Identifying a Care Delivery Management Solution That Works for IT

Oct 11, 2016 7:33:52 AM

It’s often said that the key to success for modern organizations is to find the optimum marriage of people, processes and technology. That’s certainly true for home health care organizations these days. With pressure rising on all sides to reduce costs and improve margins, agencies must find the right balance on that three-legged stool.

ITguy-thumbsup-450.jpgIn an article titled “Where it Pays for Home Health Agencies to Spend More,” Home Heath Care News said, “Smart agencies are likely to focus more on increasing [technology] usage … One reason why increasing IT spend can help with gross margin is that tech can automate certain processes, such as in billing, reducing the need for staff while keeping productivity high.” 

While the field and operations teams form the backbone of a health care delivery organization, IT is the nerve center.

Our previous post, “When Margins are Tight, Should You Cut Costs or Invest?, looked at some of the ways mobile health care technology can provide efficiencies and cost savings.

But merely having an application that runs on mobile devices isn’t enough. If that mobile “solution” doesn’t integrate effectively with your IT systems, it can become expensive “shelfware” – costly and under-utilized.

You need to find a care delivery management solution that works for – and with – your existing IT infrastructure.

When your IT staff thinks about implementing and supporting a mobile health delivery system, they must consider:

  • How to provide flexibility for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and the myriad of devices people use in the field – and still be able to support the corresponding large matrix of computing platforms and operating systems.
  • How to meet government regulations for data privacy and security – while delivering strong, secure communications capabilities for a distributed workforce.
  • Where to store huge amounts of data in many different formats – while making it accessible at a moment’s notice.
  • How to keep the system up and running 24x365 – and have a rock-solid business-continuity plan in case of disaster.
  • How to integrate the solution and make it communicate with other systems inside and outside your firewall – while keeping a tight lid on data and system security.
  • What is the total cost of ownership for capital purchases and ongoing licensing and maintenance?

IT and Operations leaders know it’s not just the technology that matters – it’s equally important that your people and organization can easily adopt that technology. If it’s difficult to learn or use, or if it won’t play well with existing workflows and processes, it’s no solution at all.

Learn more about key technology considerations in “How to Choose a Mobile Health Care and Services Delivery Solution.”

 

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Topics: Mobile Solution, Productivity