Posts Tagged: healthcare technology

Can Healthcare Chatbots Improve Care Access and Patient Experiences?

Posted November 16, 2020 by Beth Osborne & filed under Healthcare.

Chatbots are useful for more industries than just eCommerce. Now that consumers are comfortable using them, they can be a great asset to healthcare. A new study published in JAMA looks at healthcare chatbots and their impact on care delivery during COVID-19. The results indicate that there’s really no distinction between chatbot or live agent when patients receive high-quality service.

About the Study

Researchers conducted an online experiment with 371 patients who interacted with a COVID-19 screening session. They used a two-by-two method of evaluation, using two agent types (human vs. chatbot) by two patient severity levels (mild vs. severe). The participants watched a short video vignette of a fictional text chat between an agent and user. The script of conversations came from screening questions from the CDC.

Subjects knew the video was either a chatbot or a live agent, but the videos were the same. Thus, the study was a comparison of chatbot and human agents with the same capabilities.

The Results

When users believed the agent’s ability to be the same, they had equally positive responses to the chatbot and live agent. The biggest motivating factor was trust in the provider. There was a slight negative bias toward chatbots but not significant. Other factors in how the user “graded” the experience were patient compliance, integrity, and benevolence.

“Ability and integrity are typically more important for instrumental outcomes associated with transactions (e.g., purchasing) because users are most concerned with whether the technology will work as intended to complete the transaction,” researchers said in the study.

Analysis of the Study: Are Healthcare Chatbots Effective?

As noted, it depends on the quality of the experience. Chatbots aren’t perfect, but neither are humans. Chatbots can improve through interactions, powered by AI and machine learning. They are also highly scalable, cost-effective, and deliver consistent quality.

As more consumers adopt technology as part of their everyday lives, using a chatbot as a patient is no different than using it as a customer. Further, chatbots don’t have bias and aren’t making any “judgments” on patients. This scenario could actually drive patients to disclose more information, leading to a better next step (i.e., testing, telemedicine appointments, etc.).

How Can Providers and Payers Use Chatbots?

Beyond just screening for COVID-19 or any other possible disease, there are many potential uses for chatbots in healthcare.

Here are some use case ideas:

Assist with appointments: Push patients to chatbots to schedule follow-ups, lab tests, or procedures. Providers often have little capacity to answer the phones, which is frustrating for patients. Chatbots could streamline this and take the burden off front office staff.
Medication reminders: Medication nonadherence costs the healthcare system billions and endangers patients. Pharmacies could enable chatbots through their app to send reminders to take prescriptions daily and prompt them to get their refill.
Billing questions: Payers could use chatbots to interact with members when they have questions about claims. This would be broad information but may help some members with what they need, so they don’t have to call.
Integration with EHRs: As part of the new interoperability rule, patients must have access to their medical history through a portal. This portal is most often a feature of their EHR. Adding chatbots to the system could help patient engagement, queries, and requests.

Healthcare Chatbots Adoption Likely to Rise

Based on the new study and others with similar findings, consumers have no issue interacting with chatbots. It’s all about quality and capabilities. There are many opportunities to leverage chatbots in the healthcare ecosystem. However, sometimes these deployments hit delays due to a lack of internal IT bandwidth.

If this is your current situation, then we have answers. Our data sharing services could help you jumpstart your project. Explore our healthcare data sharing capabilities today!

Why So Much Paper? The Healthcare Digitalization Gap

Posted July 25, 2020 by Beth Osborne & filed under Healthcare.

Paper is a problem if it still plays a big role in your organization. Whether it’s paper files, patients completing paper forms, or paper prescriptions—paper causes inefficiency and heightens risk. While efforts for digitizing patient records, files, and prescriptions have been in place for some time, the healthcare digitization gap still exists.

But why? And how are paper processes costing money and time while also impacting public health data and patient care?

Digital Adoption in Healthcare Wide but Not Without Challenges

The long road toward being technology-centric in healthcare began decades ago. The first EHR appeared in the 1960s, with the Mayo Clinic as an early adopter. Since then, the EHR has been in a constant state of evolution. Yet these early EHRs did not eliminate paper.

Then the government began to push EHR adoption with a mandate and support for industry-wide adoption in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Currently, the adoption rate of certified EHRs in large hospitals is 99%. It was slightly lower for medium, small, and rural hospitals.

