New On-Demand Webinar: How Forms on Demand Relieves Paper Overload

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One of the coolest aspects of my job is the long-running partnerships between Interlace Health and the health systems that deploy our solutions. Watching their success over the years as their organizations grow and evolve is as rewarding as the relationships that develop over the years.

Case in point: Halton Healthcare.

We began working with this award-winning Canadian healthcare organization—three community hospitals and numerous community-based services serving more than 400,000 people—a few years ago. We helped them implement a Forms on Demand solution that consolidated all their forms into a single, central repository, automating their registration packages and reducing their overall paper burden.

When COVID-19 hit, we helped them develop new, lower-risk registration processes that enabled them to rapidly set up testing centers across their organization.

Have they continued to make progress in optimizing their paper-based processes? That’s the topic of this new on-demand webinar with Halton Healthcare Applications Analyst Leovee Reyes: How Forms on Demand Relieves Paper Overload: A Live Case Study.

Good-bye to the in-house print shop

Halton Healthcare used to generate so much paperwork, they had their own in-house print shop. When they enlisted help from Interlace Heath, they had three goals:

    • Decrease paper and label printing
    • Establish one central place for all their sites to obtain forms
    • Reduce costs

Now, all the organization’s forms are accurate and up to date, with order sets, downtime forms and patient instructions all obtainable instantly on demand—and auto-populated with patient demographics.

The solution also enabled a significant streamlining of their registration process. Registration packages are now automatically set up to print when a patient registers, with printing based on location, site and specific account- and location-based criteria. No matter where registration occurs, the form can print to any printer in the organization.

Overall, Forms on Demand reduced the organization’s paper burden so significantly that Halton Healthcare no longer needs its in-house print shop. Other organizations, whether they print their own forms or outsource them, can realize a similar reduction in print burden and cost.

Rapid response when COVID-19 struck

In 2020, COVID-19 forced Halton Healthcare to quickly develop an alternate solution for registering patients that would minimize the risk and exposure of its registration clerks.
Yet nurses’ time and attention are finite. The more they devote to forms processes, the less they can devote to patient care. And when they devote less time and attention to patients—or leave the profession entirely—patient care suffers.

Working with Interlace Health, the organization created a new, risk-free registration process in which clerks registered patients via phone. Chart and lab requests printed directly to the testing center, removing the need for clerks to deliver them in person.

The organization started with one testing center per site, but the demand volume created an urgent need for more. Interlace Health solutions helped give them the ability to easily set up four clinics per site, with little startup time.

A live case study with Leovee Reyes

Head shot of Leovee

Leovee Reyes is a 13-year veteran at Halton Healthcare. As an Applications Analyst, she’s been instrumental in integrating Interlace Health solutions over the years, with credit due for helping make all the ensuing benefits possible.

On May 19, I chatted with Leovee about developments over the last couple of years. Our webinar serves as a kind of live case study, answering key questions about Halton Healthcare:

    • How have their registration processes continued to evolve during the pandemic?
    • What kinds of savings and advantages have they realized from streamlined forms management?
    • And does anyone miss the print shop?

To explore the answers and learn more about Forms on Demand, please watch How Forms on Demand Relieves Paper Overload: A Live Case Study.

New webinar preview: How Forms Processes Can Improve ASC Patient Care

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Where would ASCs be without nurses?

Unfortunately, that’s not an academic question. Every health system experienced severe staff shortages when COVID hit in 2020, and ASCs have been struggling to keep good people ever since. What’s more, recent studies have found that nursing shortages had negative impacts on patient care.

Retaining nurses—and attracting new ones to the profession—is a multi-dimensional challenge that healthcare leaders will be focusing on for years to come. There is one dimension to the story, however, that ASC leaders can explore today: forms processes.

Digital forms solutions can reduce the burden on nursing staff, making them more likely to stay on the job and better able to focus on improved patient care.

That’s the topic of my new webinar on May 12: How Forms Processes Can Improve ASC Patient Care.

The patient care impacts of nursing shortages

We all know how essential nurses are to excellent patient care, so it’s hardly a surprise that a nursing shortage would negatively impact patient outcomes. Still, recent research on the topic is sobering.

  • Years’ worth of improvements in patient safety in hospitals and skilled nursing facilities were wiped away at the start of the pandemic, according to an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
  • Nursing shortages lead to a reliance on traveling nurses. A study published in the American Journal of Infection Control found a correlation at two Illinois hospitals between the use of traveling nurses and increased infection rates.
  • Patients are aware of what’s going on, too. According to the healthcare safety organization Emergency Care Research Institute, the top two patient safety concerns for 2022 are staffing shortages and healthcare workers’ mental health.

