Gaps to High-Quality Care
Last month, international healthcare products and services company Philips released the results from their 2024 Future Health Index survey. The Future Health Index is a report that Philips has been publishing since 2016, surveying healthcare leaders across the globe to understand what their plans, expectations, and concerns are moving forward.
The 2024 edition of the report polled nearly 3,000 leaders across 14 countries at the beginning of the year. Three gaps jumped out that are standing in the way of delivering better patient care: staffing, insights, and sustainability.
Sustainability
The immediate thought that comes to mind with sustainability is that leaders are worried about their impact on the environment, they’re more worried about sustainable finances. Essentially all (96%) of the leaders surveyed reported that their organization is experiencing financial challenges and 81% reported that their financial challenges are directly impacting patient care.
It’s not that environmental sustainability isn’t on the radar in healthcare, as 86% said that reducing CO2 emissions should be a top priority and 71% have set or have plans to set decarbonization goals. Still, the priority is to do things that are financially responsible, although there are many cases where the best choice for the environment and the best choice for hospital finances are one in the same. So while leaders may have the best of intentions, actual implementation of some of these sustainable practices is lagging well behind goal-setting.
Staff
Of course, it’s difficult to employ structural changes when you don’t have the staff to implement it. On the topic of staffing, 55% of leaders see an increased likelihood of staff leaving and 66% report increased burnout among staff. This leads to a direct impact on the patient experience, with 77% saying that delays in care are an issue for reasons like longer waitlists, increased waiting time for procedures, and delayed access to preventative care.
The resounding answer to resolving healthcare staff shortages is automation according to leaders, with 92% saying that automation is crucial in addressing employment gaps and that it will save time by reducing administrative tasks. Nearly 90% also say that automation allows the healthcare workforce to perform at their highest skill level.
In that vein, there are a variety of areas where automation is being implemented in healthcare without it taking over clinical decision-making.
On the clinical side, care plans that use remote patient monitoring or offer telehealth are helping to ease staff constraints. Remote patient monitoring allows for clinicians to gather data that would normally require an in-person visit while virtual visits increase scheduling flexibility for both patients and hospital staff. Virtual care also helps with both seasoned staff looking to adjust their workloads and younger folks who have greater expectations of digital interactions and work location flexibility.
Insights
Much of the talk of how artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize healthcare comes down to the data that informs its decision making. Executives believe that AI can be used to optimize treatment plans, reduce waiting lists, and create more opportunities for early intervention. Before diving headfirst into AI, healthcare leaders want to be sure it won’t cause problems as 87% are worried that bias could end up leading to greater health outcome disparities.
The foundation of all this is having good data. Leaders expressed that healthcare data needs to have improved accuracy, interoperability, and security at rates of 40, 39, and 38 percent, respectively.
It seems that healthcare leaders are taking an appropriate tact with these gaps, using technology to tackle tasks like data entry and scheduling before diving too deep into changes that could affect patient care. Taking this approach also shores up data processes so when an AI is being used for decision making, leaders know that they’re using complete and accurate data.
Extract currently works with healthcare institutions to enhance their incoming document workflows. Our software identifies the type of document you’re receiving, matches it to a patient, identifies relevant discrete data values, and sends information directly to the EMR, DMS, and/or any other downstream system. Our customers see their data entry speeds skyrocket and their time to the EMR plummet.
What’s more, clinicians don’t have to take on extra tasks like affixing barcode labels to documents, and administrative staff no longer need to fear non-standard or non-interfaced documentation. This all leads to having discrete data where there was once only an image file, data that is cross-referenced for accuracy, and the timeliness of HIMSS 7 turnaround speeds.
If you’re interested in seeing a demonstration of how our software works, please reach out and we’d be happy to schedule something at your convenience.
