ORLANDO – As HIMSS24 kicks off this week, with preconference boards buzzing all-day Monday and the present ground set to open at 10 a.m. after the opening keynote on Tuesday, greater than 1,100 exhibitors, massive and small, are getting their cubicles in form to showcase their latest well being IT merchandise and techniques.
Amongst them is one firm that is been coming to the worldwide convention about so long as some other within the exhibit corridor: athenahealth.
The anchor exhibitor this 12 months is “actually specializing in ensuring that your complete market understands our dedication to sort of curing the complexity that’s healthcare, whether or not that’s via expertise innovation, whether or not that is via built-in information or whether or not that is via rigorously curated partnerships throughout the ecosystem,” says Jessica Sweeney-Platt, vp, analysis and Editorial Technique at athenahealth.
“We will be highlighting numerous alternative ways wherein this mix of expertise, information and ensuring that all the completely different gamers within the ecosystem can join and speak to 1 one other goes to make life easier for the practices and the clinicians that we serve.”
Supplier expertise has been a vital healthcare crucial lately – beginning, arguably, a decade in the past, when the Institute for Healthcare Enchancment up to date its famed Triple Goal to the Quadruple Goal, “including the objective of bettering the work lifetime of well being care suppliers, together with clinicians and employees.”
The previous 4 years – marked by a world-disrupting pandemic that stretched well being programs and their clinicians to the breaking level – have solely exacerbated the burden and burnout felt by the supplier workforce. However even with out that added problem, so most of the ache factors felt by docs and nurses need to do with primary issues of interoperability, information governance, workflow and digital well being document design.
This previous month, athenahealth revealed its third Doctor Sentiment Survey. Its headline: “Virtually All U.S. Physicians Surveyed Really feel Burned Out on a Common Foundation, with Many Having Thought-about Profession Change.”
“The numbers weren’t heartening, to place it mildly,” mentioned Sweeney-Platt. “About 94% of [physicians] agreed that getting the best information on the proper time is one in all their prime priorities. And but a majority of them are feeling so overburdened by the quantity of data that is coming at them via all of those completely different sources that it raises their stress ranges and it is a important contributor to burnout.”
That is why athenahealth is prioritizing “better-curated data flows,” and will likely be speaking about it in a giant manner at HIMSS24, she mentioned. “Most likely the perfect instance of that may be a phrase we’re utilizing known as ‘experiential interoperability.’
“It is not sufficient simply to sort of open up the pipes in healthcare and improve the amount of data,” Sweeney-Platt defined. “The issue that we’ve in healthcare in the present day is just not that we do not have sufficient data – it is that we do not have sufficient perception. So experiential interoperability is about making the best data out there at precisely the best second and in precisely the best place in an individual’s workflow.”
Towards that objective, athenahealth will likely be previewing a brand new function at HIMSS24 known as ChartSync, which may consolidate and deduplicate incoming information, placing it into widespread format earlier than surfacing it inside a clinician’s workflow.
“It is primarily a function that enables customers of various digital well being information to see an built-in view of a affected person’s data,” she mentioned. “So should you’re a surgeon and also you’re working on a affected person in a hospital that is on one system, and your workplace is utilizing a distinct system, you’ll see an built-in view of that affected person’s data throughout each of these EHRs. We’ll be previewing that at HIMSS and doing a broader rollout of that throughout the rest of the 12 months.”
Amongst different priorities in Orlando, the corporate (which was a founding member of the CommonWell Well being Alliance 11 years in the past at HIMSS23) can even be laser targeted on well being information change this 12 months. CommonWell was permitted this previous 12 months to take part in TEFCA as a Certified Well being Data Community.
“We will be within the Interoperability Showcase as a part of a CommonWell demonstration,” mentioned Sweeney-Platt. “We’re nonetheless very dedicated to that partnership, and we have been one in all its earliest proponents, and so we will likely be showcasing that within the interoperability showcase with them.”
However it most likely will not shock you to know that one other major focus for athenahealth will contain these two letters which are so typically spoken collectively these days.
