Healthcare has seen significant transformation in the United States over the last decade.\u00a0 As Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) become more prevalent, health systems will be paid not for the quantity of services provided, but for the quality of care patients receive. \u00a0This fee-for-performance model fits neatly with the HITECH Act of 2009, which spurred a movement to transition our healthcare system to electronic medical records.\u00a0 This push towards digitization has had a profound impact on the recording of patient information and flow, medical supplies, and the interactions between health institutions.<\/p>\n
As healthcare moves towards a digital age in which costs are closely tracked, hospitals are actively searching for areas where technology can be leveraged to decrease expenditures.\u00a0 Supply chain currently accounts for nearly one third of hospital expenses and is estimated to surpass labor costs by 2020.1<\/sup>\u00a0 According to a study by Navigant, US hospitals can reduce costs by $23 billion by optimizing supply chain operations, product utilization, and process flows.1 <\/sup>\u00a0This would result in a 17.8% reduction in supply chain costs, which amounts to $9.9 million per year per hospital.\u00a0 These savings can be used to pay for 4,000 cardiac defibrillators or 150 nurses.1 <\/sup>\u00a0According to Navigant, the top 24% of hospitals in the US, with regard to supply chain optimization, spent $23 billion less per year than the other 76%.1<\/sup>\u00a0 As mentioned in the report, one key change that can bring all hospitals to the same level of cost efficiency is through the digitization of purchase orders, requisitions, invoices, and all other supply chain documentation.1<\/sup><\/p>\n The need to cut costs through the digitization of healthcare information has been particularly relevant to BJC HealthCare, a health system delivering care to St. Louis, southern Illinois, and mid-Missouri.\u00a0 BJC has applied several digitization practices across its twelve hospitals and has seen tremendous optimization of its supply chain.\u00a0 Essential to building a digital supply chain is data standardization.\u00a0 Standardization enables the streamlining of all information regarding transactions, trading partners, locations, and products.\u00a0 To accomplish this, the health system has adopted the GS1 global data standards.\u00a0 This includes two forms of data standardization: Global Location Numbers (GLNs) to identify locations and organizations and Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) to identify products in transactions with partners and suppliers.2<\/sup> \u00a0RFID tags have been adopted to mark all hospital supplies such that GLNs and GTINs are leveraged to understand up-to-date inventory needs.\u00a0 As all data regarding supply chain transactions are quantified and recorded using these universal languages, real-time tracking becomes a very powerful tool.\u00a0 To leverage the large amounts of data being produced, BJC has developed several real-time dashboards using Tableau.3,4<\/sup>\u00a0 These real-time dashboards allowed BJC to bring supply chain data to the rest of the hospital system and increase the transparency of this information to all key stakeholers.<\/p>\n The enhanced supply chain knowledge transfer enabled through the implementation of these programs has produced several prominent results for BJC.\u00a0 The system has seen a seventeen percent SKU reduction and expects to save a total of $68 million over the next decade.5<\/sup>\u00a0 Additionally, improvements to patient safety have been noticeable as BJC is able to prevent supply stock-outs, reduce emergency orders and overnight shipping costs, and conduct more efficient distaster planning.5<\/sup> Looking forward over the next several years, BJC is seeking additional suppliers and partner organizations that adhere to the same data standardization methods, thereby increasing the volume and accuracy of their supply chain models.<\/p>\n While digitizing the supply chain and developing real-time dashboards is the first step in systems optimization, it is integral to further increase the transparency of and access to this information among all stakeholders.\u00a0 This will require integration of Tableau dashboards into the electronic medical record such that providers will be able to easily obtain real-time supply chain information without having to open a new application or disrupt their clinical workflow.\u00a0 Additionally, the RFID tagging system currently being adopted needs to be applied to patients.\u00a0 This will enable real-time tracking of patient flow through the hospital system.\u00a0 A deeper understanding of exact patient movement can be used to better understand true bottlenecks, transportation logistics, and ultimately create optimized and adaptable process flows.\u00a0 As patient information is encoded in these RFID codes, providers can leverage RFID readers, potentially in the form of Google Glass, to allow point-of-care information delivery, ultimately increasing the speed of knowledge transfer and treatment.<\/p>\n Reflecting on the digitization of healthcare, an area of active debate is the question of who owns all the data that is being generated through novel tracking methods?\u00a0 As patients become more empowered, should they be able to transport their health information across systems?\u00a0 What is the mechanism to do this? (775 words)<\/p>\n Bibliography<\/span><\/p>\n Healthcare has seen significant transformation in the United States over the last decade.\u00a0 As Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) become more prevalent, health systems will be paid not for the quantity of services provided, but for the quality of care patients […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[2029],"class_list":["post-26397","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","hentry","category-digitization","hck-taxonomy-industry-health","hck-taxonomy-country-united-states"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/rc-tom-challenge-2017\/","yoast_head":"\n\n