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Moving beyond the “best practice” mindset

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https://gisthealthcare.com/weekly-gist/

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Here’s a question we get all the time, and one that I heard again this week from one of our partner health systems: “We’re working on [initiative X]. What have other health systems like us done about that?” We hear it in any number of situations, from hospitals developing clinical protocols to strategic planners putting together business plans for service line growth. Sometimes the question comes in different forms: “Do you have a white paper on [topic X]?”; or “What research do you have on [issue X]?”; or our favorite, “What’s the best practice for [activity X]?”

It’s not surprising, given our past history, that we’d frequently be asked to provide research or best practice information. But as we’ve grown our own business at Gist Healthcare and developed our own independent perspective on where our industry needs to go, we’ve become less and less impressed by “best practice” as a concept. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that “best practice” has become at best a crutch, and in many cases a hindrance, to real progress in healthcare. As we sometimes tell our clients now, healthcare has outgrown “best practice”, at least as we used to understand it.

Don’t get me wrong. Medicine should absolutely be evidence-driven, and clinical care should always be firmly grounded in proven practice. If anything, the actual clinical practice of medicine is one area where our industry must become more, not less, best-practice based.

But as to system strategy, payment innovation, service improvement, and a host of other business and operational issues, simply imitating what other “successful” organizations are doing leads inevitably to reversion to the mean, groupthink, and (most troubling) fad-driven “bubbles” of activity. It’s no surprise, given the pervasive culture of “best practice”, when suddenly every health system’s top priority turns to creating a patient portal, or hiring a chief experience officer, or starting a proton beam center, or opening freestanding EDs.

Healthcare delivery is a highly fragmented, insular business, with little visibility across markets and across institutions. That makes it very susceptible to white paper-driven trend chasing, which tends to outsource innovation to the “wisdom of the crowd”.

It’s pretty rare to find mavericks, following their own innovation instincts without getting caught up in trying to mimic what other “leaders” are doing. That’s why when a delivery organization takes a risk on a truly new strategic innovation—Geisinger’s money-back guarantee, Cleveland Clinic’s promise of same-day access, Presbyterian’s direct contract to manage Intel employees’ health—it immediately sends shock waves across the industry.

Those ideas didn’t come from a white paper. We’re often asked whether we’re building a “best-practice research” capability in our new company. While we’re not quite ready to talk about our upcoming service offerings, the answer to that question is a definitive “no”.

 

The noble aim of being a great subcontractor

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https://gisthealthcare.com/weekly-gist/

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Earlier this month I was at a health system board meeting in which we were discussing the transition from volume to value, and the shift to a population health model. One board member had the courage to ask a tough question: “What if we never get there?” Covering just a small slice of a large metropolitan area, this system has consistently ranked third in market share behind two larger competitors—and now they feel they are lagging those systems in moving toward risk. The most recent challenge: a large—and until recently, loyal—independent primary care group had just been acquired by one of their competitors. Yet the system prides itself, justifiably, on delivering low-cost hospital care and outstanding quality.

I raised a heretical notion: suppose the system pursued a strategy focused solely on being the highest-performing inpatient and specialty care provider in the market, and abandoned the goal of bearing population risk? Could the system shift their focus to simply being the best “subcontractor” to other risk-bearing networks in the market?

The ensuing conversation was uncomfortable, to say the least. The notion challenged the system’s assumptions of the role they wanted to play in the market, and whether they could be a leader in population health. I encouraged them to think of being a “subcontractor” to other risk-bearing organizations not as a defeat, but as fulfillment of a vital role—healthcare in their community would be better if more hospital care were delivered at their level of cost and quality.

Our view: for many smaller systems who are driven by a desire to remain independent, becoming a high-performing care subcontractor may be the best path forward, and the most realistic. (It will be interesting to watch the successful investor-owned chains on this front—organizations whose strategic advantage lies in running highly-efficient, low-cost hospitals.) It’s not as sexy as “population health”, but as any builder will tell you, there’s no substitute for a great subcontractor.

Kaiser Permanente waives tuition for first 5 medical school classes

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-relationships/kaiser-permanente-waives-tuition-for-first-5-medical-school-classes.html

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Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente announced its intent Feb. 19 to waive all four years of tuition for the first five classes of students admitted to its new medical school.

Kaiser officials said in a news release obtained by Becker’s Hospital Review that its medical school has received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and will begin accepting applications from prospective students in June 2019 for its inaugural class in summer 2020. Each class will contain roughly 48 students, according to The New York Times.