Great—so problem solved, right? EHRs should remove paper from most processes, but it’s not magic. Paper is still prevalent (and so is faxing with 75% of all medical communications still occurring in this channel). The reliance on the fax is another story and illustrates interoperability challenges.

So, what are the real issues with healthcare digitization?

The Patient Experience—Fill This Out

When patients enter a healthcare facility, they are almost always met with a clipboard and forms to complete. They must painstakingly write out all their information and health history. This is not something that happens for only new patients—returning ones get the same drill.

The reality is that patient medical history and records are already in digital format. Your organization already has them—this is especially true if a patient sees multiple clinicians within the same health system.

If a patient sees a primary care doctor one month then a specialist the next, why do they have to fill out the same forms again? If your patient has n

In a health system, it’s likely everyone is using the same EHR. So why isn’t this information visible to all? Or in the case of different EHRs, why is data exchange so hard?

The solution points back to interoperability and accessibility. What good is an EHR if it doesn’t remove paper?

Paper Prescriptions—Adding Another Layer to the Pile

Most providers use eScripts. Data from 2017 found that 77% of prescribers use eScripts—up from 73% in 2016. That’s progress, but paper prescriptions are still present.

What makes it even more concerning is there use during COVID-19. A patient receives a paper prescription then must submit that to the pharmacy. The patient must then wait or return later to pick up the medication. It’s inefficient and leads to possible exposure.

If this seems like a bad idea, you’re not wrong.

Paper Records, Files, and Prescriptions Equal Risk

Many risks come with still depending on paper processes, including:

Higher data breach risk and the threat of HIPAA noncompliance:

If your organization has PHI on paper, it’s easier for it to be stolen or misplaced. This scenario can be a catalyst for a breach or noncompliance. A survey from the Ponemon Institute and Shred-It revealed that 70% of healthcare organization managers saw or picked up documents containing sensitive information from the printer.

While we typically consider data breaches to be cyber-related, it can happen with physical paper as well. According to the HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), 22% of breaches in 2018 were paper-related.

Why expose your organization to more risk? It may not be viable to remove paper completely from the equation. Still, the less there is, the chance of breaches and noncompliance lessens.

Human error

If patients are completing paper forms, it’s likely errors will occur. Transposing numbers or misspellings will happen. If the handwriting is illegible, the chance of human error increases. If patients have a single source of truth where they can update their contact information, medications, providers, and insurance information, it’s more efficient and accurate.

Patient experience

It’s frustrating for any patient to have to continue to fill out the same forms over and over again. Providers need to think of patients more as consumers because they have a choice. If providers can improve the experience, they earn loyalty.

No one likes unnecessary paperwork. It becomes a barrier to the patient-provider relationship. It sends the message to patients that you don’t know their medical history or why they are there.

The new interoperability rule is attempting to put the patient experience front and center. It’s possible that its eventual deployment will give patients the power to manage their information and ensure it’s portable.

Is Healthcare Digitization a Priority for You?

In any organization, you focus on what’s a priority. Some aspects of digitization are more urgent because they intertwine with regulations. While paper processes aren’t noncompliant, they are a drain on resources. That means they should probably be a priority—plus, they could help you with patient retention.

What ways can you eliminate paper from your processes? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject!

COVID-19 Tracing: Technology Woes Hinder Real-Time Data Sharing

Posted May 11, 2020 by Beth Osborne & filed under Healthcare.

One of the most critical aspects of understanding how a virus spreads is to trace it. COVID-19 tracing should be driving insights on contagion. Instead, a lack of technology infrastructure is impacting the collection and sharing of the data. There’s no real-time data sharing happening here—that’s because many virus hunters are relegated to outdated tools, including faxing, paper records, and Excel spreadsheets.

It’s 2020, and although technology has improved the healthcare model, years of missed opportunities to ensure accessibility, interoperability, and portability have led us to where we are now. We’re in the middle of a healthcare crisis that depends greatly on data-driven insights. Except those insights are facing a bottleneck because of old technology.

Public Agencies Are Behind

It may seem ironic that government agencies are behind when it comes to technology. After all, federal entities like HHS and CMS define the technology requirements, just as they have in the new interoperability rule. Many areas of the U.S. healthcare system have fully adopted a digital transformation, but public agencies are lagging.

