Interlace Health Executives Named to Becker’s Hospital Review 2023 Women in Health IT to Know List

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The healthcare industry is becoming more diverse as a whole, and women are increasingly represented in the health IT field. Women are helping to streamline the burdensome behind-the-scenes work of patient care and leading their organizations into a new age of digital transformation.

Each year, Becker’s Healthcare accepts nominations for the list and features those furthering innovation in their field. The list honors women in health IT for their dedication to optimizing healthcare through technology.

Allison Reichenbach, president, and Maggie Peña, chief experience officer, were named to the 2023 Becker’s Hospital Review Women in Health IT to Know list.  The Becker’s announcement and full list can be read here.

 

Allison Reichenbach is the president of Interlace Health. She has served in various roles at Interlace Health including director of special projects, vice president of administration, and most recently, chief operating officer. Allison leads all organizational activity including sales, marketing, engineering, client services, and administration with a focus on creating an organizational structure that best supports Interlace Health’s team to accomplish their goals and to meet the goals of the company’s 1500+ customers.

For the past 11 years, Allison has built a strong foundation at Interlace Health by focusing on company culture, organizational development, and ensuring that the right employees are in the right positions. Under her leadership, Interlace Health has doubled its number of female executives, contributed greatly to charitable organizations and the company currently has a customer retention rate of 97.4%.

 

Maggie Peña is the chief experience officer at Interlace Health. She brings 22 years of experience in IT to her role and is responsible for the overall leadership, management, and strategic direction of the client services team. She leads one-third of Interlace Health’s employees. Maggie leads Interlace Health’s customer support team, its customer implementation strategy, and the company’s managed services program.

Maggie joined Interlace Health in 2011. Under her leadership, she created and built Interlace Health’s customer support team, its customer implementation strategy, and its customer success management program. She has also been instrumental in the company’s expansion to the Puerto Rico market within the past six years. She believes in a proactive approach to customer service, which is evident through the success of Interlace Customers.

 

“Women are increasingly taking on leadership roles in health IT, bringing well-rounded and diverse perspectives to the field. The women celebrated on this year’s list are helping to improve healthcare using IT. Their work is instrumental to the elevation of the patient journey, the standardization of processes, the implementation of novel telehealth initiatives and more,” shared Becker’s Healthcare in a press release.  

Join us in congratulating Allison & Maggie, and all of the women on Becker’s 2023 list!

 

 

Interlace Health Names Maggie Peña as Chief Experience Officer

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Veteran health IT executive promoted to new position at leading healthcare forms automation company

LOUIS, Mo. (June 22, 2023) — Interlace Health (the next generation of FormFast), a 30-year-old privately held healthcare IT firm based in St. Louis, Missouri, named Maggie Peña as chief experience officer. Peña is responsible for the overall leadership, management, and strategic direction of the client services team. She was most recently senior vice president of client services at Interlace Health. Peña leads one third of Interlace Health’s employees.

Peña joined Interlace Health in 2011. Under her leadership, she created and built Interlace Health’s customer support team, its customer implementation strategy, and its customer success management program. Peña has also been instrumental in the company’s expansion to the Puerto Rico market within the past six years.

“Maggie has consistently provided outstanding customer service to our 1500+ healthcare customers for the past 12 years,” said Allison Reichenbach, president of Interlace Health. “Her leadership is palpable in the strong team she leads, in the programs she has built, and in the way she continually improves how our customers are supported. We are thrilled to promote Maggie to chief experience officer where she will continue to have a tremendous impact on the way we work to meet our customers’ needs.”

Peña brings 22 years of experience in IT to her role and has held customer service leadership roles in the healthcare and financial services industries. Prior to joining Interlace Health, Peña was a financial systems analyst at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance Health System and assistant vice president, mainframe support manager at Texas State Bank.

Maggie is a member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and serves as co-leader for the HIMSS Clinician Burden Reduction Task Force. She is a member of the Texas and Puerto Rico HIMSS local chapters, a member of the Association for Forms and Business Process Professionals, and a member of the College of Healthcare Management Executives (CHIME). Maggie was recently named to Becker’s  2023 Women in Health IT to Know List.

