October 2017

Thoughts From Our President

We are starting to see a shift in priorities and focus for decision making that should be on your radar. The Meaningful Use incentives drove an emphasis on physician and clinical tools, functionality and usability. Now that much of this has been achieved, the demands on managing risk associated with payment for patient populations is leading to a renewed focus on revenue cycle tools, human resource management capabilities and supply chain management.

As pressure increases to tightly manage costs and better understand the alignment of costs with services, we are seeing more clients ask about these capabilities. Expect to see MEDITECH, as well as other vendors, increase attention and add functionality to these products. The advantage of an integrated vendor is apparent to the clinical side of healthcare. That same advantage will become apparent to the business side of healthcare over the next few years, as these business needs grow.

We predict the challenges of interfacing versus integration, along with the associated complexity of maintaining duplicate dictionaries, overlapping patient registries (for standalone population health products) and potentially disparate data definitions, will lead to the same reduction in third-party products that has accompanied the clinical side over the past few years. For those in the MEDITECH community, you can feel good that our vendor provides a full suite of applications and, with the 6.1 release, a single database, laying the groundwork for the future information needs of healthcare.

MEDITECH Continues to Enhance the Patient Portal

We continue to see steady improvements in the Patient Portal and wanted to make you aware of recent enhancements. The following features have been delivered to early adopters (most new features will be available only in the 6.1 release):

• Patient questionnaires:
  • This allows patients to complete routine questionnaires prior to appointments or even while in the waiting room
  • This can be customized by insurance type and appointment type
• Patient-generated health data:
  • This includes various devices, such as Fitbits
• Video visits:
  • Will facilitate visits with an organization’s own physicians and support efforts to build out an internal telehealth program
• MHealth app:
  • Allows access to the Patient Portal on both Apple and Android devices
  • This is available for all MEDITECH platforms

If you have questions on the Patient Portal, contact your MEDITECH representative or email us at info@navinhaffty.com.

Additional Cybersecurity Information

Last month’s article on cybersecurity generated a number of comments and feedback. Below is additional information that may be useful to you:

1. One of our clients suggested we share the following information: If you are running a Windows-based network, I cannot stress enough the importance of Software Restriction Policies (SRP). This is natively available on Windows networks and essentially determines if applications can execute. So, even if a new cyber threat gets through and an unsuspecting user activates it, all is not lost. When it tries to execute its malicious code, chances are it will not be able to do so. Thank you for the suggestion. (Please note this may not work properly for all MEDITECH customers and we suggest you have a full understanding of how it works and when it won’t work.)
2. Subscribe to MEDITECH’s monthly security newsletter.
3. Designate one or more security contacts for MEDITECH. If you haven’t already, update the contact information for this person with MEDITECH.
4. Check out the recent blog post by Jim Fitzgerald of CloudWave on MEDITECH’s website: “Save your data (and your budget) from cyberattacks.”

6.1 Projects Continue to Drive Benefits Realization

We continue to see benefits derived from the implementation of the MEDITECH 6.1 release. As part of our tool set, we have built a methodology for identifying likely realizable benefits prior to the approval of the process. This has been helpful to some organizations in creating a business case justification for the investment in moving to 6.1. At the start of each project, we develop a project charter listing specific benefits to be expected, which our implementation process drives. If such a study would help your business case for moving to 6.1, contact us at info@navinhaffty.com.

Below are some recent notable benefits our clients have achieved:

• Three months post-LIVE, using 6.1 Ambulatory, one of our clients experienced a 6% increase in clinic revenue due to improved charge capture and increased coding value associated with more complete clinical documentation.
• One hospital CEO reported significantly improved physician satisfaction from the integration of MEDITECH 6.1 Acute and Ambulatory streamlining the workflow in their physicians’ offices. It was reported this is critical for physician recruitment and retention.
• We see almost every 6.1 client improve with regard to CMS quality measures. Last month we published our updated study on these measures (re-admit rates, hospital-acquired conditions and value-based purchasing). Our study documented that MEDITECH 6.x hospitals outperform those running the systems of all other major EMR vendors on all three measures.
• One of our clients, Colquitt Regional Medical Center, recently published a short article identifying the benefits achieved from their 6.1 implementation. Colquitt’s CEO and CIO also provided a strong video testimonial highlighting the benefits of 6.1 as well as their realization of potential that exists with the 6.1 product. Colquitt CIO Bill Bishop provided the following statement, “With MEDITECH’s integrated EHR, physicians are treating patients seamlessly across the continuum. Now that we’re implementing Web Ambulatory, we’ll be covering an even larger population of patients in our county and surrounding areas.“

Client Testimonial and KLAS Comments

Here is a recent testimonial from one of our 6.1 clients:

“Navin, Haffty & Associates provided excellent support and customer service during our MEDITECH 6.1 implementation. The staff was outstanding and truly incredible throughout the project. The support we received extended up to the senior leadership level. I recommend them to anyone looking for a MEDITECH certified consulting partner.”