Congress approved $500 million for health data in the relief package, which should benefit virus tracing activities. Yet those tasked with COVID-19 tracing are hitting roadblocks at every turn. They are drowning in paper records and using outdated and have only inaccurate spreadsheets to track how the virus spreads.

The entire process has become manual, and each state has its own processes and hurdles, making it extremely hard to be efficient and effective.

Inability to Connect the Dots on COVID-19 Tracing

Many states are using data streams from multiple sources to augment their tracing data, such as cell phone records. However, having access to this information isn’t really providing clarity because they can’t use it to connect the dots in real-time.

Rather, these individuals are left with a mess of unconnected and dirty data. They are sifting through incomplete data. They may have provider information on symptoms of the virus or lab test results, but they aren’t aggregated.

Further, there is so much MISSING data, as 25% of the country’s hospitals DO NOT feed information to federal websites about patient symptoms. It’s just bits and pieces with no guidance on how to improve data sharing.

Data Challenges Nothing New for Tracing

The challenges the healthcare ecosystem is facing now isn’t new. Scientists and medical professionals have been lamenting over the inconsistencies for some time. It’s been years of frustrations that impede the country’s ability to track illnesses to either find the source (i.e., foodborne illnesses) or tracking contagiousness.

Minimal investment in public health surveillance and conflicting reporting mandates are the cause of where we are now, according to experts. The problem just has more eyes on it now.

Healthcare Data Shortcomings Now More Urgent

Now the concerns and worry have become more urgent, with politicians looking for answers from the CDC about how they’ll use the $500 million data money. A group of senators submitted a letter to Senate leaders about the concerns, stating “Public health departments are unable to share data on cases, persons under investigation, laboratory tests and person-to-person transmission with the CDC seamlessly — instead they are forced to rely on a combination of methods: antiquated pen and paper, faxes, excel spreadsheets, phone calls, and manual entry.”

The CDC’s response is that they will detail spending in the coming weeks. They expect to spend some of it on updating its own systems and hiring more employees. The agency also intends to give out grants to local health agencies so that they can share and report data more effectively. That money is sorely needed at the county level, where tracers are literally working on paper and Excel. These rudimentary ways to collect data means it takes hours to try to establish the medical history of patients.

Why the Dependence on Paper?

Remember when EHRs were deployed? There were incentives from the government for providers to move toward electronic records. EHRs and other applications were supposed to eradicate paper from the process. Yet, paper is still a regular part of healthcare records.

Most tracers now have to depend on a paper-based system to gather information about infection rates. That same paper process is then supposed to provide insights for healthcare entities. Looking at the details, you can easily see the disconnect:

Physicians are supposed to flag public health departments when they diagnose certain conditions.
This reporting requires a paper form. This means lots of cases never end up flagged, so many diseases are unreported, which some experts say could be as high as 10%.
Reporting standards also vary by county, and if a patient lives and works into different jurisdictions, both must receive the report.
Reporting is not a federal requirement of the EHR program; due to this, disease tracking technology hasn’t been fully adopted.

What’s the Answer for Better Public Health Surveillance?

The COVID-19 tracing has brought the issue front and center. Yet, there haven’t been any real changes. CDC employees are still “digging” through paper records to understand the spread. So, what’s the answer to better public health surveillance?

The CDC and providers were testing a new system, eCR, prior to the pandemic. The system removes manual reporting and streamlines the process. It’s now available in some states with a soft rollout. It pulls data from EHRs and then formats them as case reports. Those reports end up in a central hub, which then dispatches them to the appropriate agencies.

The problem is that most providers don’t have the bandwidth to launch the eCR. They are burdened by all the stresses and demands from the coronavirus, relegating data sharing and public health surveillance to a lower priority. Healthcare systems certainly see the value, as do some EHR vendors, but don’t have the resources to improve their workflows.

A Data Liaison Can Help You Share, Clean, and Aggregate Your Data

In these situations, organizations should seek out data liaisons that have extensive experience with PHI data sharing. By outsourcing some elements of data sharing, cleaning, and aggregating, providers can not only contribute to COVID-19 tracing but also improve interoperability. There’s no doubt that healthcare needs to move forward with a better way to manage their data. Find out how InfoWerks can be a key partner to make this happen.