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MEDHOST completed its second annual Hackathon in November 2020.
Fifteen cross-functional teams competed by taking a product or service idea from conception to prototype in three days. This year’s theme was again about creating customer value through existing product enhancements and new product development. Other Hackathon concepts focused on improving internal processes and/or efficiencies which ultimately benefit our customers as these improvements enable us to continually serve our customers in a more efficient way and enhance the quality of our services.
As in Hackathon 2019, Hackathon 2020 teams were encouraged to be cross-functional with over 50 percent of participants from areas outside product development. Increased participation by customer-facing associates not only enhanced the Hackathon results, but also provided other associates better insight into customer needs.
The winning team automated the creation and secure transmission of electronic billing files to eliminate multiple manual steps and the use of a third-party software such as IBM i Access Client Solutions. This solution engaged multiple customers eager to beta the solution. Additionally, the Hackathon 2020 saw an array of new product ideas built on a mobile and voice-based platform to enhance patient care efficiency. Noteworthy projects in the new product theme included building a lightweight mobile app to display patient care critical information, creating an AI-powered chatbot, designing a mobile app for clinicians to collect and check-in laboratory specimens, and creating an integrated scanning solution focused on consolidating existing scanning products. Multiple customer-benefiting ideas from Hackathon 2020 are moving to the development phase.
Hackathon 2020 was a success on multiple levels. It further unified us as a customer-centric organization, promoted cross-pollination of ideas and talent, and strengthened our product vision. We envision refining and adapting many of these ideas into future MEDHOST products and thus continue our journey to deliver quality products to support our customers’ ultimate goal — providing excellent care to their patients.
Want to learn more about Hackathon 2019 highlights, read MEDHOST blog “Promoting a Culture of Innovation at MEDHOST”.
Systemic innovation and experimentation are important at MEDHOST to ensure customers have the best tools available.
A culture of innovation focuses on customers with a wide-angle lens; not only tracking market trends but understanding needs before customers express them.
MEDHOST launched its first Hackathon in the fall of 2019 where cross-functional teams compete by taking an idea from conception to prototype in three days. Teams were required to propose ideas from one of three themes: existing product enhancements, new product development, and improving internal processes and/or efficiencies.
Teams were encouraged to be cross-functional to promote input from business and customer care specialists. Mentors also worked with teams to expand thinking in idea refinement, technical feasibility, business cases, and presentations.
The first MEDHOST Hackathon event had 19 teams submitting viable ideas; 15 of which became regular development projects. The winning team’s project was to automate elements of claim management providing both cost savings and reduction in processing time. This team automated logging into different payer sites and collecting structured claims information and grouping claims by denial reasons. Benefits to the facility included improving overall productivity, resource allocation, and cash flow.
Other noteworthy projects focused on improvement of manual cash posting process for remits, a data warehouse to generate analysis and YourCare Everywhere® reports, on improving remit processing by automatically processing of bank Lockbox PDF files and generating 835 files, and on automating MEDHOST Quality Management System’s audit process. Multiple 2019 Hackathon projects beneficial to customers are still in development.
Hackathon 2019 was a success and Hackathon 2020 is underway with many teams participating. These teams are focused on improving existing products and presenting new product ideas. Many of these ideas may be integrated in MEDHOST products in 2021. We would continue to strengthen our products to support our customers’ ultimate goal — providing excellent care to their patients. Stay tuned for our next update on Hackathon 2020!
Regulations like the Affordable Care Act and declining reimbursements have challenged hospitals to continuously drive hospitals to reevaluate their operating costs and search for different methods to lower daily costs without impacting the quality of care.
One of the areas in the hospital that can contribute significantly to this waste is the Operating Room. The financial implications of waste in the operating room include direct and indirect costs. According to the American College of Surgeons it is estimated that at least two million pounds of supplies with a potential value of $15 million are wasted every year in the surgical setting.1 This dollar figure does not include the cost for ordering, stocking the items, Operating Room (OR) staff pulling the items, and preparing for the case. Research by Zygourakis et al., (2019) found that the report cost of unused supplies wasted after a procedure ranged from $230-$810 at a rate of 13.1 percent of the total surgical supply cost for 58 neurosurgical procedures.2
Preference card management is a critical component of controlling cost and improving the efficiency in the Operating Room. It is estimated that nurses spend 20-50 percent of their time searching for, moving, and sorting surgical supplies (Lefteroff, 2017) this can result in case delays, decreased physician satisfaction, and impact patient safety.3
Facilities can decrease supply waste, improve efficiency in preparing for cases, and improve physician satisfaction with a right perioperative solution that offers an optimal Preference Card Management component. An ideal solution should have features that help reduce cost strategies leveraging technology. The pace in the OR would demand that Electronic Preference Cards are able to be updated with changes reflected immediately. It is also critical that your solution has the materials management module that provides alerts and updates for any items that have been deactivated or are unavailable. Preference cards should be linked directly to surgical case allowing the correct card and items to be available and also enable documentation of supplies on the case and billing.
