Industry White Papers & Insights
Find relevant white papers about the latest research, products and services from health care's leaders.
Energy Efficiency | Health IT | Infrastructure | Operations and Performance Excellence | Patient Care | Patient Safety and Quality
Energy Efficiency
Sponsored by:
Assessing the Health of Your Healthcare Facility’s Power Distribution System
An issue of vital concern in any healthcare environment is the “health” of the system infrastructures that works behind the scenes. Like any engineered system, electrical power distribution systems cannot be designed and constructed to indefinitely operate 100% of the time. Whether for a relatively new power system, or for an older existing installation, an assessment of the condition of the electrical power systems can mean the difference between an electrical system which operates as designed and intended as well as meets current electrical codes and standards and one that does not.
Learn more in this white paper.
Energy Efficiency
Sponsored by:
Leveraging IoT to Optimize Hospital Efficiency
Tying together the Internet of Things (IoT) computing devices can help hospitals and health systems leverage data to achieve vastly improved operational and energy efficiency across all levels of an organization while improving sustainability. The resulting savings drop to the bottom line and can help health care facilities better achieve their organizational mission. This white paper describes what it takes to achieve the true power and applicable value of the IoT and why meeting this objective can accelerate an organization’s capacity to converge operational technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) systems. You’ll learn about:
- A platform to develop scalable and converged IT and OT systems
- How to maximize energy efficiency and sustainability through IoT
- Optimize asset availability and performance through predictive analytics and proactive maintenance
- Enable smart, productive and profitable operations while reducing downtime.
Health IT
Sponsored by:
How Do You Turn Hospital Quality Data into Insight?
Data-driven quality improvement is one of the cornerstones of modern healthcare. Hospitals and healthcare providers now record, track and monitor data on dozens of individual indicators spanning patient safety, prevention and inpatient care; even a small facility may collect thousands of data points daily. But is all this data really making a difference?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires hospitals to report key measures such as adverse events and hospital readmissions in order to qualify for reimbursement. All this data collection provides a treasure trove of data points that hospitals could use to make quality improvement decisions. However, in many hospitals, data collection and reporting is not effectively connected to decision making. In order to drive real and measurable improvement, hospitals need to be able to turn quality indicator data into clear, understandable information and actionable next steps.
Analytical tools such as Battelle WayFinder Q.I. Dashboard can help hospitals better use and understand the data they are already collecting. By putting this data to work, hospitals and other healthcare providers can make decisions on quality improvement initiatives that lead to better outcomes for patients, payers and themselves.
Health IT
Sponsored by:
Next Generation of IT Spend: Where Should Health Systems Invest?
The growth rate in hospital IT spend has outpaced growth rates in overall healthcare by as much as five times in recent years. Hospitals now face a post- EHR era where they are left to decide on their own which technology investments to undertake, and whether to slow their spend. Given current market forces, from consumerism to reimbursement pressures, our point of view is that IT spend relief is not in sight unless hospitals plan to remain a traditional utility player. According to our research, hospitals of the future will fall into one of five investment profiles:
1) Traditional utility
2) Home-grown experimenters
3) Leveraged experimenters
4) Home-grown innovators
5) Leveraged innovators
Read this white paper to learn: how the recent history of IT spend created a crossroads for executives who must decide how to invest; whether you should cut or continue IT spend; five investment profiles of hospitals of the future; and the impacts of your technology investment strategy.
Infrastructure
Sponsored by:
PoE Lighting: Benefits and Design Considerations
LED lighting powered by PoE will be one of the most meaningful developments in our indoor environments over the coming years. Bnefits include increased energy savings and lower deployment costs, along with simplified installation, flexibility, and improved reliability for powered devices. These enhancements greatly contribute to overall effectiveness and efficiency that directly impact the performance of next-generation digital buildings.
A company must make a multitude of deployment decisions once it chooses PoE lighting. This technology brief helps to identify some of these decisions. It also provides some assistance to making informed choices by providing advantages and disadvantages of each choice. In summary, this white paper clearly shows the opportunity to improve efficiency offered by converging building automation and PoE lighting networks.
Infrastructure
Sponsored by:
Elmhurst Memorial Optimizes Infrastructure to Facilitate Advanced Care
As it planned its new health care facility, Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare (EMHC) began with a blank slate. Its leadership was able to decide what they wanted to achieve and then designed the facility around that goal. Technology and the infrastructure to successfully support it became a central focus.
The challenge was to provide a robust, reliable infrastructure to support patient-centered care and embrace new medical technologies, with the flexibility and scalability to allow for future growth. From copper cabling to an enterprise data center solution to fiber optic cabling to cabinets that optimize space utilization, EMHC successfully addressed its end-to-end needs. This case study provides a detailed look at the planning and infrastructure assets that brought an enterprise solution for the facility’s data center to help EMHC provide the highest quality of medical care.
