Returning to Work: Health IT Leadership Takeaways

Originally published on 9/8/2020 on MEDITECH.

There is no going back to the way things were before. That common thread was reflected in a recent webcast discussion and MEDITECH blog with fellow Health IT executives from MEDITECH, Salesforce, and Interlace on a safe return to work.

COVID-19 has fueled strong collaboration among Healthcare and Health IT organizations on best practices, rapid development, and more. Perhaps the biggest lessons of all are in the new approaches created to ensure safety but have resulted in opportunities for stronger operating efficiency. Some of these takeaways include:

• Finding new ways to stay connected with our organizations and our clients may have changed what daily operations look like, but many benefits have been found such as employee engagement tools and a fully remote workforce.
• Patient engagement enhancements such as virtual care has been developed and adopted at unprecedented speed and the work has started to incorporate these into the overall care delivery model.
• Integration and optimization are key to long-term success. While telehealth is cited first, all patient engagement technologies fast-forwarded during the pandemic. And with that, stronger integration across the EHR, ERP and the rest of the healthcare ecosystem is the key to success moving forward.
• Proactive scenario planning and prospective analytics has become the focus of healthcare organizations to assist in planning and preventing the challenges that the pandemic exposed.
• Streamlining the patient experience requires streamlining the back office technologies that empower providers and administrators in meeting the new patient demands.

While the future is always unknown, one thing is certain: COVID-19 has been the catalyst for digital transformation that improves the patient experience. And as I said in the beginning, there’s no going back.

Read the MEDITECH blog or watch the recorded webcast for more insights from Health IT panelists from MEDITECH, CereCore, Interlace Health, and MEDITECH.