MEDHOST Perioperative Experience can help your facility save costs with electronic preference card management so you can benefit from decreased supply waste, and cost per case while improving physician satisfaction and efficiency in preparing for cases. Want to learn more, contact us at inquiries@medhost.com or call 1.800.383.6278.
1American College of Surgeons. (2014, October 27). An estimated two million pounds of unused medical supplies may be recoverable in US operating rooms each year. American College of Surgeons.
2Zygourakis, C. C., Yoon, S., Valencia, V., Boscardin, C., Moriates, C., Gonzales, R., & Lawton, M. T. (2017). Operating room waste: disposable supply utilization in neurosurgical procedures. Journal of neurosurgery, 126(2), 620–625. https://doi.org/10.3171/2016.2.JNS152442
3Lefteroff L. (2017). Efficient materials management. Design and operations advice for productive supply activity. Health facilities management, 30(3), 35–38.
Comprehensive healthcare software is now a regulatory and financial necessity.
The design and quality of that software is critical to hospital operations and patient care. It is just as important as the quality of the medical supplies used to treat patients. According to HealthIT.gov, 75 percent of providers believe the quality of patient care is closely related to the quality of their Electronic Health Record (EHR) and supporting software systems. EHR vendors like MEDHOST, committed to delivering a high-quality product and continuous quality improvement, promote better patient care and facility profitability.
MEDHOST’s commitment to quality involves incorporating quality measures at every step in the development process and constant analysis of the end-user experience. Analysis of customer service cases, customer advisory boards, and end-user shadowing are invaluable to identifying improvement areas. Our goals that are designed to result in better quality solutions include but are not limited to:
MEDHOST Quality Initiatives
Championed by its executive leadership team, MEDHOST continues to invest heavily in making quality an integral part of all development, testing, implementation, and maintenance processes. Quality-focused programs include company-wide participation and cooperation of all employees and stakeholders.
MEDHOST dedicates numerous resources to improve areas of quality management. Each quality management initiative aligns with our overall software development lifecycle (SDLC) goal – to improve our customers' clinical, financial, and operational performances.
Current corporate practices, system requirements, application areas, customer service metrics, and detailed customer feedback are continually assessed to identify opportunities for improvement in four areas.
Procedure review
Analysis of current procedures and customer feedback determines what processes are most effective and where improvements can be made. Procedure review involves:
Training
Compliance and education teams collaborate to develop new learning and communication tools to help educate current and new associates on the latest procedures and job expectations. Our training curriculum is accessible anytime on our Learning Management System (LMS) and includes educational modules supporting:
Each part of the process is recorded as a separate training course and assigned to team members annually for review. The accessibility of content on the LMS adheres to processes and raises awareness while improving training efficiencies and scalability.
Internal quality audits
Expanding the guidelines and frequency of internal quality audits helps identify areas for continuous improvement, including creating new tools that help streamline the process. Improvements to the internal audit involve:
Management reviews
MEDHOST’s culture of innovation and creativity has been vital to the development of its high-quality product. Awareness of HCIT industry developments and trends coupled with constant assessment of the needs of its hospital customers are the core of our product management plans. Some of our innovation initiatives include:
Providing quality products and services to our customers is at the heart of MEDHOST and everything we do. As the healthcare IT landscape evolves, we are committed to continually improving our products and solutions alongside our partners, whose ideas and perspectives help us create better solutions. We believe quality management is critical for patient and provider care. Company-wide education, executive involvement in reviews, and regular audits provide our customers with efficient tools and solutions so they can deliver high-quality care.
Discover the difference with the MEDHOST experience. Contact us at inquiries@medhost.com or call 1.800.383.6278.
