Improving Organizational Efficiency

Healthcare providers and public health and social services (PHSS) organizations face increasing pressure to provide better and safer care and services to more patients and citizens in less time and at a lower cost. However, paper based workflows as well as disconnected processes and systems make it difficult for Healthcare providers and PHSS organizations to deliver care and services efficiently.

By implementing scenarios from Microsoft® and its partners, health organizations can become more efficient by equipping their employees with easy-to-use, cost-effective tools that help them streamline interactions with peers, patients, and citizens. With these scenarios—Business Intelligence (BI), Health Portals, Caregiver Collaboration, and Case Management—health organizations can deliver higher-quality care and services to more patients and citizens in less time and at a lower cost.

These Microsoft scenarios and products can also help health organizations:

• Save time by automating routine tasks, streamlining processes, and eliminating redundant steps to meet the workflow needs of staff.
  Case Study: Intermountain Healthcare

• Increase care and services quality by making it faster and easier for health professionals to access and share information for knowledge-driven decisions that improve patient and citizen outcomes and by helping to make sure that the right resources are in the right place at the right time.
  Case Study: West Lothian Council

• Improve operational performance by saving money and increasing margins through operational cost-efficiencies and improved care quality and productivity, which allows health organizations to attract and serve more patients and citizens with the existing workforce and budget, and through better management and forecasting of resources, budgets, and performance across functions.
  Case Study: Falck Healthcare

 

Business Intelligence

The pressure on health organizations to improve the quality of care and process efficiency requires easy access to information. With Microsoft BI software, health organizations can use the tools necessary to analyse data and quickly see trends to make well-informed decisions. Microsoft BI simplifies the task of integrating information from departmental applications and uses desktop tools familiar to everyone—not just trained specialists. People can more easily access relevant, actionable information; create reports and dashboards; monitor key performance indicators; and collaborate with peers and colleagues. BI scenarios can help health organizations achieve an integrated enterprise view of data, allowing people to self-align with organizational goals.

PHSS organizations can streamline their operations and provide assistance to organizations through Microsoft BI scenarios that record, track, and analyse budget, administrative, and care delivery information. Microsoft BI scenarios can provide organizations with one version of truth to help them measure progress in promoting health and providing assistance to organizations by giving all employees access to dashboards and scorecards. Microsoft BI scenarios enable administrators to help ensure compliance for policies, procedures, and organizational records across the enterprise with document and records management (versioning, rights management, history and security features, defined electronic publishing, and notification and distribution processes).

Implementing a solution based on Microsoft Business Intelligence platform can deliver the following benefits

• Provide one version of the truth by consolidating, tracking, and analysing financial, administrative, and clinical information
• Increase transparency and insight across the organization by providing all employees with access to dashboards, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPIs) via familiar productivity tools
• Improve operational efficiency by enabling better-informed decision making with real-time data analysis

Areas to consider are

• Healthcare providers: Balance Scorecards; Service Line Reporting
• PHSS: Organizational Scorecards and Dashboards; Agency Program Management; Quality and Productivity Management

Health Portals

To serve patient and citizen needs faster, Healthcare Providers and PHSS organizations need a unified view of information when and where they need it, and need to consolidate information across organizational boundaries and different teams, departments, and entities. Health portal scenarios from Microsoft and its partners can provide a security-enhanced and efficient method for searching, organizing, and managing information and integrating content and workflow across LOB applications, while complying with privacy and security mandates and providing familiar tools that allow users to collaborate, access, and share information more efficiently and effectively.

Implementing a solution based on Microsoft portals solution can provide the following benefits

• Enable the seamless exchange and management of information across the healthcare ecosystem
• Help employees streamline content management and integrate content and workflows across line-of-business (LOB) applications, while complying with privacy and security mandates through portal solutions

Areas to consider are

• Healthcare providers: Administrative, Clinical, Patient, and Document Management, also known as Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
• PHSS: Administrative, Citizen, Document Management (also known as Electronic Content Management (ECM))

Microsoft Case Management

Case management scenarios for Health from Microsoft and its partners allow organizations to provide the benefits of better coordinated delivery of care and services while maximizing the value of their existing IT infrastructure. Case Management scenarios allow organizations to better coordinate people and connect systems in real time—even when on the go, as needed, from most mobile devices. These scenarios help improve cross-agency collaboration and decision making, help organizations to reduce administrative burden, and maximize the amount of time spent with clients, while improving health outcomes and the quality of life for individuals and families.

Benefits you can realise from implementing a solution based on Microsoft portals technology include

• Adapt quickly to changing business environments while connecting and collaborating with external organizations through automated process workflows for case management
• Help maximize time spent with patients and citizens by automating manual routine processes
• Target specific communities with tailored outreach campaigns and education programs with specialized tools
• Help maximize organizational productivity for patient and citizen care with Web-based assessment tools that track effectiveness through Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, reducing the need for costly face-to-face interactions
• Provide better coordinated delivery of care and services, while maximizing the value of existing IT infrastructure

Potential areas for deployment are

• For Healthcare providers: Case Management (a component of Patient Relationship Management)
• For PHSS: Case Management; Care Management; Outcome Measurement with Dashboards and Scorecards

Caregiver Collaboration

Microsoft caregiver collaboration can improve and extend the effectiveness of both Healthcare Providers and PHSS organizations as they perform ancillary functions using health portals. With Microsoft Unified Communications, health organizations can integrate communications (e-mail, IM, scheduling, and conferencing) into health portals. When clinical support areas (such as support departments and post-discharge therapy) or administrative and logistics departments (such as admissions, authorizations, billing, collections, purchasing, supplies, and facilities) need certain communications functions, caregiver collaboration provides these functions in more convenient, appropriate, efficient, and accurate modes.

Typical benefits you would realise when Implementing a solution based on Microsoft collaboration platform are:

• Put people at the center of communications with unified collaboration by providing a single identity across all modes—from PCs to telephones to PDAs—and combining rich, intuitive, and seamless communications with e-mail, instant messaging (IM), voice, data, video, and conferencing
• Help maximize time spent with patients and citizens, minimize travel time, and increase the quality of care and services by providing effective and efficient collaboration tools

Some areas to consider are

• Healthcare providers: Care Team Coordination; Medical Training/ Education
• PHSS: Communication-Enabled Portals; Telehealth; Interdisciplinary Care Teams