Operations and Performance Excellence
Sponsored by:
Executive Compensation: Leadership Trends and Strategies for Organizational Success
The 2017 Executive Compensation Intelligence Report by B.E. Smith, summarizes key findings and delivers actionable insights regarding executive compensation trends, challenges, and strategies in the healthcare industry.
This report illuminates the new statistics, challenges, and strategies that characterize the current healthcare executive compensation environment. Evaluating this information can provide meaningful direction not only to improve executive compensation strategy, but also its effectiveness on organizational recruitment, retention and staff engagement. Learn more by downloading this report now.
Operations and Performance Excellence
Leveraging Pharmacy Services to Drive Value
Hospital executives discuss the role of the pharmacy in value-based care.
As hospitals and health systems transition to value-based care, the pharmacy can play a pivotal role in lowering risk and improving outcomes, as well as reducing costs. The pharmacist plays a central role, working with both clinicians and patients to foster medication therapy management, reduce unnecessary readmissions and adhere to evidence-based care. Health Forum convened a panel of hospital executives in Washington, D.C., to discuss leveraging pharmacy services to drive value. The panel highlights the role of pharmacy in population health management and in supporting care across the continuum.
Download this white paper to learn more.
Operations and Performance Excellence
Telemedicine Begins with Your Pharmacy
Telemedicine is an important and exciting area of change for the entire healthcare industry. Beginning your telemedicine efforts in your pharmacy will bring you the greatest system wide impact and improvement. Using telepharmacy can not only improve existing operations, but allows you to extend coverage to 24/7 operations, cover last minute sickness and vacation, or just further support your in-house staff. Telepharmacists can perform many of the same job duties as in house-pharmacists, which then allows your in house-pharmacists to provide better patient care and the opportunity to participate in clinical programs.
Download this white paper to learn how you can use telepharmacy to improve patient care, staff job satisfaction, reduce operational costs, extend pharmacy coverage, and more.
Operations and Performance Excellence
Sponsored by:
5 Considerations When Developing Service Line Priorities
Health care organizations don’t succeed by accident. Organizational success most often comes from intentional and purposeful planning. Today’s hospitals face shrinking reimbursements, shifting reimbursement models and an increasing focus on reducing costs and utilization — making planning even more important.
To succeed in this environment, you must plan with purpose. It helps you grow in areas that improve organizational return and protect profitability. It also keeps you focused on your core mission, helping you avoid wasteful strategies. Download this whitepaper to learn more.
Operations and Performance Excellence
Sponsored by:
A Holistic, Integrated Approach to Healthcare Supply Chain
The healthcare supply chain today is complex and costly. Supply chain represents the second largest area of expense for hospitals, consuming approximately 40-55 percent of the average operating budget. Studies have shown that hospitals can avoid between 5-15 percent of that cost through better supply chain practices, thereby increasing operating profits by anywhere from 2-7 percent. Unlike other industries where the supply chain is viewed as a strategic asset, the healthcare supply chain has often been underleveraged - and even neglected. Most healthcare organizations are managing supplies using outdated information technology systems that cannot communicate with one another. As a result, supply chain processes are largely manual with staff keying data into various systems as they produce products, manage inventory, capture its use and trigger replenishment needs.
For decades, experts have pointed to the inefficiencies, costs and waste in the healthcare supply chain as a significant drain on the industry's financial resources. They have urged healthcare organizations to take a holistic, integrated approach to their supply chains where the procurement, management and movement of supplies is facilitated on an enterprise-wide level using an automated and integrated approach. Those that have heeded the experts' advice and implemented technology to build efficient, effective and sustainable supply chains have significantly cut costs and reduced labor, while improving patient care delivery.
Operations and Performance Excellence
Sponsored by:
Explore the opportunity for strategic advantage through lab collaboration
Beginning with an overview of the challenging reality facing health system laboratories today, this white paper reveals how strategic alliance can benefit your lab for the long term. Get helpful information about collaboration strategy and principles including:
- Transparency and communication
- Infrastructure
- Engaging and retaining talent
- Types of value-rich strategic relationships
Risk Management
Sponsored by:
An Outline of the Future of Security in Healthcare
Healthcare facilities across the U.S. face significant hurdles in ensuring the safety and security of patients, visitors and professional staff. As we’ve seen across the country, hospital facilities and campuses are not immune from acts of violence or crime — from the emergency room to parking lots. Likewise, hospitals need to be constantly vigil to protect staff members at their facilities, which are open 24/7.
Using robots in security frees up staff to focus on patient care and empowers security teams to cover more ground. Being able to see and hear in real time what is happening throughout a hospital campus helps them to prevent an incident from occurring. Robots are used in a variety of areas in the healthcare sector – and extending the technology to improve physical security is a natural progression for the industry. The future is now.