    • I’m not trying to paint a negative picture—just pointing out the urgency of keeping as many nurses on the job as we can, and making their jobs as easy and stress-free as possible. While most of these stats are about hospitals and large health systems, I think the challenges ring true for ASCs as well—and I’m going to talk about how in the webinar

    Better forms processes can help. And they can help right away.

    How improved forms processes can improve patient care

    Forms processes are a major factor for every ASC. Whether they’re paper-based, digitally based or a combination of both, they take up a significant proportion of a nurse’s time and attention.

    Yet nurses’ time and attention are finite. The more they devote to forms processes, the less they can devote to patient care. And when they devote less time and attention to patients—or leave the profession entirely—patient care suffers.

    That’s why improved forms processes that save time and reduce busywork are so critical to your ability to deliver excellent patient care. In my live May 12 webinar, I’ll explore how digital forms solutions can reduce the burden on your staff so they can focus on what they do best.

    We’ll talk about:

    Reducing paperwork-related stress—and making your nurses’ jobs easier—can be an essential factor in delivering excellent patient care. Let’s start making it happen!

    Please join me for How Forms Processes Can Improve ASC Patient Care on May 12.

New webinar preview: The Hidden Cost of Patient Intake Errors

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We all accept little inefficiencies in our day-to-day life. At least, I know I do. Take my dishwasher. If I loaded it more efficiently—carefully placing the glasses and dishes so I can fit more of them in a single load—I might be able to run it one fewer time per week. And think of all the money I’d save on energy and detergent running 52 fewer dishwasher loads a year!

But the truth is I don’t expend the effort, and I live with the costs of inefficient dishwasher loading.

Many healthcare organizations seem to have the same approach to patient registration. They put up with minor errors on patient intake forms, because the errors only take a few minutes to correct. But how much money could they save by optimizing their intake processes to avoid those errors in the first place?

That’s the topic of my new webinar on April 21: The Hidden Cost of Patient Intake Errors.

Small registration errors cost big money

How many forms do your new patients fill out? How many fields and check boxes do those forms have?

Every one of those fields and boxes can be missed or filled out wrong—and every incomplete, incorrect or illegible entry costs your staff members a few minutes to correct. Returning patients sometimes need to add or update information, too, and these new forms add more potential errors to your staff’s workload.

Sometimes, it only takes a minute for one of your staffers to speak to the patient and correct the entry. Other times, they may have to spend valuable time contacting the patient after they’ve left your facility, then correcting the information in your files. So, let’s throw out some ballpark numbers and say…

  • Each registration error takes five minutes to correct, and
  • There’s one error for every five patients at your organization

If you see just 200 patients a week, that’s 40 registration errors every week that take 200 minutes (3.33 hours) to correct. Multiple 3.33 hours by your staff’s hourly wage, and you’ll get some idea how much patient registration errors cost you every week.

That number, however, is only a fraction of the true cost, because those hours your staff takes correcting mistakes would otherwise be spent on more productive tasks—like helping patients.

And what about errors that don’t get corrected? You might not find out about them until a patient’s claim is denied. Which means you and your staff have to spend even more time working with the patient and their insurance company to make sure you get paid at all.

All told, all those little registration errors can be costing your organization a significant amount of money every week—money you don’t even realize you’re losing.

How digital intake helps avoid registration errors

A simple digital intake solution can help your organization optimize registration processes and avoid most of these costly little errors.

  • Patients can fill out digital forms at home (or on their mobile devices) where they’re more comfortable, rather than in your waiting room where they may feel rushed.
  • Digital forms show patients every field and check box they must complete, so nothing gets skipped.
  • Digital forms eliminate the possibility of a written response being illegible or misread.
  • Digital forms are instantly archived and easy to retrieve, saving your staff even more time.

I’ll discuss these benefits in more depth during the April 21 webinar, and Interlace Health Solution Architect Ann Hill will also lead a demonstration of our eSignature solution that can help eliminate those expensive patient intake mistakes.

We probably won’t talk about my dishwasher, but if someone has a suggestion during the Q & A, I’m all ears.

Please join me for The Hidden Cost of Patient Intake Errors on April 21.

HIMSS22 | ViVE

Webinar recap: Key trends & insights from HIMSS22 & ViVE

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Two health IT conferences, both in Florida, just one week apart. HIMSS22 was the longtime champ, ViVE the spunky upstart. Which one offered the most valuable takeaways for healthcare information managers, CIOs, and other leaders?