Mark Schuster, MD, PhD, founding dean and CEO of the Pasadena, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, told The New York Times that while the institution only plans to cover the entire $55,000-per-year tuition for all of its first five classes of students, Kaiser will offer “very generous financial aid” based on need for future students.

Kaiser is the second institution to announce that it will waive tuition for students. Last August, the New York City-based NYU School of Medicine declared plans to cover its entire tuition costs for all students, which equates to more than 400 students across classes.

While NYU raised $600 million from donors to pay for its tuition plan, Kaiser is using a portion of its revenue set aside for “community benefits,” which all nonprofit hospitals have to provide to maintain their tax-exempt status, according to The New York Times. The health system, which has an operating revenue of nearly $73 billion, spent $2.3 billion on community benefits in 2017, including charity care for the uninsured and community health spending.

The medical school will be one of the only medical schools in the U.S. to be affiliated with a hospital or health system, not a university, The New York Times reports. Its curriculum will include a focus on small-group, case-based learning, and students will travel to the health system’s hospitals and clinics in the greater Los Angeles area for their clinical education.

“We’ve had the opportunity to build a medical school from the ground up and have drawn from evidence-based educational approaches to develop a state-of-the-art school on the forefront of medical education, committed to preparing students to provide outstanding patient care in our nation’s complex and evolving healthcare system,” said Dr. Schuster said in a news release.

In December, Kaiser added 11 executives to the medical school’s leadership team.

To access the full report, click here.

 

 

Walmart drops price of virtual visits from $40 to $4

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/telehealth/walmart-drops-price-of-virtual-visits-from-40-to-4.html

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Walmart is offering employees a 90 percent discount on telemedicine, dropping the price of a virtual visit from $40 to $4, The Denver Post reports.

The retailer reduced the cost of telemedicine services Jan. 1 to increase options for employees seeking care, a spokesperson confirmed to Becker’s Hospital Review. Walmart’s health benefits currently cover more than 1 million people enrolled it its Associates’ Medical Plan. Through this plan, virtual visits through the Doctor On Demand app are covered like a normal physician’s office visit.

Walmart is one of many employers to offer telemedicine benefits to workers. Eighty percent of large and midsize companies offered the benefit in 2018, according to the report. However, factors like emotion, forgetfulness and preference have kept utilization down. Just 8 percent of employees at large and midsize companies used telemedicine benefits in 2017, according to the report.

Read more here.  

CYBERSECURITY IS TOP ISSUE FOR HOSPITAL IT PROFESSIONALS, CREATING NEW WORKFORCE DYNAMICS

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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/cybersecurity-top-issue-hospital-it-professionals-creating-new-workforce-dynamics?utm_source=silverpop&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ENL_190220_LDR_BRIEFING_resend%20(1)&spMailingID=15165362&spUserID=MTY3ODg4NjY1MzYzS0&spJobID=1581568052&spReportId=MTU4MTU2ODA1MgS2

Cybersecurity is top issue for hospital IT professionals

HIMSS survey suggests focus on other IT priorities may lag; influence of security leaders may cause tension.

Cybersecurity, privacy, and security are creating such pressing issues for hospitals, other technology projects may be waylaid and discord among IT leadership could occur if the emerging influence of security professionals is not handled properly, according to the 2019 HIMSS U.S. Leadership and Workforce Survey.

The annual study included feedback from 269 U.S. health information and technology leaders between November 2018‒January 2019. The 30th edition of the survey examines trends and provides insights into the rapidly changing market for healthcare and IT professionals.

Among the key takeaways for hospitals:

  • The emergence of information security leaders as the third influential member of hospital IT leadership teams—following CIOs and senior clinical IT leaders—may create tensions for some organizations.
  • The top issue for hospital IT leaders is cybersecurity, privacy, and security.
  • The focus on security is so predominant, authors of the study suggest that other technological priorities may be put on the back burner.

Information about trends and issues for vendors and non-acute care facilities are also addressed in the full report.

ROLE OF SECURITY LEADERS EXPANDS

The study examines employment trends for specific job titles and, in some cases, compares rates to the prior year. Information security leaders continue to expand their presence in hospitals.

While employment of CIOs and senior clinical IT leaders remains fairly steady; employment of senior information security leaders at hospitals rose by 14% between 2018 and 2019. The study also documents how many hospitals employ professionals for other emerging technology leadership roles, such as chief technology, innovation, and transformation officers, but does not provide comparisons to previous years.