– Arek M Shennar, Director, Information Services, West Park Hospital District, Cody, Wyoming

Visit our website to see our full library of client testimonials.

KLAS Comments – September 2017

“Navin, Haffty & Associates really did a good job with leadership. The implementation component that we had from them was the very best. The key players that we had here were at the top in their fields. They were great.” – Executive

“The project management from Navin, Haffty & Associates was a real key for us, and they also provided clinical and revenue cycle expertise. Their project management and leadership were outstanding. They provided some of the best project management expertise I have ever worked with. Our account executive was not here all the time, but the executive was very much engaged with what was going on and was involved specifically with any issues we were having with our EMR vendor at the time. If there were things that were falling behind schedule, Navin, Haffty & Associates was highly involved at all levels to help make sure that we were on budget and on time. I was very impressed with all levels of the organization because they made sure that we were successful.” – Executive 

Please note selected commentaries may not represent the whole of provider sentiment related to this product or service. For a complete view, visit KLASresearch.com.

Quick Notes

• Check out this MEDITECH blog post from Aaron Burnsides of Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System: Why 3 separate hospitals started an HIE together.
• MEDITECH published the following case study: Detecting the Undetected: MEDITECH’s Surveillance Identifies and Prevents Infections at Valley.
• NHA has been selected by the following organizations for their upcoming projects:
  • Benefis Health System, Great Falls, Montana – 6.0 Revenue Impact Optimization Assessment
  • Broadlawns Medical Center, Des Moines, Iowa – 6.15 Post Go-LIVE Support
  • Conway Regional Health System, Conway, Arkansas – 6.1 Report Designer/SQL Support
  • Hilo Medical Center, Hilo, Hawaii – 6.1 Revenue Cycle Support
  • Johnson Memorial Health, Franklin, Indiana – MEDITECH Data Extraction
  • Oak Valley Hospital, Oakdale, California – PDoc/OM Physician Training
• We are pleased to announce we have earned the #13 position in Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare for 2017 in the suppliers’ category. This is our fourth straight year for receiving this recognition and we are proud to say we have been recognized with this distinct honor in each year we have participated. Congratulations to our clients who were honored in the providers’ category: Woman’s Hospital of Baton Rouge, Louisiana (#9), which has received this honor for ten straight years, and Stillwater Medical Center of Stillwater, Oklahoma (#25) for its sixth recognition.

NHA Website Upgrade

If you haven’t seen our new website, be sure to check it out. Our new site went LIVE in July and is designed to better accommodate those of you who get information on your smartphones and tablets. We have streamlined the navigation and provided additional content that you may find useful. If you get a chance, visit us at www.navinhaffty.com.

Calendar of Events

Upcoming MEDITECH webinar:

Web Physician Experience: ED
October 31, 2:00 PM (Eastern)
This high-level demonstration will show you how MEDITECH’s Web Emergency Department solution helps ED physicians quickly manage and prioritize patient needs from one central tracker.

NHA is Hiring

If you are interested in consulting, consider joining us. NHA continues to need excellent MEDITECH specialists, and, for the fourth year in a row, we have been selected as one of Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work in Healthcare.

We are currently looking for candidates with implementation experience with MEDITECH’s 6.1 applications, with special interest in the AMB, RCG and SUR applications.

If you are interested, please contact us at recruiting@navinhaffty.com or call us at (855) 309-9334. See what positions are currently available by visiting the NHA Careers page.

Please note that at this time we are only able to consider those able to travel up to 80% of the time (also employees from MEDITECH and our clients cannot be considered).

Client Job Board

If you are interested in exploring new positions at other organizations, visit the client job board section of our website. This is a free service of NHA to the MEDITECH community. Currently, there are many postings from MEDITECH organizations. If you or a colleague are interested, check out what’s open.

If you would like to include your organization’s listing on the NHA website, please email Katie Kelly at kkelly@navinhaffty.com. Please note that as this is a courtesy to the MEDITECH community, we will not accept postings from recruiting companies.