We attended both events and came back with tons of ideas. Interlace Health Manager of Research and Insights Chris Link and Senior Solution Manager Dessiree Paoli shared our top takeaways during our recent webinar, HIMSS22 & ViVE, Key Trends & Insights from the Largest Health IT Events of the Year. Watch it when you have a chance—or keep reading for a quick summary!

Meet Your Presenter - Dessiree Paoli and Chris Link

Which topic made the biggest impact?

At both events, care delivery redesign was the most-discussed topic. But the focus varied from one event to the other.
At ViVE, speakers looked at consumer interaction in the retail industry as a potential model for healthcare. As Chris explained, “Retail lets different consumers interact in different ways. Why don’t we do that in healthcare? Can we move away from primary care providers into a more disparate model? The focus was more about rebuilding care delivery.”

At HIMSS, Chris said sessions were more about “’Here are all the friction points for patients—how do we remove them and make healthcare more accessible?’ It’s still about improving processes,” rather than reimagining the entire system.

Another theme common to both events was what Chris called “the scary word—interoperability.” The fear is driven by the new Trusted Exchange Framework, Common Agreement (TEFCA) which seeks to establish a universal floor of interoperability across the country. Chris said the talk was about “getting organizations to buy into the new agreement and boost data sharing. Payors, providers, vendors, even researchers will be watching closely. Consistent data format is a challenge everyone has to deal with.”

Staffing challenges are still top-of-mind.

In a poll during the webinar, more than 90% of attendees said their organizations were still experiencing staffing challenges. Dessiree was not surprised.

“It’s an employees’ market—not just in healthcare but across the whole economic system,” she said. “They’re tired, so you need technology that makes their jobs as easy as possible.”

Chris said sessions at both events tended to discuss two solution paths. “One was technology—how do we automate so staff can focus on higher value jobs? AI tools can automate workflows and relieve the burden so they’re not digging through files or typing out forms. All those minutes saved add up to hours.

“The second path was around managing the shifting workforce. Millennials are now pushing into their 40s, Gen Z is coming in, and they have different expectations. How do we retain and train them better? It comes down to listening, building in flexibility and balance.”

A growing role for AI.

There’s been a big shift in focus about how we apply AI to solving healthcare problems. Chris said, “Diagnosis, population health, predicting outbreaks—these aren’t hypotheticals anymore.”

Speakers at ViVE were more direct about the reasons AI is—or is not—working, while HIMSS speakers focused more on best practices and what AI is ultimately meant to deliver.

“The biggest challenge is around health equity,” Chris said. “The algorithms are only as good as the data that’s fed into them. Issues with bias or incomplete data harm the model, and many minority groups and people of color are not necessarily getting the care that’s best for them.”

Which event should you attend next year?

Next year’s events won’t be in the same state, so it might not be as easy to attend both. Chris and Dessiree said you can choose one or the other by the questions you ask yourself.

  • If your questions are along the lines of “What do I need to be thinking about when it comes to investing my tech dollars over the next few years?” ViVE might be your event.
  • HIMSS may be more about “What can I do to make a difference today to make my facility the best it can be? What new ideas are working in other places?”

Of course, as far as we’re concerned, they’re both essential. See what you think—watch our HIMSS22 and ViVE recap webinar on demand.

Top 3 Reasons Why a Digital Forms Library Should Be at the Top of Your To-Do List

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When it comes to healthcare, it’s clear that forms are much more than a formality. They are essential for collecting and sharing data effectively.

The information on forms drives the clinical and operational processes that are the foundation of every healthcare organization. Yet, when organizations lack a proper way to manage their ever-growing number of forms, the impact across the entire organization is profound.

The challenges that arise from disparate forms management systems leads to missing forms, inconsistent processes, sticky label struggles, version control issues, and the list goes on. The time to eliminate paper forms is now.

 

Imagine – ALL your forms in ONE Place.

With a digital forms library you will experience a simple and streamlined way to access and print forms from a browser, anywhere in the organization. Whether for registration, clinical documentation or during a downtime event, a Forms on Demand Solution provides a digital library of your most updated documents.

 

While there are endless reasons to implement a Forms on Demand Solution, we’ll dig into the top 3 reasons we believe implementing a digital forms library should make its way to the top of your to-do list in 2022.

1.) Critical staff shortages

Healthcare jobs have always been stressful, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made them more so. It’s no surprise that 18% of healthcare workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, and another 31% have considered leaving. On top of that 12% have been laid off, so busy units are feeling the strain.

Becker’s Report shared that in September 2021 alone, the healthcare industry had 589,000 quits. They also reported that 14 hospitals temporarily or permanently halted services due to staffing shortages. With 4 in 5 healthcare workers saying they have been impacted by the shortage of medical professionals, 49% also reported they are burned out or overworked.

