SigmaWay Blog

The healthcare industry is going to face a great challenge in coming decades. Increasing population & demographic shifts in the society will drive the industry to incur huge costs. Hence to survive, the industry must consider the following remedies: First, healthcare organizations must agree to come under a same umbrella to provide better care to the customers. This process is known as "precision M&A". Secondly, companies need to provide innovative ideas to serve the mankind. Last but not the least; companies should build "powerhouse" business which will go hand in hand with upcoming market & demographics. For more details please visit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/05/08/the-key-to-surviving-the-new-brutal-world-of-healthcare/#&SM_LENGTH=7

In an article by journalist Kat Greene, we get to know that the city council of Washington, D.C. imposed a tax on all health insurers. The plan was submitted by the city's DC Health Link insurance exchange. It empowers the districts to impose tax on all health-insurance carriers for exchange funding. 

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.law360.com/articles/535633/dc-council-approves-tax-to-aid-health-exchange

According to a blog written by Todd Hixon (a contributor in Forbes), healthcare cloud is a major area of innovation.  This article also tells us about opportunities and drawbacks of healthcare cloud. Cloud technologies help in lowering cost by strengthening care coordination, and improve clinical outcomes by analyzing medical data in the cloud. Problems lie in implementing cloud technology due to unavailability of data. To read more about opportunities and problems of implementing healthcare cloud please follow this link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/toddhixon/2014/05/06/entrepreneurs-outlook-for-the-healthcare-cloud-is-cloudy/

In an article by Phil Galewitz (senior correspondent at Kaiser Health News), we get some insights about the most common problems faced by senior citizens; whether it is about choosing a Medicare plan or a prescription drug plan.

To read more, visit the following link: http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2014/05/do-seniors-have-too-many-medicare-plans-to-choose-from/#more-28240

In an article by Rita Pyrillis (senior editor of Workforce), we get some insights about how enrollment in private health insurance exchanges is expected to grow in the next few years. The potential growth of private exchanges has attracted other major consulting firms into the market, including Buck Consultants, Mercer and Towers Watson & Co.

To know more about this aspect, visit the following link: http://www.workforce.com/articles/20427-health-exchange-rate-begins-to-grow 

According to new market research report published by MarketsandMarkets, we get to know that Healthcare Business Intelligence (BI) market (estimated at $2,376.6 Million in 2013), is expected to reach $4,738.2 Million by 2018, growing at a CAGR of 14.8% from 2013 to 2018. Cloud BI and mobile BI have a great market growth potential as mobile usage is growing in the healthcare community. Based on end application, the market growth will be mainly driven by clinical applications. North America will dominate the market and is also expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/healthcare-business-intelligence-bi-market-worth-47-billion-by-2018-2014-05-12

In an article by Nancy Duta (a health consultant with Sibson Consulting) and Christopher Calvert (a senior vice president and the Health Practice leader for Sibson Consulting), we get some insights about what employers must know in order to make informed decisions to chose a health insurance plan for his employee. Employers primarily collaborated with insurance carriers to provide health benefits to their employees. In order to make informed decisions, employers need to fully understand what exchanges are and how they operate.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.sibson.com/publications/perspectives/Volume_21_Issue_1/private-health-insurance-exchange.html

In an article by Mary Shinn (a news reporter for The Cortez Journal), we get some insights about why some small business organizations across the state chose to sign up for health insurance through health exchanges.

To read more, visit the following link:http://durangoherald.com/article/20140422/NEWS04/140429885/Limited-participation-seen-in-health-exchange-

In a report by Carol M. Ostrom, reporter of The Seattle Times, we get to know that four new companies want to sell individual health-insurance plans inside the Washington Healthplanfinder online exchange for coverage in 2015. The new entrants into the exchange marketplace are:  Moda Health Plan, Columbia United Providers, Health Alliance Northwest Health Plan and UnitedHealthcare of Washington. Of them, Moda Health Plan, also proposes to offer small-business policies through the Small Business Health Options Program, known as SHOP.

To read more, visit the following link: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023532022_healthinsurancenewplansxml.html

Advocate Healthcare had signed Medicare's first Shared Savings Program contract in 2012. The purpose of the contract was to test the ACO model, which offers financial incentives to hospitals and doctors for meeting cost and quality targets. Based on its initial success, Advocate is preparing to expand its ACO and officials believe it is worth of new investments. However, the success achieved through operating Medicare ACO model was not a cakewalk, but rather the success is achieved through failure, experimentation, and adaptation. Read more at: http://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/health-care-system-experiences-encouraging-aco-results-0001

It is estimated that by 2020, 80% of the US hospital will shift to some form of value based healthcare model. It means that the system will need to successfully transit from a transactional per procedure/per patient/per visit model to early diagnosis, treatment and management of the population system. This system will not only benefit the care providers, but will also benefit the patients. Innovative solutions that offer earlier detection, increased patient engagement or improved disease management could save the healthcare system billions of dollars every year. Lean innovations in healthcare will assist care providers to create a successful strategy in order to provide better care. Constant technological improvement has changed the dynamics of healthcare. Hospitals are looking for cost-effective solutions that integrate data into every pre- and postoperative procedure plan to better evaluate and treat patients. So, now healthcare leaders will focus on big data analysis to progress in business. Read more about this aspect at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reenitadas/2014/04/30/the-truth-behind-value-based-healthcare-are-companies-really-getting-it/

