Technology has evolved to be a critical component of any organizations performance. As the rate of change of technology accelerates, it creates opportunities for organizations to innovate and disrupt in order to create a competitive advantage, and advance the industry as a whole.
Although not far behind the times, the healthcare industry is beginning to come up to speed with technological innovations that are disrupting the current market by creating new efficient ways of completing tasks. These concepts of innovation and disruption are especially important in healthcare, because time and efficiency are the biggest factors in caring for the lives of others. These changes are now occurring because the need for healthcare is rising as there is a known shortage of doctors.
As an example, healthcare organizations are now finding ways to automate back office tasks with computing technology, ultimately “disrupting” an age old process. Cloud computing and information systems are now allowing healthcare organization to do away with the fax machine and with manual insurance claim and bill processing. It also allows doctor’s to easily collect patient information, share it when needed, and obtain it on command. This innovation would be classified as disruption because it is changing the way doctor’s think and conduct their day to day operations by displacing a current process.
It is no secret that the long cycles of insurance claim processing and billing stop doctors from getting paid in a timely manner. In a country where the majority of doctor’s operate on a fee per service model, this type of roadblock can be detrimental and affect the type of care they giving. A fee for service model is one where doctors are compensated for the quantity of care, not the quality of care they offer. The type of automation mentioned above allows a doctor to essentially be a doctor. That doctor will not have to worry about getting paid, as well as spend extensive amount of time handling paperwork regarding patient information. If you do not believe this is true, I would like to ask how many times do you visit the doctor and notice that they spend more time looking at information, than they spend talking to you?
Unfortunately, this type of change in the process can displace certain jobs that exist in healthcare. The automation of bill processing and insurance claims can displace the need of an administrative worker. Eventually, automation of scheduling and patient information gathering can eliminate the need for a front desk worker. Although we have not hit these times yet, we are certainly approaching them