Wakefield Research recently released the Internet of Healthcare Report uncovers how patients, healthcare professionals, administrative staff, and executives view the healthcare patient and employee experience. Half of the healthcare administrative staff report seeing an increase in the amount of manual data entry in the past 12 months — as if we are going backwards away from digital technologies.

These statistics are overwhelming, and the health system leaders we work with take these numbers to heart. They know how dedicated healthcare workers are, and they understand the strain staff shortages cause for those who remain on the job.

Many CIOs and healthcare IT leaders have told us that their top priority is to find ways to reduce these strains with improved processes. And rightfully so, as the impacts span beyond staff burnout and patient satisfaction.

Tedious paper-based tasks, such as searching for the right form – printing, scanning, etc. – drain resources unnecessarily. Document errors and missing data cause compliance headaches at a minimum and lost revenue at the other end of the spectrum. At a time when healthcare workers are scarce – there is little time left for remaining staff to be focused on unnecessary paperwork related struggles.

 

2.) Staff & patients want it

According to the Wakefield Research study, 54% of staff reported using paper-based forms at least once a day, most were much more often. Document errors and missing data cause compliance headaches at a minimum and lost revenue at the other end of the spectrum. Subpar workflows can create critical delays in care such as surgical delays or reschedules when informed consents go missing – a problem for patients and staff.

Many CIOs and healthcare IT leaders have told us that their top priority is to find ways to reduce staff strains with improved processes. And rightly so because the impacts span beyond staff burnout to patient satisfaction.

Waiting for patients to fill out lengthy forms at the office slows down visits and increases patient frustration. And, no patient wants to wait for staff to file through countless folders to find the right form. A Forms on Demand Solution gives clinicians and staff the ability to quickly and easily find the right form, each time – giving patients the confidence they need in their provider. By controlling what to present to patients at any given moment – the solution improves the patient experience.

Before implementing a Forms on Demand Solution, King’s Daughter Medical Center had around 2,500 forms. By optimizing and streamlining their forms processes with a digital forms library, they were able to decrease the number of forms by 60%. KDMC CIO, Carl Smith says with the solution in place, clinicians aren’t interrupted in their workflows and patients are more satisfied. He estimates that thousands of nurse hours each year have been freed up, allowing them to focus on patient care.

By delivering forms more effectively and efficiently, KDMC is doing more than simply meeting their required legal and ethical obligations. They are promoting more meaningful interactions with patients.

3.) Its where healthcare is heading

According to Wakefield Research’s recently released Internet of Healthcare Report, half of all clinicians believe paperwork will be eliminated from the U.S. healthcare landscape within five years. (Not scaled back or reduced—eliminated.) 58% believe data entry will be fully automated within the same timeframe.

It’s no coincidence that the same report points out that 92% of clinicians think administrative work is a major contributor to healthcare worker burnout.

Let’s be honest – paper-based forms management processes are not sustainable in today’s world. They have a negative impact on your staff, organizational processes, and more importantly – the patient experience.

Creating a digital forms library is really your very first step in moving patient data collection away from paper. By doing an organization-wide forms audit, you can reduce unnecessary forms, weed out strenuous processes, and ensure only the most up-to-date, approved forms are accessible to all employees. An effective forms technology solution is a long-term investment in improved data management that ties directly to strategic objectives such as operational efficiencies, patient engagement, patient safety, analytics, and compliance.

Ready to have the RIGHT forms at your finger-tips, every time? Contact us today!

 

Download our webinar: NEW YEAR, NEW PROCESSES 2 Tips for Forms Automation Success in 2022

 

 

Doctor showing patient consent form on a tablet

New webinar: Why the future of consent will be digital—and soon.

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According to Wakefield Research’s recently released Internet of Healthcare Report, nearly half of all clinicians believe paperwork will be eliminated from the U.S. healthcare landscape within five years. (Not scaled back or reduced—eliminated.) 58% believe data entry will be fully automated within the same timeframe.

It’s no coincidence that the same report points out that 92% of clinicians think administrative work is a major contributor to healthcare worker burnout.

Why are paper-based processes viewed so negatively by today’s clinicians? That’s a subject I’ll be exploring in my new webinar on February 17: 3 Ways eConsent Helps Overcome Staff Shortages.

