| The tools of eBusiness are having a profound effect on healthcare
organizations. Most significantly, they are increasing the competitive
pressure to do things faster to reduce business cycle times,
to provide compliance, and to be more responsive to patients.
McFadyen Solutions has worked with clients in the healthcare
industry to establish portal environments that better serve
the critical relationships to the organization, web content
management solutions to ensure legal compliance and more effectively
access to data, and technology-based solutions that drive administrative
efficiencies.
The Benefits of Portal Solutions for Healthcare Organizations
Convert
Site Users to Patients
Imagine a potential patient
visiting your organization's web site to search for information
about a new pregnancy. Having a site that is equipped to provide
this user with information relevant to their health concerns
builds loyalty and serves to convert this user into a patient.
Example tools and services for this user could include: virtual
tours of your birth center.
Lamaze class schedules, a
directory of OB/GYN doctors in your organization, news items
on the benefits of folic acid, and interactive tools such
as due date calendars.
Enable Patients to Self-Serve
and Reduce Operating Costs
By providing online services
such as prescription renewal, appointment request, physician
search, and clinic search, patients are empowered to interact
with your organization at their convenience and at anytime.
This type of self-service increases efficiency of business
processes as patients manage tasks that were once the sole
responsibility of staff. By providing self-service features,
your organization is available to your community 24 hours
a day. eNewsletters, sign-up & administration, email reminders
of appointments, health risk assessments, and health calculators
are added services which keep patients connected to their
healthcare organization and build loyalty.
Connect Staff to the Resources
They Require
In multiple facility healthcare
organizations, a patient is often treated by many different
physicians and across several facilities. An everyday scenario
would be the need to assemble a variety of documents and charts
to treat a patient. In this scenario, a staff member is required
to assemble the content necessary to treat this patient. It
is imperative that the patient information is complete and
in a specific, standard order. To find this information requires
a search of different systems, visits to multiple departments,
and numerous phone calls. McFadyen works with clients to build
content management solutions that streamline these types of
requirements by connecting the healthcare organization's content
so it can be accessed efficiently and accurately. Working
within the framework of an Interwoven templating solution,
the same staff member could access and assemble the patient's
information in minutes, never leaving their workstation. 
Web Content Management Solutions
for the Healthcare Industry
Content Management is
critical to healthcare organizations for a unique set of drivers
that aren’t present in many industries—including
compliance issues related to patient information. To address
the specific content management needs that exist within our
client organizations in the healthcare industry, McFadyen
Considers the following factors when crafting solutions:
Normalize Content in Differing Formats
Healthcare organizations
often manage billions of pages of content with varying formats
including fax, email, and scanned paper charts. Uniting key
relationships of healthcare organizations through the digital
supply chain requires bridging the gaps between content and
data stored in multiple formats. Healthcare organizations
are seeking solutions to convert a wide variety of content
into a common, standards-based format. These organizations
require solutions that are designed to eliminate barriers
to information so all content is accessible to end-users at
all times.
Re-use & Re-purpose Content
Leveraging an organization's
investment in building data and knowledge bases for future
initiatives is a mission critical concern for all organizations,
regardless of the industry. Re-using and re-purposing knowledge
saves resources in every way - time, money, and process efficiency.
In the healthcare industry leveraging knowledge takes on a
greater importance as a way to improve the quality of patient
care. Templating, workflow, and taxonomy solutions are necessary
to help organizations build knowledge once and leverage it
repeatedly.
Improve Administrative Efficiency
Healthcare organizations
are challenged to streamline virtually any healthcare process
including financial, administrative, and clinical. Each organization
faces specific operational concerns and considerations including
faster revenue collection, reduction of paperwork, and operating
cost reduction. The healthcare industry is very content-centric
and content-dense, streamlining the way in which content is
accessed, processed, and passed along the supply chain is
central to administrative efficiency.
HL7 Reporting from Raw Data
The ability to generate
HL7 documents through standard templates and from raw data
saves enormous amount of time for staff and reduces the risk
of human error. The operational efficiency of an organization
greatly increases when a streamlined content management process
is implemented to create, assemble, and distribute documents
from HL7 (Health Level Seven Inc.) data, along with other
documents.
Multiple Facilities Support
Healthcare organizations
with multiple facilities understand that maintaining separate
web identities can be complex and expensive. Organizations
are provided a competitive advantage through content management
solutions that provide the ability to maintain unique identities
via templating while leveraging common content across facilities--saving
time and money. Optimum solutions are provided for shared
technical functionality and enterprise content sharing.
Security for Patient Records
Solutions that prevent
unauthorized users from accessing confidential patient records
and/or other sensitive content are critical for healthcare
organizations. Features of a well-equipped content security
solution include: rules-based access, audit trails for record
viewing, security-based email transactions, and automatic
log-off for authorized, inactive users.
Wireless Access to Content
Personal digital
assistants (PDAs) and hand-held computers are transforming
the way healthcare providers access content. PDA's provide
point-of-care access to content, including lab results, staff
scheduling, and drug information, speeds the ability to provide
care and provides greater convenience for staff. A major challenge
for healthcare organizations is to improve content access
through wireless solutions.
Leverage Legacy Systems & Investment
IT infrastructure
enhancements (particularly in the healthcare industry) are
an evolutionary process that must leverage past investments.
A hefty challenge for healthcare organizations is utilizing
current IT infrastructures, tapping into existing content/data
stores, and extending business to the web. It is critical
in today’s budget constrained, competitive environment
to get the most from every investment, past and future.
Audit Trail for Record Access
It is the law — not
just a luxury — to understand how the sensitive patient and provider data is accessed, utilized
and managed. Healthcare organizations require a well-defined,
well-organized system for tracking the use of sensitive content.
Healthcare organizations rely on the generation of an audit
trail for legal reporting of their operations and protection
of the patients who trust them for care.
Building Online Community
In the "high-touch"
healthcare industry, staying connected to patients, staff,
and suppliers has a substantial impact on the overall success
of a healthcare organization. The ability to provide the right
information to the right person at the right time empowers
a deeper, more loyal relationship with the organization. Online
communities enable healthcare organizations to deliver personalized
information to site visitors to drive the conversion to patient,
enable existing patients self-service tools to manage their
relationship with the organization in a customized manner,
and optimizes workforces by providing a personalized single
interface to information and business operations.
Click here to read some of our
success stories related to the healthcare industry .
|