“Everyone seems to be speaking about AI, and we are not any completely different from everybody else,” she mentioned. “We all know that that is necessary to our prospects.”
It is necessary, after all, as a result of for all of the hopes being pinned on AI’s transformative potential, a lot of its enchantment is what it may possibly already accomplish, in maybe extra modest methods, for the suppliers within the right here and now. Automation and “small AI” tweaks have enormous potential to make workflows and different scientific processes extra environment friendly and efficient.
Sweeney-Platt says about 83% of the physicians polled for the survey talked about above say that “they assume that AI can ultimately cut back numerous the issues going through them. However they don’t seem to be seeing numerous that but.
“And so we’ve a few our executives – our chief medical officer, Dr. Nele Jessel, and our senior information architect, Heather Lane – are going to be doing a presentation on the teachings that we have realized from the seven-plus years that we’ve been growing synthetic intelligence and machine studying fashions at athenahealth.
“As our chief product officer may be very fond of claiming we did not simply uncover AI when ChatGPT was launched a 12 months and a half in the past. We have been integrating these capabilities in several capacities, indoor merchandise, for a very very long time. And Heather and Neela will likely be speaking about that of their presentation. The teachings that we have realized from a few of these early efforts.”
One of many issues the corporate will likely be highlighting at its sales space is “how the athenaOne expertise general is a simplified one for the everyday consumer – and AI is a giant a part of that story. It is sort of been within the background in our merchandise for some time. It has been targeted on issues like capturing data from insurance coverage playing cards and automating a few of the handbook work that goes on in choosing insurance coverage packages. It has been targeted on issues like prioritizing what the clinician sees in his or her inbox. So it isn’t a few of the larger, flashier issues, nevertheless it’s been an ongoing dedication of ours for quite a lot of years.”
Dr. Jessel specifically is “passionate” in regards to the myriad methods AI may help enhance healthcare. “She’ll be speaking rather a lot about now that AI actually is turning into just a little bit extra entrance and heart, much more entrance and heart – it”s coming into the affected person expertise; it is coming into the direct clinician expertise – we’ve to be tremendous cautious about testing and studying and ensuring that any penalties that come from utilizing that sort of expertise are meant penalties, not unintended penalties.”
Affected person and supplier expertise, in any case, are “so interconnected, ” mentioned Sweeney-Platt. “I do not consider you possibly can have an awesome affected person expertise except you even have an awesome clinician expertise. These two issues are very tightly woven collectively.”
This previous 12 months HIMSS23, the corporate debuted its athenaPatient app, a freestanding cellular app designed to offer “a real consumer-grade expertise for each sufferers and clinicians,” she mentioned. “We have had greater than 1,000,000 downloads of that since we launched it a couple of 12 months in the past. In order that will likely be on show in our sales space as nicely.
“We have additionally made some important advances over the past 12 months when it comes to affected person scheduling and bettering the scheduling expertise for each the consumer contained in the clinic in addition to for the affected person,” she added. “As a result of once more, if you cannot get entry to the doctor, if the schedule is not open and versatile sufficient, if you cannot get entry to the schedule, then you possibly can’t have any sort of an expertise.”
And new partnerships can even be highlighted at athenahealth’s sales space on the present ground too.
“One in all our administrators of product goes to be demonstrating how we have labored with Humana and Availity to develop an finish to finish digital prior auth course of. It is a part of the dedication to automate work for practices and exchanges. Once more, like, not one thing that we have executed on our personal. It is very a lot in partnership.
“And we’ll be unveiling a case examine with Surescripts speaking about how our partnership has each improved treatment adherence and it is delivered hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in price financial savings.”
And, as all the time, the cloud-based IT pioneer – “we have been cloud earlier than cloud was cool,” Sweeney-Platt jokes – could have a major presence in its sales space for our athenahealth Market, which is as much as about 470 companions, she says.
“We’re all the time on the lookout for new corporations to use to hitch {the marketplace}. So we’ll have numerous alternatives for folk to return and speak to us about integrating their options with athenaOne. It is all a part of ensuring that the ecosystem is as densely linked as we will probably make it.”
Athenahealth is in Sales space #3740 at HIMSS24.