Leading the Way in Patient-Centered Technology
As the months fly by, I find it helpful to keep in mind the Vision and Mission statements and the Essential Behaviors we collectively developed during the strategic planning sessions in the fall. They act as a strong guiding light for our young organization and it’s important that we don’t let the passage of time distract us from our founding principles. For quick review, please find those statements below:
Our Mission: To be the national leader in delivering the highest quality and most compassionate, orthopaedic care through the private practice model.
Our Vision: The Centers is a community of highly engaged physicians and employees positively influencing healthcare delivery and improving patient outcomes.
Our Essential Behaviors: Display positive attitude; Provide solutions; Build community; Demonstrate leadership; Strive for excellence; Exercise judgement; Focus on patient needs first; Utilize effective and positive communication
There was a universal feeling among participants, which included both physicians and administrators, that for The Centers to succeed, we needed to be an innovative, forward-thinking organization. An organization that embraces the opportunity our size provides to be leaders in the orthopaedic industry. As a result, we researched and vetted countless technology solutions providers, prior to settling upon three key initiatives to implement in 2015 – Binary Fountain, Everseat and Healthjump. All of these initiatives embody the Strategic Planning Session’s key themes – community, greater communication, patients-focused, leadership – and I would like to take a moment to provide a brief overview of these three programs and highlight their importance to the ongoing strength of CAO.
Binary Fountain
As a provider of real-time patient insights, Binary Fountain is an invaluable tool for monitoring patient feedback and making necessary refinements to our internal processes, all with the overarching goal of providing a consistent and excellent patient experience across each division. In addition, their proprietary search engine constantly monitors for patient input, across a myriad of review sites, and encourages patients to submit positive reviews to help improve our online reputations. Equally important, the survey questions have recently been optimized to yield better insights into the patient experience, which will help with reimbursement.
Everseat
Aligned with our goal of providing an elite patient experience, Everseat’s mobile app offers patients the coveted convenience of booking last minute appointments on the go while helping our physicians to enjoy previously unrealized revenue opportunities. Not only can patients readily see appointments that are available at the touch of their fingertips, they can also "favorite" us as providers so they can receive automatic notifications when an appointment becomes available. It’s something our peers simply can’t offer and is a strategic brand differentiator.
Healthjump
While most of you are familiar with Healthjump, now that the contract is officially signed, the entire Leadership Team is excited for the potential this partnership has for our organization. Through its JumpStart application, we will finally be able to enjoy secure, HIPPA-compliant physician to physician communication, and have the ability to utilize the company’s universal patient portal. Even more promising, this signifies a critical first step towards beginning to mine our vast amounts of patient data to show, beyond a doubt, that we truly do provide the highest-level of orthopaedic care at the lowest cost. This will be a crucial component to showing CAO’s prominence and prestige when negotiating with payors.
With these three news programs, the overarching goal was always the same: utilize technology to provide the best possible patient experience while mining our shared data to improve patient outcomes. While this makes great sense from a brand perspective, positioning The Centers as the leader in patient-focused care, it also makes very sound financial sense. Just this past month, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association released a new report finding The Blues had increased value-based spending to more than $71 billion annually. In the same study, the association stated insurers have partnered with more than 228,000 doctors, across 48 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, to develop “patient-centered care programs.” This represents a permanent trend that will only continue to gain momentum in the coming years, and we have put the foundation in place to take advantage of the opportunities it presents.
We can only capitalize on this potential, if we all buy into the initiatives and implement them consistently and effectively across each division. Otherwise, we will create the undesired effect of having a disjointed patient experience and hinder our ability to leverage patient data for increased bargaining power. Too much investment – both time and dollars – has been committed to not fully embrace the possibilities these technologies offer. It’s important to remember that these opportunities would never have been possible had we remained independent practices, and that they, and all the other opportunities that we see coming our way are only being afforded to us because we joined together to form The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics.
I encourage each one of you to utilize these great resources to their full advantage. If we do, we will certainly have happier patients, drawn to us by the convenience our state-of-the-art technology provides, and be in a far better position when negotiating contracts. We worked so hard to build The Centers, now is the time to begin realizing the rewards our combined strength offers.