Adopting digital processes isn’t just about saving your staff from burnout, however—eConsent also improves patients’ experiences and even makes a measurable impact on a hospital’s profitability. Here’s a quick preview.

eConsent is more efficient for hospital staffers

A hospital nurse I know—who does not work for an Interlace Health client—has worked with both paper-based and digital consent processes, and she’s all-in on digital. She’s used eConsent in every hospital scenario and loves how simple it makes the process.

“Say it’s a simple blood draw,” she says. “You want to be able to walk in, scan the patient’s wristband, click the form that you want on a tablet and have it auto-populate their information so they can just sign it. Boom, it’s archived away.”

During my webinar, I’ll discuss three scenarios—from the simplest to the most complex—and how eConsent makes each more efficient for hospital staffers:

  1. Inpatient test consent
  2. Consent to treat
  3. Surgical consent

In all these scenarios, eConsent streamlines nurses’ workflows, so they spend less time on paperwork and more time helping patients. As my friend explains, “I go into the room with a tablet and I pull up the patient. Right away I see which forms I need to get signed, and I can get that done at the same time I’m doing my typical workflow for visiting the patient.”

With nurses fleeing the business, improving their workflows with eConsent is a great way to keep them on board.

Paper consent errors hurt patient experience

If you’ve ever had inpatient surgery, you know it’s an ordeal before you even show up. You’ve taken time off work for the procedure and recovery. You’ve made arrangements for your spouse, the kids, and the dog for as long as it will take you to get back on your feet. You’re nervous—maybe terrified—and you’ve been fasting for at least 12 hours.

Now imagine, just as you’re about to get started, there’s a delay. A form is missing, or they gave you the wrong one to sign, or it’s stuck in the wrong file. Depending on which state you’re in, this delay could be a few minutes, or a few hours, or as long as 14 days.

Maybe you just have to sign some forms again. Or maybe you have to wait two weeks and do everything all over again—just because of an error in paper-based consent.

Unfortunately, that experience is hardly rare. Researchers at Johns Hopkins found that consent forms were missing for 66% of surgical patients, which resulted in one out of ten cases being delayed.

Of course, eConsent can’t guarantee a positive patient experience—but it can eliminate a common cause of negative patient experience.

eConsent keeps procedures on schedule

Delayed procedures aren’t just an annoying patient experience, of course. They’re devastating to a hospital’s bottom line.

A JAMA Surgery study has found that one minute of operating room time costs an average $36 to $37. Multiply that figure by the length and frequency of delays, and then by the total number of procedures your hospital performs each year, and the total cost of surgical delays turns into a significant hit to your bottom line.

I perform ROI analyses such as this all the time. Here’s an example: One hospital, performing an average of 14 surgeries a day, discovered nearly $200,000 in losses over the course of a year. Larger hospitals can experience losses in excess of $2 million.

Add that to the costs of printing, scanning, and shredding paper consent forms—plus your staff’s time to manage all that—and you can see the immediate bottom-line advantage an eConsent process can bring to your organization. It’s the kind of advantage Interlace Health has been helping hospitals realize for more than 30 years.

Want to reduce the stress on your staff? Improve patient experience? Eliminate losses from delayed procedures?

Please join me for 3 Ways eConsent Helps Overcome Staff Shortages on February 17.

Making Patient Signatures Secure, Private, and Compliant

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An estimated 76.5% of healthcare providers still use paper consent forms. This is even though most of these organizations have been using electronic health records (EHRs) for nearly a decade.

Understandably, many organizations are reluctant to change any element of healthcare that’s so crucial to compliance and patient safety, but paper consent forms create their own problems. About 67% of patients are missing consent forms on the day of surgery, for example. This is a major obstacle to efficiency in healthcare and a serious compliance risk.

Fortunately, there is a better way. Electronic informed consent and remote patient intake solutions rely on eSignatures instead of traditional pen and paper. The benefits of eSignature solutions mirror the benefits of other digital healthcare solutions, giving organizations greater control and insight into every step of their operations. Electronic forms are easier to customize, more secure, and more accurate. This means there’s less risk of compliance violations, which benefits both patients and providers.

Here are a few specific ways electronic forms powered by eSignature improve upon their paper counterparts:

1. Better accessibility and security.

Unlike a traditional consent form, which can be modified after the fact and viewed by anyone with access to the document, an electronic consent form is only accessible to those who need to see or fill it out. Administrators can manage access to forms based on their own criteria, granting access only to the people who need it.

For patient intake forms that are being completed remotely, patients are required to create an account using two-factor authentication to validate their identity. In this case, patients need to provide their date of birth and click on a link sent to them either through email or text.

