In these days of tightened payments and higher costs, organizations need to "do more with less" by finding better prices for their purchases while maximizing reimbursements—and above all, by making sure that technology improves ROI, according to Jeff Tennant, EVP of Healthcare IT Strategy & Services at ROI Healthcare Solutions.  Tennant and his colleagues, Diana Van Blaricom, VP of ERP Strategy, and Melissa Ursi, COO of ROI Healthcare Solutions and Managing Partner at ROI International, sat down with Healthcare IT Today to share how ROI (Return on Investment) is core to the culture of the work they do with healthcare organizations.

HCA Healthcare, one of the leading providers of care in 20 states and in the United Kingdom, has smartly been investing to improve the quality of the health data they collect. This investment made it possible to deploy an innovative sepsis detection project that has enhanced patient safety across the entire organization. That same project also had an unintended beneficial impact – it helped HCA facilities react faster during hurricanes and other emergencies.

The Geographic Information System (GIS) team at Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) successfully created internal advocates by educating their peers and showing them what is possible with GIS technology. Not only did this accelerate the adoption of GIS technology at their organization, it also helped leaders gain valuable operational insights sooner than if the technology was left to organically gain traction.

We all benefit from sharing out concerns communally. "What, you had the same problem I did?" We say to a friend. "How did you handle it?"

According to the latest National Progress Report from Surescripts, over 2.5 billion medication histories were requested through their platform in 2022. Having the latest medication information is key to reducing medication related adverse events. The Report also showed a significant increase in the use of real-time prescription benefits which decreases the out-of-pocket cost of medications for patients.

The recent release of GPT-4, the newest version of OpenAI's platform, shows that generative AI is evolving even more quickly than we can find uses for it. Bill Rogers, co-founder and president of Orbita, discusses the implications of OpenAI's chatGPT, Orbita's recent improvements, and the ways that tools such as chatGPT can make health care more efficient.

Nuance recently announced DAX Express and I had to learn more about it and dive into the details of what Nuance is planning to offer.  I sat down with Diana Nole, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Nuance Healthcare, where she shared more details about DAX Express, how it differs from DAX Ambient Solution, and what the workflow looks like for this new product.  We also ask her if there are any humans in the loop in this new "fully automated" solution (Spoiler Alert: There's not...other than the doctors it listens to).

One of the most frustrating burdens on health care workers today is the drag of administrative tasks. New AI technologies that interpret and generate natural human speech (illustrated most famously in ChatGPT) can remove more of the burden of such tasks. According to Stead Burwell, co-founder and CEO of Outbound AI, a well-tuned AI agent can do many tasks at 50-80% the cost of human workers.

I recently sat down with Heather Hudnall, BSN, RN, Director of Connected Industry, Healthcare at NTT, and Heather Haugen, PhD, VP of Healthcare Practice, Digital Advisory, and Innovation at NTT, to learn what they are hearing from customers when it comes to the impact of connectivity on nurses, doctors, and patients.

In this interview, Therasa Bell, President and CTO at Kno2, revives the term "meaningful" in health care technology.  However, in this case she is talking about establishing meaningful connectivity to drive individual outcomes for patients and healthcare organizations.  Sometimes health IT professionals forget that the goal is not just to put data in an EHR or to provide interoperability of data between health IT software.  That said, healthcare organizations have begun to ask Kno2 for help. Bell says they are still stressed by inadequate staff, declining reimbursements, and changing care models.