuating capacity. Underestimating demand for appointments and procedures can leave patients waiting, reducing satisfaction and perceptions of care. Overestimating underutilizes clinical staff, increasing costs. Using the QlikView business intelligence solution, healthcare providers have been able to improve resource planning and utilization—based on demand—in areas such as:
- Use of facilities, including ER, OR, ICU, testing rooms and patient beds
- Scheduling of equipment and patient tests
- Shift planning and scheduling of clinicians and support staff
- Staffing adjustments due to variations in patient census, as well as staff vacations, sick days, holidays, family leave, weather emergencies, retirements, etc.
Make smarter purchases at economies of scale
Medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and third party support services consume 30 to 40% of a hospital’s budget. Supply chains are segregated with insufficient links to hospital systems. The resulting inefficiencies impact financial performance, hinder the availability of patient services, and limit the full use of revenue-generating facilities. Using the QlikView business intelligence solution, hospitals and entire health systems:
- Monitor stock usage and inventory across the enterprise in real time
- Align stocking levels with usage demands
- Improve volume pricing through hospital or system-wide purchases
- Gain clear understanding of costs, service levels and performance of competing vendors to negotiate best value for supplies and services
Control the revenue cycle
High costs and fears of lower reimbursements from emerging P4P, DRG and CDHP insurance models increase the urgency to accelerate revenue cycles and reduce the underlying cost of collections. Using the QlikView business intelligence solution, healthcare CFOs, financial analysts and accounting professionals have been able to:
- Gain visibility across functions affecting cash flow, net cash, bad debt and cost-to-collect
- Improve processes for patient admissions, claims administration, denial management, fraud detection, and insurer contract management
- Increase cost capture during care delivery
- Reduce burdens of P4P and DRG tracking, reporting and cost accounting
Institute a culture of profitability
Too many healthcare facilities either lose money or just break even. Financial reporting is manually intensive, which increases regulatory compliance costs and limits visibility into the true underlying causes of financial performance.
Using QlikView, healthcare finance departments can:
- Automate planning, budgeting and forecasting tasks
- Profile costs and revenue by facility, practice, physician, procedure, etc.
- Track actual spending versus budget by department
- Improve Revenue Cycle Management (link to tab 2)
- Reduce time and cost of financial compliance reporting (IFRS, SOX, etc.)
- Monitor cost controls and impact on bottom line performance