 

About Interlace Health
Interlace Health (the next generation of FormFast) delivers forms automation and eSignature solutions that are more scalable and cost-effective than your EHR. For more than 30 years, Interlace Health (the next generation of FormFast) has pioneered eForms, eSignature, and workflow technology.

By enabling seamless data capture and information exchange among providers, staff, and patients, Interlace Health solves many of healthcare’s central challenges through process transformation. The result for its clients is reduced costs, increased collections, uplifted patient experiences, improved operational efficiency, and enhanced support of an organization’s integration strategy. Interlace Health’s platform enables several solutions that are accessible by clinicians and patients inside and outside the walls of the healthcare system. These include Forms on Demand, Patient Intake, and eConsent. To learn more, visit www.interlacehealth.com.

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Media Contact: 

Lauren Ziegler

lziegler@interlacehealth.com

314-607-7202

Top 5 Reasons to Attend the 2023 Interlace Health Customer Summit

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This exclusive customer event is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to learn how to make the most of your Interlace Health investment, learn from industry experts, network with peers, and gain valuable insights into our roadmap. The Customer Summit is created by our customers for our customers.  To ensure value and substance, our Customer Success Council and customer insights drive content for the Customer Summit creating a truly customer-centric event. 

 

While there are so many valuable reasons to attend the Interlace Health Customer Summit, below we narrowed it down to our top 5 reasons to attend!

  1. TURN KNOWLEDGE INTO RESULTS – HEAR FROM THE EXPERTS, BE THE EXPERT. Learn from industry experts and ascertain AHIMA CEUs during sessions such as ‘Project Management – A Strategic Approach.” Improve your form regulation knowledge with a Joint Commission Educator. Keep your skills sharp as it pertains to cyber security. You can expect to leave the summit with actionable insights you can immediately apply to help your organization become more successful.  
  2. IN-PERSON PRODUCT TRAINING & FIRST-HAND INSIGHT. Work smarter, not harder. This unique opportunity provides elbow time with Interlace Health experts and experienced customers to identify more efficient usage and best practices of Interlace Health products and solutions. Lessons learned result in tips and tools to impact change and increase productivity within your health system creating a significant ROI. 
  3. RECEIVE AN INTERLACE HEALTH PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CREDIT. Each organization in attendance receives a $2,500 Interlace Health professional services credit! This credit can be applied for assorted services including form design, software upgrades, or system optimization! With this benefit alone, the Customer Summit pays more than for itself!  *Full details on our event site 
  4. FIND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, INDUSTRY EDUCATION, AND NETWORKING – ALL IN ONE PLACE. Discussing your current projects, struggles, and sharing insights provides a fresh perspective, inspiring new strategies to tackle an existing challenge or identify a new area of opportunity! Historically, customers cite deepening their professional network as a significant benefit providing additional resources to solve challenges they face in their day-to-day work. 
  5. ENJOY ALL THAT AUSTIN HAS TO OFFER! With live music, outdoor adventures, historic landmarks, and fabulous restaurants, the Lone Star State capital is an amazing city. Additionally, we coordinated special evening events and entertainment to ensure your trip is unforgettable all while making meaningful industry contacts. 

Are you a leader in your organization? Join other leaders for an executive roundtable before the opening dinner on Sunday from 2-4pm. This special event creates the opportunity for executives to join other hospital leaders for intimate strategy discussions.  

Interlace Health’s goal is to create seamless and convenient experiences, and this extends to our Customer Group Summit. Our team has every detail covered so you can focus on making the most of your time at the conference. Lodging, wi-fi, Customer Summit evening activities, meals, beverages, and snacks are all included in your registration.  

 

For full details and to register – visit our event page.  

We hope to see y’all in Austin, Texas this August! 