Technology has redefined healthcare industry.  Lot of new dimensions are active into the arena of healthcare industry today, but we have to look into the other side of technology in healthcare as well. The cost of medical treatment is going higher & higher as many new technology enabled options are coming up. "Computers make things better and cheaper. In health care, new technology makes things better, but more expensive," said Jonathan Gruber - an economist at MIT. We need to manage data both on patient and system level - to realize higher-quality and better-value care. We also need technology that will take us to the next level and will reduce costs. To read more, visit: http://recode.net/2014/04/28/technology-made-health-care-expensive-can-it-now-control-costs/

We all know that Big Data and Analytics help businesses a lot. Now let's take a shift. Big Data and Analytics also help in retaining nurses. Sounds interesting, right?

 Based in Dallas, Texas, Tenet Healthcare used Predictive Analytics to increase nurse retention rate. You know very well how much it costs to recruit new employees. Few years ago, American Organization of Nurse Executives estimated that in conservative approach, direct recruitment fees cost $10,000 to replace a nurse; and if you take indirect costs into account, the actual cost will mount to $42,000. This cost escalates to $64,000 for hiring specialty nurse. Now, just imagine, if your organization wrongly recruits a person, or if your employees leave your organization too early, how much more will it cost you, given that you give expensive training to them. In fact, Tenet observed that many high quality nurses were leaving them due to which they incurred considerable cost and also it caused inconvenience to patients and other staff members.

To mitigate this problem, they used Predictive Talent Analytics and Big Data. Tenet took an assessment test for their nurses creating behavioral DNA or a thumbprint which the software then matched with individuals’ performance data. From this, Tenet got an insight of a list of characters which are common to best performing nurses within each specialized category. So, you may be thinking what are the benefits they reaped from it? Read them at http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/analytics/nurse-retention-rate-improvement-secret-analytics/d/d-id/1234912  to know.

According to the research firm Gartner, health care providers in the Middle East and Africa will spend $2.8 billion on IT products and services in 2014, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2013.It is expected that Saudi Arabia & UAE will continue to focus on building and expanding their healthcare infrastructure. Information Technology enabled services got a huge role to play in this market and health care IT professionals are expected to deliver more in terms of quality while containing costs. Users of technology in the health care industry expect their IT systems to work, delivering what they need and when they need it. Lives can depend on this.An effective way of meeting these objectives is the deployment of robust IT analytics, which will provide hospitals with clear visibility into the health and performance of their IT infrastructure. Inefficiencies, disruptions and failures can be identified automatically as they occur, and often before end-users are even aware of them.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.arabnews.com/news/562151

An article by David Linthicum, SVP at Cloud Technology Partners, talks about how Healthcare providers and payers utilize cloud platforms to store and access personnel records. He also spoke about the use of managed security services providers that will allow healthcare organizations to push some of the responsibilities to security experts.

To know more about security concerns in healthcare follow http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/blog-hub/2014/apr/11/healthcare-cloud-security-now-and-into-the-future/

For the long term purpose, Predictive analytics will be very significant for healthcare organizations and providers. With the advancement in technology and complexity in healthcare sector, predictive analytics must be implemented as it will make the work easier and reliable for the providers.
In order to avoid risk and uncertainty and for taking quick decision,
predictive analytics will be of a great substitute to a traditional business intelligence practices.

Please go through the link for more details: http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/patimes/what-can-predictive-analytics-do-for-healthcare-reform/

Big data is playing a key role in healthcare and several health institutes are seeking a solution that could bring the very latest drug interaction data right to patients’ bedside. Data analytics helps to analyze massive data volumes and conduct multiple drug studies, test and apply brand-new algorithms to quickly identify drug risk warning signals.

To read cases on how data analytics enhance healthcare follow http://bigdataanalyticsnews.com/10-big-data-analytics-use-cases-healthcare/

Electronic Health Records are critical to succeed in healthcare service, but they are not enough.From a healthcare provider’s perspective, after spending a lot of money and time on EHR, reluctance to evaluate other solutions for population health management or “accountable care” can be understood. So, healthcare providers are choosing to wait for their EHR to evolve in order to address new demands associated with taking on and managing risk. But according to industry analysts this can be a long wait as wide range of functions are going far beyond what EHRs were built to do. Here analytics tools and solutions come to the rescue. Performing analytics using clinical and claims data, organizations can gain deep insight into patients, population, and performance, predict outcomes and rapidly identify the actions needed for improvement. This insight can be gained through a wide range of analytics solutions that deliver retrospective views of activity, ongoing surveillance of current activity, predictive modelling of future activity, as well as root-cause analysis.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://ehrintelligence.com/2014/04/09/why-moving-beyond-the-ehr-is-needed-for-population-health/

Lean and Six Sigma are popular techniques used in production industries to improve efficiency and quality. Now these process improvement techniques are also applied in healthcare and in software development. To read more about how Lean and Six Sigma can be applied in clinical and translational research, visit Sharon A. Schweikhart (Ph.D.) and Allard E Dembe (Sc.D.)’s, article link as given below

For more please visit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835466/