Hospital employment of IT leaders in the following positions for 2019 includes:

  • Chief Information Officer 84% (-3% compared to 2018)
  • A senior clinical IT leader (CMIO, CNIO, CHIO) 68% (+1% compared to 2018) 
  • A senior information security leader (CISO) 56% (+14% compared to 2018)
  • Chief Technology Officer 36%*
  • Chief Innovation Officer 19%*
  • Chief Transformation Officer  7%*
  • None of the above  9%*

“The emergence of a third leader overseeing a hospital’s information and technology efforts is bound to result in internal tensions as competing interests and overlapping jurisdictions present themselves,” says Lorren Pettit, MS, MBA, vice president at HIMSS in a news release. “These challenges have the potential to stymy a hospital’s progression if hospital leaders are not careful to manage these hurdles effectively.”

The report further elaborates that unless roles and responsibilities are clearly delineated, the influence of security professionals could impede a hospital’s progression on information and technology priorities as leaders “work through internal territorial challenges.”

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PRIORITIES

The survey gauges interest from IT professionals about 24 topics. While cybersecurity outranked all other responses, “improving quality outcomes” and “clinical informatics and clinician engagement” also was highly rated for hospital respondents. Telehealth ranked ninth; innovation took the twenty-first spot.

Survey participants ranked these topics on a scale of one (not a priority) to seven (essential priority). Following are the ranking and mean scores for hospital respondents:

  1. Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Security 5.81
  2. Improving Quality Outcomes Through Health Information and Technology 5.28
  3. Clinical Informatics and Clinician Engagement  5.24
  4. Process Improvement, Workflow, Change Management 5.03
  5. Culture of Care and Care Coordination 4.92
  6. Data Science/Analytics/Clinical and Business Intelligence 4.91
  7. Leadership, Governance, Strategic Planning 4.90
  8. User Experience, Usability and User-Centered Design  4.86
  9. Telehealth 4.82
  10. Consumer/Patient Engagement & Digital/Connected Health 4.80
  11. Population Health Management and Public Health 4.77
  12. Safe Info and Tech Practices for Patient Care 4.62
  13. HIE, Interoperability, Data Integration and Standards 4.62
  14. Public Policy, Reporting, and Risk Management 4.31
  15. Healthcare App and Tech Enabling Care Delivery  4.20
  16. Social, Psychosocial & Behavioral Determinants of Health 4.06
  17. Consumerization of Health 3.75
  18. Clinically Integrated Supply Chain 3.66
  19. Healthy Aging and Technology  3.60
  20. Health Informatics Education, Career Development & Diversity  3.53
  21. Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Venture Investment 3.47
  22. Precision Medicine/Genomics  3.47
  23. Disruptive Care Models 3.39
  24. Grand Societal Challenges 2.88

SECURITY NEEDS MAY SLOW DOWN FOCUS ON OTHER IT PRIORITIES

Study authors characterized the prioritization of cybersecurity, privacy, and security by providers as “remarkably higher” than the next highest priority. The focus is so predominant, the authors suggest that other technological priories may be put on the back burner.

“Of the array of priorities presented respondents, ‘cybersecurity, privacy, and security’ was one of the only ‘defensive’ business tactics respondents were asked to consider,” states the report. “That providers (especially hospital respondents) responded so passionately to this priority suggests a growing number of provider organizations realize the need to protect existing business practices before aggressively pursuing other information and technology issues. If true, then there are potential downstream implications for the market as other information and technology priorities considered in this study may be put on hold or ‘slow walked’ until the security concerns of organizations are settled.”

In addition to this survey, HIMSS also released a related report last week, the 2019 HIMSS Cybersecurity Survey, which sheds additional light on some of these issues. Among the highlights:

  • A pattern of cybersecurity threats and experiences is discernable across U.S. healthcare organizations. Significant security incidents are a near universal experience with many of the initiated by bad actors, leveraging e-mail as a means to compromise the integrity of their targets.
  • Many positive advances are occurring in healthcare cybersecurity practices and healthcare organizations appear to be allocating more of their IT budgets to cybersecurity.
  • Complacency with cybersecurity practices can put cybersecurity programs at risk.
  • Notable cybersecurity gaps exist in key areas of the healthcare ecosystem. The lack of phishing tests in certain organizations and the pervasiveness provides insight into what healthcare organizations are doing to protect their information and assets, in light of increasing cyber-attacks and compromises impacting the healthcare and public health sector.