2. Greater flexibility.

Consent forms are rarely one-size-fits-all documents. Each procedure requires different information, and everything needs to be easy for patients to understand. Electronic consent forms make it simple to modify and annotate forms. Forms are updated instantly as older forms are simultaneously disabled, eliminating any chance of confusion or obsolete information playing a role.

Healthcare providers can fully customize each form, choosing between options like free text fields, drop-down lists, and checkboxes. Electronic forms also make it possible to link to additional information, using videos, pictures, or even specific landing pages to help patients better understand their upcoming procedures.

This flexibility helps hospital administrators and patients. Electronic consent forms are easier to access, quicker to complete, and simple to understand.

3. Reduced liability.

Informed consent comes with a host of hoops that need to be jumped through to reduce liability and ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations. Electronic informed consent makes this easier in a number of ways.

For one, fields can be populated automatically with existing information, virtually eliminating the risk of errors from repeatedly filling out forms manually. There are also built-in safeguards to ensure that every patient has everything filled out before the day of surgery.

eSignature also enables every document to be filed and archived instantly. There’s no need to manually scan forms, mitigating the risk that something gets lost or misfiled. And with eSignature solutions, every form is automatically locked in and stamped with the date and time of signing, verifying the authenticity of each document.

Most healthcare organizations have already been relying on EHRs for years. The next step should be to continue that digital journey and adopt electronic informed consent, making the lives of patients and healthcare organizations easier.

Interlace Health can help you take this step, with a comprehensive platform of digital healthcare solutions equipped with eSignature that can integrate seamlessly with your EHR and other existing technologies. To learn more about our eSignature solution, download our whitepaper on the topic here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Over the past five years, Lauren Ziegler has been a member of Interlace Health’s Marketing team, coordinating and executing marketing communication initiatives, such as copywriting and content management, public and media relations, social media, and corporate communications. She has over a decade of experience in working with technology companies. Lauren is passionate about helping the healthcare community understand Interlace’s Health’s value, vision, and commitment to improving experiences for providers, patients, and staff.

Webinar recap: Forms automation relieves stress for healthcare heroes

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Webinar recap: Forms automation relieves stress for healthcare heroes

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been commonplace to call healthcare workers heroes. And they absolutely have been heroes! They’ve worked untold overtime since March 2020, treating millions of patients under the most challenging circumstances and giving the best patient care they can while risking constant exposure to the virus themselves.

But even heroes have their breaking point—and it looks like many healthcare workers have reached theirs.

• 18% of healthcare workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic.
• 17 percent of U.S. hospitals reported critical staffing shortages in January.
• Burnout rates for healthcare workers range from 40% to 70%.

There’s no magic spell that can restore our healthcare workers to complete mental, physical, and emotional health. But healthcare leaders and CIOs can make one change that helps relieve some of the stress for nurses and other staffers—and that was the topic of our January 17 webinar, New Year, New Processes: Tips for Forms Automation Success in 2022.

Reducing stress is “a top priority”

“The health system leaders I know understand the strain staff shortages cause,” said webinar host—and Interlace Health Senior Manager Dessiree Paoli, MBA. She shared new findings from Wakefield Research’s recently released Internet of Healthcare Report:

• Half of healthcare administrative staff reported an increase in manual data entry in the past 12 months.
• 54% reported using paper-based forms at least once a day, but most did so far more often than that.
• 92% of clinicians agreed that too much time spent on administrative tasks is a major contributor to healthcare burnout.

Dessiree said, “Many CIOs and healthcare IT leaders have told us that their top priority is to find ways to reduce these strains with improved processes.” Those processes include a digital forms library, simple EHR integration, and on-demand printing—solutions that Interlace Health can help systems deploy to relieve some of the stress experienced by their team members.

A digital forms library is one less thing to stress about

“Creating a digital forms library is really your very first step in moving patient data collection away from paper,” said Dessiree. “By doing an organization-wide forms audit, you can reduce unnecessary forms, weed out strenuous processes, and ensure only the most up-to-date, approved forms are accessible to all your employees.”

As she explained in a previous blog post, a hospital doesn’t have to get rid of paper forms entirely—but standardizing those forms and storing them digitally is essential to ensure that anyone in the organization can go to any form and print it as needed. Digitizing your forms into a single library removes the hassles from cumbersome, manual, paper-based processes—and gives staffers one less thing to stress about.

“Healthcare professionals believe applying automation to remedy these processes will be good for their careers, so they can focus more on important things,” Dessiree said. “Healthcare workers deserve the automation that so many other industries have, allowing them to function at their very best for their patients.”

Saving time and money with simple EHR integration

After the digital forms archive, simple EHR integrations are the next step toward forms automation success.

