At a shareholders meeting last year, Walmart announced it had found a way to save $30 million. The savings didn’t come from contract negotiations, big data analytics, machine learning, or any other sexy buzzword. The $30 million in savings came from a stepping stool. More accurately, the savings stem from how Walmart’s employees use the stepping stool. To maximize the [...]
Systems are everywhere. There are small systems, like atoms or cells, and large systems, like the US economy or global trade networks. When people discuss politics, education, or healthcare, they’ll often mention the political system, the education system, or the healthcare system. But what is a system and why should we care? And what does it have to do with [...]
Data is the foundation on which Hospital IQ’s predictive analytics platform is built. But getting the required data from hospitals is not always easy. Hospital IT departments are typically overworked and understaffed. Furthermore, external data requests from vendors typically take lower priority than internal requests from known entities. Given this challenging environment, we’ve found three universal principles that accelerate any [...]
For nurse staffing managers, balancing the needs of the nurses with the financial constraints facing hospitals can be a delicate, daily process of politics and compromise. And for good reason: as Peter Drucker once remarked, “The hospital is altogether the most complex human organization ever devised.” It seems only natural that some of that complexity trickles down into issues surrounding [...]
Mobile technology and great software allow hospital systems to manage discharges with an eye toward reducing length of stay and freeing up bed capacity. We’ve all seen it: physicians, nurses, care managers and patient flow specialists carrying a familiar clipboard or binder with printed patient information while they’re making their hospital rounds. You may even be a member of one [...]
Joining Hospital IQ and building closer relationships with our clients has been a very eye-opening and awesome experience for me. Almost 30 years in healthcare workforce management provided me with great experiences, but it had been several years since I had been able to directly help clients in an impactful and gratifying way. Since joining Hospital IQ, having the opportunity [...]
Over the last two weeks, I heard two interesting perspectives on machine learning that illustrate the complexity associated with tools touting this functionality: From a CMO: “We purchased a machine learning tool that was supposed to predict the likelihood of sepsis, but it was complete garbage. How do we know your system works?” From a VP of Periop: “We are [...]
Change isn’t easy. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you understand that changing your own behavior is complicated. There are health benefits for most who can drop a few pounds or more, but for some, losing weight can be the difference between a long life and a life cut short with conditions like heart disease or Type 2 diabetes. [...]
If you’ve been reading my blogs, you know two things about me: I like to help hospitals become more efficient and I like to swim. When I’m on site with a client, I always check Google Maps to see if there’s a pool nearby. One of our clients is a large multi-hospital system in the Midwest, where the pool situation [...]
Given most hospitals’ slim operating margins, progressive healthcare leaders continue to look for new strategies to improve the status of their system. As answers are sought, doors open for organizations to pursue new ways to solve their problems. For many, this means taking their first step into AI-enabled technology. As we enter 2019, many of these organizations are talking about [...]