Over the last two years COVID and chip shortages combined to create a double whammy for our industry. HMEs were forced to adopt new technologies and collaborate with their workforce virtually overnight. What became clear from all of these events piling on was that Digital Transformation is the only way to leverage your data and gather the insights you need to help drive your workday.
During the pandemic, everything shut down and we were forced to go to work-from-home models. What we are seeing and hearing now is that about half of our HME customers are going to continue to work remotely in one form or another. In fact, the shift back to the office doesn’t look like it’s going to be anything like it was before the pandemic.
Of course, not being able to go into an office and interact with colleagues in person brings its own set of complications. We know they are working today but what are they working on? How productive are they being? Is there anything that we can assist them with? When you’re in an office setting you can physically visit a co-worker for help or information. That’s not quite the case now – where you are relying on technology, MS Teams, Zoom and Slack channels – whatever form of communication your organization is using.
If you’re starting to see orders being extended, documentation lagging or payment collection falling behind, data can really illuminate what’s going on. No wonder we have seen an unprecedented demand for analytics from our health care providers to accelerate this digital transformation journey.
It’s all about data-driven management. From analytics dashboards to pulling reports, providers have been crunching data to make better decisions and help their staff stay connected with patients. We still want our dashboards to report back, provide historic trends and tell us how we are doing today. But now we are moving into an era where the data is informing you what you need to focus on within your organization. What should you be working on? Where are the areas of opportunity? Where are the areas of success? And why spend hours and hours pulling, crunching, massaging, and cleaning data when you only have an hour left in the day to start acting on it?
Using data more intelligently to increase productivity, help more patients and reduce costs with the same resources you’ve had previously is the key. No wonder data is playing an even more important role in patient care coordination and management across home health. It’s also seeing data as another way for you to stay connected with your staff to improve overall collaboration. Think of data as your overall lynchpin to:
With the proliferation of so many disparate data sources, being able to integrate all of your first- and third-party data is imperative. This applies to your financial data, customer data, operational data, or anything else.
This “intelligent automation” features data driven workflows where a user can log in and the entire user experience can be driven within a single source, similar to how Brightree operates today. This innovation alone can help transform your business. Think about it. Currently, a lot of our customers and HMEs are pulling multiple reports throughout the day, dumping them into an Excel file and manually setting these workflow lists out to their staff. It’s a time-consuming and labor intensive process that can also result in data that is less relevant. By the time you’re done manipulating, cleaning, and sending it all out, you’re now looking at a static set of data – not something that’s dynamic and changing.
Intelligent automation has become a user-driven experience with customized goals and priorities based on the individual histories of the customer. That’s why it’s critical to have your data uploaded in real-time. Ensuring you have an adaptive worklist will allow you to focus on several key areas of your business – anywhere from the documentation of your sales orders and invoices to payments and collections. Everything that encompasses your general workflow can now be seen all at once.
There’s another component to transforming data. While the bulk of your data can now live in a single place, there are some 3rd party data sources you may also want to integrate. For example, within Brightree, QuickBooks or Salesforce information can also be incorporated into your financial data.
For providers, the goal is to see your data in a format that is most useful to your specific needs. Imagine being able to leverage a cloud-based data warehouse technology where you can go in and have access to true data in real time. Then you can start generating your own robust reporting and analytics in a flexible, scalable and performant way that meets your needs.
For more information on how Brightree can help impact your business with data-driven transformation, click here to learn more about our solutions .
Over the last 9+ years, Fadi has held a variety of marketing and solutions consulting roles focused on driving efficiency across HME/DMEs of all sizes. He specializes in helping companies evaluate their workflows and identify data-driven solutions to grow their business. Fadi’s current focus is on developing Brightree’s Data & Analytics solutions - transforming raw data into meaningful, useful, and actionable insights to help maximize efficiency and success through additional visibility to KPIs, reporting, and benchmarking.
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