REGISTER NOW

 

 

Gain AHIMA CEU’s & Uncover Top Tips to Elevate Forms Management

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We enjoyed the opportunity to participate in Extract’s HealthyData Virtual Academy Winter ’23 event on March 7, 2023. The event theme was The Difference is in the Data and offered two AHIMA CEUs and hosts presentation sessions on Finding Support for an HIM or Revenue Cycle Project and Elevating Forms Management: How to Streamline Process & Enhance Compliance.

The session: “Elevating Forms Management: How to Streamline Process & Enhance Compliance,” was led by our own Director of Product Marketing, Dessiree Paoli, and Rochester Regional Health’s HIM Content Specialist, Diana Adam-Podgornik, RHIT. Diana oversees RRH’s Forms Committee and EPIC onboarding team. She works directly with new acquisition leaders to ensure smooth transitions. She is an expert on healthcare forms control, inventory management, and record shortage and destruction.

The conversation took a deep dive into the current state of patient forms along with what concrete steps healthcare staff and organizations can take to improve forms management. The session shared insight into optimal organizational structure, governance, eSignatures, and form structure, standardization, and specifications. With a focus on keys to success in establishing your healthcare organization’s forms committee, attendees learned steps they needed to get done and how to uniform processes. In short, it’s a presentation HIM professionals just can’t miss!

 

Visit the link below to watch the recording and earn your AHIMA CEU Credit (Elevating Forms Management Session starts near minute 50!) 

 

 

Caring for Nurses: Addressing Today’s Top Challenges with Technology

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During National Nurses Week we’d like to honor the hard work, compassion, and dedication of nursing professionals and show appreciation for their invaluable contributions to our industry. But this year, we cannot overlook the difficulties those in the industry are up against. Across the country, high burnout, low availability, and raising costs related to retention and recruiting nursing staff are making headlines. These challenges of course are related. High burnout leads to retirement, career changes, or moving to a less stressful healthcare environment.

In each of these cases, that leaves fewer nurses to fill the roles available. Nurses in a number of healthcare organizations have reached a point of frustration with staffing levels that have led to strikes in a number of states, including the largest of 2022: 15,000 nurses in Minnesota, and 7000 in NYC. “There were 385 strikes in 2022, up 42% from 270 in 2021, according to the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The US Labor Department, which tracks only major strikes by 1,000 or more workers, recorded 20 strikes in the first 11 months of 2022, up 33% from the same period in 2021.” Those nurses who are working have seen pay rise considerably over the past year. As of March, the average yearly base pay for hospital nurses had reached $86,674, up 9% from $79,172 in June 2021, according to Premier Inc., a healthcare consulting, contracting and data-analytics company, which analyzed salaries of about 116,000 nurses.

Unfortunately, the demand for nurses is increasing while the supply of nurses is decreasing – with no near-term solution in sight. In addition, with financial pressures increasing with the end of the Public Health Emergency, it’s clear health systems will need to accomplish “more with less” while avoiding pushing nursing unions to call strikes. Adding to the rising costs and a shrinking supply of nurses to staff hospitals, the amount of time being spent with patients is well below 50%. Less than one-third of registered nurses’ work time was spent with patients. They allocated the most time to the dimensions of ‘communication and care coordination’ and ‘care planning’, whereas ‘optimizing the quality and safety of care’, ‘integrating and supervising staff’, and ‘client education’ were allocated the least time.

Turning to Technology to Tackle Nursing Workloads

Although it’s a complex problem, if we can begin to address these issues now, we can guarantee a better future for nurses, patients, and providers alike. But, how can health systems accomplish this balancing act? For a number of organizations, effective deployment of technology is the best option to accomplish these goals. Below are three examples of how technology has made a positive impact on nursing staff:

1.) AI Robot Makes Strides with Nursing Staff Support

Tacoma, WA- based Multicare Health deployed Moxi – an AI enhanced Robot – earlier this year. In its first week, Moxi saved nurses and clinical staff 320,000 steps and saved 364 person-hours…all in one week! I personally have also seen Moxi in operation at Corewell Health (formerly Spectrum Health) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was impressive to watch several unattended deliveries take place to different patient rooms while I was visiting a relative.

