10 steps to improving patient care with technology

Technology has become integral to providing high quality care, yet many healthcare organizations struggle with utilizing their technology in the most effective way. A recent list created by SCI Solutions, providers of patient care management technology, featured 10 checkpoints of success to help organizations improve care.

The “checklist for success” includes the following points:

1. Integrated orders: Embed electronic orders and automatically match order with appointments to reduced delays from lost orders, transcription errors, phone tag and faxing.
2. Market-based scheduling: Present a consistent brand process from a single call center with time zone support, geography-based appointment searchers and multi-entity insurance filtering.
3. Embedded business logic: Integrate clinical and operational rules within the scheduling process to give scheduler a routine to reduce training time while increasing accuracy and productivity.
4. Revenue cycle up front: Move critical revenue cycle tasks to scheduling by using integrated business logic for medical necessity, insurance verification and authorizations before the patient arrives.
5. Electronic to-do list: Utilize integrated worklists to give patient access teams the ability to manage all tasks required to increase referral-to-appointment conversions, pre-register and inform patients of financial responsibility.
6. Provider self-service and correspondence tools: Offer self-service and correspondence tools to reduce call volume, improve productivity and increase physician and patient satisfaction.
7. Consumer self-service: Empower patients by providing guided scheduling process that improve readiness, slot availability and insurance with a scheduling foundation built on business logic.
8. Appointment reminder: Use automated reminders sent to patients’ phone or email to avoid financial burdens or last-minute rescheduling.
9. HIS/EHR-agnostic platform: Securely connect all order, referral and scheduling traffic with cloud-based technology that compliments existing systems.
10. Reports and analytics: Continuously learn about the demand and resources within the industry to update and improve care.