You may know AT&T for wired and wireless telecommunications, infrastructure, and disaster recovery. You may not have known, however, that AT&T has formed a healthcare practice and is taking a more active role in helping healthcare organizations make strategic decisions about remote access, telemedicine, home health, and mobile worker support. We spoke with Laura Johnson, executive director of AT&T’s Industry Solutions Group.
Describe AT&T’s involvement in healthcare.
Hospitals often view their front doors and EDs as having a never-ending line of patients, causing little concern about getting and keeping customers. The Internet, however, is raising customer expectations for online services, including self-service appointments, pre-registration, and check-in. Patients accustomed to choosing plane seats online and printing their own boarding passes will favor hospitals that offer similar self-service options. Because of short lengths of stay, hospitals need to start revenue cycle management before the patient arrives. Physicians, too, will favor hospitals whose technologies make them easier to work with. SCI Solutions, the pioneer of Internet-based ASP model healthcare applications since 1999, puts all its talents and energies into the highly critical areas of access management and revenue cycle management. We spoke to John Holton, president and CEO of SCI Solutions.
Hospitals serve three important customers: patients, physicians, and payers. As they formulate strategy to increase the efficiency and quality of their interactions with those customers, technology is invariably a key component. RelayHealth is an industry leader whose intelligent network improves clinical communication, increases transactional efficiency, and helps build successful relationships among patients, physicians, and payers. We spoke with Ken Tarkoff, Vice President and General Manager of RelayHealth, who oversees the company’s growing roster of consumer offerings.
QuadraMed’s September 2007 acquisition of the former Misys CPR product made it an instant contender in the competitive and rarefied world of high-end, fully functional physician and clinical systems, joining its #1 KLAS-ranked registration and patient accounting system, the #1 Enterprise Master Patient Index application, and QuadraMed’s industry-leading health information management systems. The company has focused its efforts on the Care-Based Revenue Cycle, which recognizes that patient identification, access management, care management, health information management, and revenue management are all tied together in the provision of care and the generation of revenue. We spoke to Jim Klein, senior vice president of product development and chief technology officer of the company.
Labor costs make up 50 to 70% of the average hospital’s operating budget. Therefore, it’s critical to effectively manage that expense and, in addition, retain the scarce licensed professionals needed to ensure high quality and satisfactory patient outcomes. McKesson’s workforce management suite helps hospitals manage their human resources, provide the work-life balance employees expect, effectively fill shifts outside normal scheduling, and even to prepare for Magnet designation. We spoke to Perry Russoniello, RN, BSN, CCRN, vice president and solution line manager for McKesson workforce management solution suite.
