Thirteen Questions Health Execs Should Ask Before Spending Tech Dollars

1. What’s the additional technology spend that’s inevitably going to be attached to the primary spend?

“This is critical because it is rare that there is only a single-focused tech spend,” says Jim Higgins, founder and CEO, Solutionreach, a healthcare technology company. “A lot of things are impacted when you make an addition. Figure out what those costs might be as well as the cost for the primary project.”

2. Is data security a primary element of the technology offering?

“Prior to entering into any contract that involves protected healthcare information, healthcare professionals need to verify that the contract vendor has all required security protections in place and has conducted security audits with respect to the protection of data,” says Stephanie Schreiber, shareholder of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, PC, a law firm specializing in healthcare practice and investments. “This is important as healthcare information breaches are expensive and potentially damaging to the provider’s reputation.”

3. Have I secured buy-in from the clinical departments?

“As an example, for predictive analytics and decision support tools it’s critical for executives to have an understanding of the types of data used for predictions as well as confidence in the actions/insights being presented off the predictions,” says Edward Zecchini, chief information officer, Remedy Partners, an episodes-of-care company. “Data must be captured from claims, ADT, and clinical feeds in near real-time to ensure interventions are timing and coordinated. “Executives should also seek buy-in from clinical departments.”

4. How can this help our patients and consumers interact with us better?

Healthcare organizations should focus on better responding to consumers and patients, with digital records, on-demand appointments, and better mechanisms for dialogue and communication to support consumers’ need to make value-based medical decisions, says Theresa Hush, CEO, Roji Health Intelligence, a solutions provider to measure and improve quality and participate in value-based care.

Srini Koushik, chief technology officer, Magellan Health, healthcare management services provider, agrees. “It is important to recognize and reinforce the human touch in healthcare and how it can be enhanced and not replaced with technology,” he says.

5. Will the shift to value-based care, new payment models and a rapidly changing competitive landscape allow the technology system to thrive?

“Organizations should ask themselves if technology systems will allow them to thrive within this new normal and break down silos,” says David Klements, CEO of Qualifacts, a behavioral health EHR provider. “Teams will need solutions that are highly interoperable with other platforms, maximize patient engagement opportunities, and offer robust analytics.”

6. Will the investment we’re making fit well within our work flow but still benefit from the many external data sources available?

Pop health, analytic, and other healthcare solutions that need to fit within a work flow are often discussed, which many incumbent software or EHR providers seize on as being the right source of that solution, says Eric Sullivan, senior VP of innovation and data strategies, Inovalon, provider of cloud-based platforms empowering data-driven healthcare.

But, “It’s important to ensure that solutions can consume and combine the internal and external available data when delivering insights to clinicians; API and FHIR advancements are making this possible and avoid stand-alone, external solutions that don’t ‘speak’ to your internal operational real world,” he says.

7. How will patients and caregivers be affected? 

“Too many assessments, recommendations, payment decisions, and policy guidance neglect to consider the impact on the end-user’s disease experience, recovery, life goals, or long-term costs,” says Jennifer Bright, acting executive director, Innovation and Value Initiative, a collaborative developing new scientific approaches to measuring value in healthcare.

Terry Rowinski, president and CEO at healthcare technology company, Health Payment Systems, agrees, particularly when it comes to payment and collection technology. “A better patient/member experience is a solution that pulls together all the EOB claim information, along with all of the bills from all providers for the family into a single, consolidated statement/platform,” he says.

8. Can the application/software help to better understand the causes/sources of the significant variation in episode costs?

“Reducing that variation is essential to improving financial and clinical outcomes so any tech investment should help to shed significant light on why costs vary and which interventions could be effective at reducing that variation,” says François de Brantes, senior vice president of commercial business development, Remedy Partners.

9. Is the technology interoperable with other systems, and capable of sharing data across the care continuum to drive quality improvement and efficiencies?

“These capabilities help to create a longitudinal patient record to provide visibility into the care and well-being of the patient,” says Zecchini. “Data must be captured from claims, ADT, and clinical feeds in near real-time to ensure interventions are timing and coordinated.”

10. What type of data and frequency of data is needed to properly monitor risk-based contracts (for those entering into a risk reimbursement contract)?

This is important for two reasons, according to Schreiber. “First, healthcare providers need to know what type data they actually need-and from whom-in order to monitor costs,” she says. “Second, the healthcare provider needs to know that it can receive this data in a timely manner and in a format that allows for meaningful interpretation and use.”

11. How are my current EHR/PM systems hampering my organization’s goals (i.e. patient satisfaction, patient volume, ease of use, data access, reporting, etc.), and what new features or processes do I need to overcome these obstacles?

Dan Montzka, MD, CMO, Nextech, a health technology solutions provider for specialty physician practices, offers tips to spend less time on admin tasks:

• Optimize workflow. “Using an EHR that creates individualized work flows unique to a physicians’ specialty drives efficiency.”
• Eliminate common chart errors. “Predictive charting and assisted coding allows for charting to be done with confidence.”
• Focus on patients. “Technology that can be used across platforms allows providers to safely access patient files from their preferred device from anywhere.”  

12. For payment and collections technology specifically, how are you measuring patient collections success?

“Most measure cost-to-collect with the goal of minimizing with least impact to collection rates,” says Alan Nalle, chief strategy officer at Patientco, a next-generation patient payment technology company. “You should be measuring (and work with a vendor who supports) measuring net collections. That is, optimize for maximum collections and let results dictate the costs.”

13.  How can I effectively harness the growing amount of digital content in my organization?

“Digital content is growing at an alarming rate in healthcare,” says Tom Romeo, general manager of healthcare IT, Quanum Solutions at Quest Diagnostics, provider of health IT that help improve patient care and practice management. “Organizations have documents from a variety of sources that all need to be ingested, filed, sorted, routed, and stored. Technology that uses machine learning and analytics to turn unstructured document data into structured information is essential. A deep search feature, for instance, can help with deep drilling, analysis, and extraction of existing data repositories. Additionally, metadata can provide actionable information for workflow, compliance, and security.”