“We know that everyone is focused on making their EHRs work harder and more efficiently than ever before,” said Dessiree. “You can streamline your data utilization by taking the data that’s already there for your patient and using it in a more automated and impactful way.”

A Simple Change. Digital Forms

As an example, she mentioned simple API and HL7 integrations that pull data from a patient’s EMR and autofill it into your forms—even for forms you still need to print out.

Dessiree said, “This integration is often the easiest and most overlooked way to streamline data utilization—not only saving time and money, but preventing the frustrations of patients giving you the same information again and again.”

Transformation with forms on demand

Improving forms automation can’t relieve all the stress healthcare workers face today, but it can alleviate a little bit of the pressure by reducing tedious, repetitive tasks.

Start with a web-based forms repository that lets your staffers automatically generate forms with the click of a button. Add EHR integration that makes sure a patient’s most current information populates each form. Finally, deploy a forms-on-demand solution that lets anyone in the organization go to any form and print it as needed.

Dessiree shared how these solutions from Interlace Health helped one customer transform their forms management.

“In 2018, King’s Daughters Medical Center launched a large-scale optimization project that involved redesigning all of the organization’s forms, creating new digital forms for many that were on paper, and fleshing out obsolete paper forms they found throughout the medical center campus. CIO Carl Smith recalled finding boxes of obsolete forms at departments and clinics across the organization.

“They were using over 2500 paper forms before the process and were able to consolidate those down to only one thousand digital forms that everyone could access and that were always the most up-to-date versions.”

Transformation at KDMC

At King’s Daughters and other health organizations who use this Interlace Health solution, staffers who once wasted time on cumbersome forms management can now devote that time to helping patients.

Does better forms management make their jobs stress-free? Of course not. But when so many nurses and other healthcare workers have been going above and beyond for the better part of two years, removing a major source of their stress might just help keep these heroes on the job.

Learn how you can make it happen in your organization—watch New Year, New Processes: Forms Automation Success in 2022 on demand.

New webinar: Improve forms automation and relieve strained staff

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Healthcare jobs have always been stressful, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made them more so. It’s no wonder that 18% of health care workers have quit their jobs during the pandemic, and another 31% have considered leaving.

The health system leaders I know take these statistics to heart. They know how dedicated healthcare workers are, and they understand the strain staff shortages cause for those who remain on the job. Many CIOs and healthcare IT leaders have told me that their top priority is to find ways to reduce these strains with improved processes.

Forms automation is the perfect opportunity for improvement. We’ll be talking about ways to streamline this critical process in our new webinar: New Year, New Processes: 2 Tips for Forms Automation Success in 2022—a free, 30-minute webinar on January 19.

“A major headache”

Nurses are driven to treat patients and help them get better. They’re not driven to spend time on paperwork—but that’s exactly what can happen with outmoded processes.

Here’s a how a hospital nurse I know—who does not work for an Interlace Health client—described the forms processes at her hospital:

We all have to decide for ourselves which form a patient needs and put it in the file. What happens with it after that falls on the that individual team to decide. It might be, “I put it in Mary’s basket and then every Thursday Mary’s assistant scans them in and files them away,” and that’s the process in one department. But in another department maybe they scan them immediately and they get emailed to somebody who reviews them and puts them away digitally. When we’re short-staffed, we might work on different floors every day, and it’s a major headache to remember all these different processes.

And what happens if a form can’t be located? She says, “It’s not just a waste of time, but then we have to go back to the patient and ask them to fill it out again, when we already have all the information in our EHR.”

Healthcare leaders understand the strain that comes with working in an environment where you’re carrying the weight of three people by yourself. Improving forms automation can’t relieve all the stress healthcare workers face, but it can alleviate just a little bit of the pressure.

How forms-on-demand streamlines data collection

It starts with forms-on-demand to make those processes more consistent, removing the personalized steps that involve a lot of different players in individual departments. Digitizing a hospital’s forms into a single library removes the hassles from cumbersome, manual, paper-based processes.

Forms-on-demand doesn’t mean a hospital has to get rid of paper forms. It means standardizing those forms and storing them digitally so anyone in the organization can go to any form and print it as needed—in many cases, pre-populated with current patient data from an EHR. It makes a difference for workers, compliance and patients:

  • Staff members like it better because it requires fewer steps for them. It’s one less thing to stress about.
  • Compliance likes it because they know where to find completed forms, and they know every single staff member is using only the most up-to-date form.
  • Patients prefer it because they don’t have to waste time filling in information the system already has.

The process is faster and more consistent, whether paper is involved or not. Once a patient adds whatever information is needed, a barcode ensures the document gets scanned directly into its archival location. It’s faster, more accurate and far less stressful.

