The last several years of economic volatility have exposed the healthcare sector’s lack of infrastructure to effectively manage financial pressure and workforce shortages. Already an industry with slim margins, current macro trends in the economy are exacerbating the differences between hospitals thriving and merely surviving.
Healthcare operations, the backend systems and processes that make health systems and hospitals run smoothly, are a critical underpinning that enable exceptional patient care. Unfortunately, 88% of healthcare executives today feel burdened with an excess of siloed tech solutions that complicate their jobs and lack the operational infrastructure they need for their organizations to function at their best. In the current challenging healthcare climate, there is no time for complacency or inaction. Healthcare organizations that delay consolidating tech stacks and optimizing healthcare operations will continue to hemorrhage money, incur costly penalties and compliance violations, and lose staff due to operational and workforce inefficiencies.
Healthcare leaders unite to galvanize operations
Against this backdrop, healthcare leaders from across the country convened at the Healthcare Operations Summit in Park City, Utah to discuss current challenges in healthcare operations. Conversations centered around identifying ways that we can bring health systems’ backend operations to a higher standard and facilitate the delivery of exceptional patient care.
Following the summit, healthcare industry leaders signed a “Pledge to Advance Healthcare Operations,” committing to galvanize operations improvement across the healthcare ecosystem through five key actions:
- Empower decisions: Unify and standardize healthcare operations tools, reporting, and analytics for decision-making — ensuring we are getting close-to-real-time valuable data-based insights
- Prioritize user experience: Champion user-oriented technology that supports and strengthens an exhausted healthcare workforce
- Advocate for better data: Unite around one dynamic and reliable source of truth for provider data as well as other related healthcare operational data
- Expand access, build loyalty: Exceed the expectations of today’s transient healthcare consumer with patient access and loyalty ecosystems that rival those found in other industries
- Facilitate the advancement of care: Embrace proven innovation and automation to streamline care and operational efficiency, raising expectations for how our industry delivers care
We believe that without making these key healthcare operations improvements, today’s health systems will be unable to survive the current economic, competitive, and regulatory pressures, let alone thrive to provide the care their communities rely on.
A better healthcare system for all
The good news is that when it comes to healthcare operations, less can be more. New solutions are often implemented with little training or consideration of how they will fit into the existing technology infrastructure. As a result, most health systems are juggling 50+ siloed software products for areas such as workforce management, compliance, quality, and safety management, and provider data management. These solutions can ultimately be more of a hindrance than a help to frontline workers, adding to administrative burden and burnout. When healthcare operations and technology aren’t optimized and clinicians are overly burdened by technology rather than empowered by it, there is a risk of medical errors and patient mortality.
Fortunately, there are steps health systems can take now to avoid these negative downstream effects and operate more efficiently. By investing in solutions proven to increase ROI and workforce efficiency and reduce the risk of penalties and fines, health systems can create operational excellence across the enterprise, from workforce management and provider data management to supply chain, contract, and compliance management. A strong enterprise operations system can save health systems money by streamlining tech stacks and trimming the fat—those pricey point solutions that were implemented and promptly forgotten.
As a healthcare technology executive and a former chief nursing executive, we come from different backgrounds but share a common belief in the power of convening healthcare leaders and the ability of enterprise technology to alleviate burnout, fill critical gaps in the healthcare system, and improve the quality and amount of patient care health systems deliver. The well-being of ourselves, our families and our communities depends on it.
CTA: Key veteran leaders in healthcare have signed the pledge committing to improving healthcare operations. We invite everyone working across the healthcare sector to join us in this pledge and commit to advancing our operations to create more efficient organizations and a stronger healthcare sector. Visit the pledge website to learn more.
Photo: Liana Nagieva, Getty Images
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