Getting started is harder – expansion is, too!

Those who have faced the challenge of starting a medical practice — funding, location, staffing, insurance, and building a reputation — might think expanding a practice is relatively easy.

Where are the flying cars?

It’s 2020. We’re already well into the 21st century. By now, wasn’t artificial intelligence supposed to have given us flying cars, replicators to produce our favorite foods on demand, and a society in which everyone enjoyed luxury, ease, and good health?

An October 2018 study commissioned by the referral management platform Fibroblast found that 87% of healthcare executives say that addressing the loss of patients to their competitors is a high priority. At the same time, the survey found that about a quarter of executives either do not track so-called patient “leakage” or don’t understand why it occurs and what to do about it.

Whether customers are scanning through user reviews to figure out where to get the best slice of pizza or reading up on which healthcare provider is right for them, the majority of consumers will make an educated decision before making a choice. As a healthcare provider, it’s your job to recognize and understand what your customer base’s needs are and how you will be able to solve their problems and keep them coming back for more.

What is healthcare consumerism?

Pioneered by the U.S. Army

Many doctors and patients today are using telemedicine, connecting via computer or mobile device for a range of medical and behavioral health concerns, from assessing pain to examining a skin rash to discussing medications. But going to the dentist? Doesn’t that still mean a physical office visit?

Maybe not. In 1994, the U.S. Army’s Total Dental Access Project showed that teledentistry could reduce costs while extending dental care to rural areas where dentists may not be readily available.

For those accustomed to years of office visits for cleaning and drilling of teeth, the question is obvious: How do they do that?

So, your practice has been doing well. You’ve got more patients, happy clients, and superb care. As your practice continues to grow, it’s fair to question whether or not your current EHR is capable of providing you with the tools and help necessary for a smooth transition.

Today’s patients are fortunate to live in an era of remarkable medical discoveries and advances. Between 1920 and 2020, life expectancy in the U.S. grew from about 50 years to more than 75 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thanks to early detection and better treatments, death rates for many forms of cancer continue to decline. Genetic medicine and new drugs hold enormous promise for curing even the rarest and most debilitating diseases.

While dramatic medical advances grab the headlines, most patients and medical practices focus each day on a more modest goal — creating the best possible patient experience during each medical encounter.

Doing so requires both great healthcare IT tools and innovative, flexible thinking throughout a medical organization.

It’s the last game of the season. The floodlights turn on – illuminating the crisp autumn sky and revealing the compact emerald turf. As you sit on the locker room bench, you hear the other high school students stamping their feet on the metal bleachers in anticipation. You stand up and rush through the tunnel, the nervous euphoria that was in your stomach now an all-encompassing focus on the game.

The whistle blows, you get the ball, your opponent comes directly for you. You shimmy to the left. They saw it coming. BAM! You’re on the ground. Waves of pain circulate from your thumb. Your coach tells you to wrap it. Later, when you take the bandage off, your thumb is more swollen than it had been before. The minute you see the doctor in the emergency room, they look at it and ask why you wrapped up your hand for a broken bone.

The doctor was able to determine how to treat the injury in seconds by simply looking at the hand. If the coach had access to a telehealth solution, a doctor could have determined what to do quickly and accurately. Utilizing telehealth for sports is just one application for this increasingly useful technology.

Securing Healthcare Communications

Each year brings remarkable advances in healthcare technology and therapeutics. And healthcare providers are quick to seize on those advances to make it easier for millions of Americans to get the healthcare services they want, while improving outcomes and lowering costs along the way.

As the lights dim and you begin crunching on some buttery popcorn, the theater is illuminated by a forest green screen. After the first trailer ends, the screen changes to a dark red. The words on the screen say that it’s been approved for a restricted audience only.

When it comes to movie trailers, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) created a set of standards that help determine whether a film is deemed appropriate for every viewer.

In the same way that the MPAA has used their rating system to try and make the film industry better, so have Standard Development Organizations (SDOs) created health data standards to improve interoperability between healthcare organizations and their Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.

‘Awash in data, ankle deep in information’

Modern healthcare generates seemingly endless amounts of data, from Progress Notes, exams, and lab tests, to emergency room visits, hospital stays, health trackers, and more. By next year, according to an estimate from Stanford Medicine’s Health Trends Report, the U.S. will have more than 2,314 exabytes (an exabyte is a trillion megabytes) of data.

The more relevant point, author Michael E. Thompson notes, is that healthcare today is “awash in data, yet barely ankle deep in information.”

What if you were the new coach of the team with the worst record in the NFL? How would you improve the organization’s performance? One approach might be to benchmark what’s working for the best teams in the league and use available assets to adapt your processes to what makes those other teams a success.

In healthcare, too, benchmarking can be a critical component in improving efficiency, quality of care, patient safety, and patient satisfaction.

From overwhelming to manageable

Many medical organizations talk about having a roadmap to the future, but following one is hard. Adopting new healthcare IT can feel overwhelming when you’re trying to keep up with your daily patients.

But overwhelming becomes manageable when a practice remembers the principles that go into a good roadmap.

In spring 2012, at a time when Electronic Health Records (EHRs) were still far from universal, the journal Perspectives in Health Information Management published a study examining how EHRs can impact practice workflows.

After 42 years, the Star Wars Skywalker saga is coming to an end. Fans hope that Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker will be an epic conclusion to the series, captivating the audience with quality filmmaking and storytelling rather than cashing in on past success and ideas that will sink the sequel into obscurity. To put it simply: quality over quantity.

What could be said about quality in cinema could also be said for the world of healthcare. Volume-based care puts less focus on quality or the type of service they give to patients and more on the numbers and cost of care – those who were the most successful were those who could see the greatest number of patients.