One Interlace Health client said, “The consent process went from 60+ seconds to 14 seconds on average in the first few weeks. This x 200,000+ patient visits per year = a time savings we’ll take any day.”

If you don’t have a calculator handy, that’s a savings of 2,556 hours—or more than 300 eight-hour shifts. Just by improving data collection and forms processing.

Only Interlace provides this level of flexibility

Lots of companies offer forms-on-demand. What do we provide that’s special?

In a word, it’s flexibility. Many of our customers don’t want anyone to tell them what forms to use—they want to keep using their own. Our forms designers convert their forms to digital so they can be stored in a single library and sorted by a variety of different tags.

We can also be flexible to a hospital’s information flow. Where is the data coming from? How many people need to see it before it’s completed? And then where does it need to go?

Our goal is to make sure hospitals don’t just automate their forms, but automate their forms in the way that’s most comfortable for them. Because when everyone’s comfortable with their forms processes, it’s one less thing for healthcare workers to stress out about.

How can you make it happen in your organization? Find out during New Year, New Processes: 2 Tips for Forms Automation Success in 2022 on January 19.

Webinar Year in Review

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Challenges and Breakthroughs: Our Top 4 Webinars of 2021

One of my favorite responsibilities here at Interlace Health is preparing and presenting our near-monthly webinars. Doing so puts me in contact with some of the sharpest, most dedicated people in the health information management sphere—people whose passion for making their operations better inspires us at Interlace to make our solutions better, too.

These people have had their work cut out for them in 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic created staggering challenges for everyone in healthcare in any capacity. Their efforts since March 2020 have been nothing short of heroic. At the same time, the unprecedented disruptions caused by the pandemic sparked new ideas and practices in virtual healthcare, and many patients found they liked these new experiences better than the old ones.

Our 2021 webinars have captured both the challenges and the breakthroughs of the past couple of years. Here are four that generated some of the strongest response from people like you.

Our top four 2021 webinars

COVID-19 Brings eConsent to the Forefront, March 25.

What strategies helped King’s Daughter Medical Center—a vital community hospital in Brookhaven, Mississippi—prevail through the cancellation of so many elective procedures in 2020? KDMC’s Carl Smith, a recent Info-Tech CIO Award recipient, shared his firsthand insights into empowering clinicians through digital health technology.

Expert Panel: The Power of Digital Informed Consent, May 26.

I moderated this panel of Interlace Health experts who have been in the trenches with health systems since the pandemic began. They discussed how they’ve helped CIOs and HIM leaders make a smooth transition to an electronic consent process that’s fully integrated with their EHRs—a key factor in getting elective procedures back to full capacity.

A Sign of the Times: How eSignature is a Game Changer, September 23.

Even people familiar with eSignature technology may not be exploiting its full potential to accept more patients, increase revenue, and reduce time spent on manual tasks. In this webinar, I demonstrated how to leverage eSignature capabilities for maximum benefit across four critical service lines: Cardiology, Orthopedics, Gastroenterology and Pulmonology.

More than a FORMality: 3 CIO Strategies for EHR Optimization, October 28.

Nearly 60% of CIOs say their top post-COVID-19 financial goal is “Getting the most out of existing IT purchases.” That requires EHR optimization via improved form processes. In this webinar I discussed how one hospital’s move to digital forms management became a vital investment in improved EHR integration and data management.

Please feel free to watch all these webinars on demand!

A window into your healthcare data challenges

Our webinars offer our audiences a window into the two, interconnected goals every health system CIO must pursue:

  • Delivering better patient experiences and outcomes
  • Enabling efficiencies that boost staff productivity and revenues

I see these priorities linked—interlaced, if you will—throughout every well-managed healthcare organization. It’s fascinating to me how different health systems make different approaches work, and that’s a theme I try to explore in every webinar.

And the questions we receive during our webinars are invaluable! Hearing your concerns helps us re-examine our service and solutions to make sure we’re helping you meet your challenges head-on. Plus, your questions also give me ideas for new webinars!

What webinar subjects should we address in 2022? What issues or concerns are foremost for you?

Please feel free to email me directly, or contact Interlace Health.

Thanks—and I look forward to seeing you at next year’s webinars!

 

About the Author:

Dessiree Paoli is a senior solution manager at Interlace Health, a company that transforms workflows by providing clinicians and patients with digital healthcare solutions. She has more than 18 years of experience in driving strategic marketing initiatives, leading teams, and developing integrated campaigns, and she has worked in healthcare for more than 12 years.

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