2.) Simplify EHR Documentation Processes

Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth launched a project to give nurses technology that provides tools to capture patient data and said it saved nurses 64,800 hours by simplifying documentation processes within its Epic EHR. The project optimized the system’s nursing documentation by reducing 18 minutes of time spent in flowsheets per nurse shift, reducing the amount of time and number of actions needed to complete documentation and cutting the required nursing documentation for the average patient by more than half.

3.) Automate Informed Consent Workflow & Signature Capture

Miami, Florida-based Nicklaus Children’s Hospital replaced labor intensive paper-based consents for patients with an automated workflow provided by Interlace Health which includes EHR integration and electronic signature capabilities. Leveraging iPad tablets and Interlace Health software, Nicklaus estimated they saved 4914 hours of nursing time. How are these hours saved at this regional pediatric hospital? The surgery department is the primary option for patients in the region, so they have a high volume of surgeries. They are required to collect informed consent the day of the surgery or procedure and so the nurses are responsible for printing the necessary forms and putting them into the chart. They are later scanned, filed, and shredded. This amounts to thousands of pieces of paper and over four-thousand hours of nurse time.

With the implementation of eSignature for Informed Consents the entire process is condensed. During pre-op, the nurse launches the consent forms on either a computer or tablet, and all the patient and provider information related to the procedure is automatically populated. The physician comes in and reviews the consent with the patient guardian and both sign right then using the touch screen. The time and date are applied electronically, and the form is locked from any future edits and instantly archived to the EHR. Copies can later be emailed to the patient. During timeout, the physician confirms consent was collected and they begin the procedure.

There is no paper trail related to the consenting of these patients. Those nearly 5000 hours of nurse time are repurposed for patient care. All three of these examples, highlight how technology reduces the amount of time nurses spend on tasks not consistent with operating at top of licensure. Thousands of hours in each of these systems, have been redirected towards patient engagement and care. Additionally, with nursing costs ranging from $29.11 in South Dakota to $59.62 in California, the financial return on investment of these technologies can be quite high.

 

What do these three projects have in common? Close collaboration among Nursing Leadership such as CNOs and CNIOs, the CIO’s office and vendor partners were critical to their success. Tackling time-intensive administrative tasks is not an option or nice to have, these solutions are “must haves”. While hours costs may be flattening, the overall labor supply for nursing is only getting worse.

 

The Time for Change is Now

A recent report from McKinsey predicts potentially dire nurse staffing issues in the next few years, as the nationwide nursing shortage could reach 450,000, or 20 percent, by as early as 2025. This same report noted that 90% of hospitals are unable to increase surgery volumes due to limited nursing staff, impacting the ability to grow revenues and offset cost pressures.

Last year, for the first time in 20 years, nursing school enrollment decreased, right at the time when it needs to be increasing by double digits. The current staffing challenge will only get worse without increasing productivity. Technology can be the key to help harmonize workflows, automate documentation processes, and simplify communication to create optimal work environments for nurses.

Interlace Health is dedicated to providing solutions that put people over paperwork (now and in the future) – with critical nurses and clinicians at the top of our list of staff whose workflows we aim to improve through automation.

 

 

About the Author:

Art Nicholas, Chief Commercial Officer at Interlace Health, has over 20 years of experience in launching and expanding technologies in the healthcare field. He was a pioneer in getting speech recognition used by both doctors and nurses in inpatient and outpatient settings. In every role, his teams have successfully implemented automated workflows which benefit patients, providers and the healthcare ecosystem. A strong believer in the healthcare IT community, he has been an active member of CHIME, HIMSS, and MUSE, sitting on a number of their committees. He is committed to improving the quality of patient care and lowering the cost of care delivery through well-designed and well-supported technology workflow solutions.

 

Learn how Nicklaus Children’s redeployed 4,914 hours of nurse time!

Read Success Story

 

 

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.

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