Health Informatics is an evolving specialization that links healthcare, communications, and information technology (IT) with the main objective to improve the quality and safety of patient care. In a more academic description, the United States National Library of Medicine defines it as “the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption, and application of IT-based innovations in healthcare services delivery, management, and planning.”
Healthcare organizations are feeling the heat to maintain all aspects of their health informatics service while still functioning on a tight budget. With the increase of healthcare demand due to the pandemic, healthcare businesses are facing the following challenges.
A recent Black Book poll surveyed 1,600 hospital executives and 807 CIOs and found out that about 34% of the organizations are expected to dramatically increase their level of HI outsourcing over the next two years.
This means that as the demand increases, there will be limited supply. Since this is a new specialization in healthcare, building an in-house team equates to more financial investment from salary & benefits, training, and even the recruitment process.
This means that aside from expensive costs in building teams, there is also a limited pool of talent for this specialization.
While most of the services offered right now are transitioning over to digital and online platforms, healthcare is also making a shift. One of which is the digitization of medical charts through Electronic Health Record (EHR).
Although EHR is a good example of interconnectivity with healthcare and IT, this has not yet led to widespread, effective clinical data sharing to most healthcare businesses.
Only a few healthcare organizations can operate in the ecosystem of utilizing electronic medical records due to lack of access to HI, industry experience and limited resources as mentioned above.
EHR is simply a digital copy of a patient’s paper chart. But this provides real-time and secured access of patient information to all healthcare staff that handles patient care. Other benefits of EHR is list below:
Thankfully, with the progress of our technology Health Informatics is reducing the challenges of the medical field such as getting the same information (medical history, test results, allergies, etc) to the nurses, doctors, other healthcare providers and even insurance companies.
Doctors and nurses provide and consolidate the data of their patients so they can take care of more people quickly and effectively. The best thing to remember is that the main purpose of Health Informatics is to help healthcare providers save lives. This happens through organizing patient’s information and records for easy access by any healthcare professional, resulting in a quicker diagnosis and treatment, and minimizing miscommunication between each healthcare department.
Thanks to Health Informatics more procedures are being automated rather than being handled manually such as the collection and logging of medical information. This helps free up more time for the doctors, nurses, and hospitals to focus on their patients and even leads to saving more money because less work is done.
Through proper handling of the information more lives will be saved by avoiding medication errors which killed 550 people daily in 2017, in the US.
Analyzing and organizing medical data in charts or databases. They provide statistics or reports on patient data or trends for physicians, researchers, or facility administrators.
Primary responsibilities is to review medical records to ensure accuracy of patient records
Reviews the patient’s file and translates everything from that file into universal codes required by insurance companies.
Ensure coding practices comply with recognized standards.
All companies want to save money and stay within budget. In fact, in some areas of the United States, the high-cost labor involved in bringing in in-house seasoned individuals to maintain critical applications is extreme and out of the budget of most businesses. Outsourcing is the perfect affordable solution to save up to 70% on operational cost and still work with seasoned professionals.
Outsourcing has become a cost-effective way to stay on top of technology and offer superior communication for everyone involved.
A great outsourcing partner operates 24/7/365. This ensures that more work is being completed as compared to a regular 9 hour shift in-house staff.
Outsourcing health informatics welcomes in the creme de la creme of skilled professionals who can seamlessly perform RCM related tasks and can support cutthroat data analytics softwares and apps. They work round the clock like any other healthcare professionals with a similar 24/7 shift in a hospital.
In many cases, it is simply impossible for the HI team to have the skill and experts needed to handle all the various software and EHR applications. However, the right outsourcing partners can build a great HI team with required expertise and competencies that can stay up to date with the latest HI technologies. They can also ensure that the tools used by the HI team are streamlined with your company’s required software updates and versions.
Data confidentiality has never been more important for patient privacy. Medical professionals have been turning to blockchain technology and methods of data encryption to stop data breaches and compromised files. Health informatics stays compliant with health security rules, policies and all the other parameters needed to maintain patient privacy such as HIPAA, GDPR and DPA2012 compliant.
Infinit-O is a trusted global solutions partner that can help you successfully grow your business.
Curious on how to spot a great team? We’ve got you covered! Know these qualities and traits to help you build a great team!
| Job Title | Cost per In-house FTE ($ rate) | Cost per Infinit-O FTE ($ rate) | % Savings per Month |
| Clinical Abstractor | $ 8,825.60 | $ 1,800.00 | 80% |
| Medical Review Specialist | $ 6,344.27 | $ 1,800.00 | 72% |
| Medical Coder | $ 5,277.18 | $ 2,400.00 | 55% |
| Job Title | No. of team members | Estimated Annual Cost Savings |
| Clinical Abstractor | 1 | $ 84,307.20 |
| Medical Review Specialist | 1 | $ 54,531.26 |
| Medical Coder | 1 | $ 34,526.21 |
NOTES:
A well-established People, Process, Technology, Security (PPTS) Pillars is one sure way to overcome the limited supply of workforce, improve the healthcare delivery system, innovate care technologies to ease manual labor and fortify patient data security in agreement with clinician-patient confidentiality.
Having 4 pillars of success are key in only building a great and high-performing RCM team.
Know more about Infinit-O’s 4 pillars of success and our secret in building a great, high-performing RCM team.
To successfully grow your business and achieve your goals, it starts with proper planning and investing in the right resources. The following companies in the HC industry were able to identify their unique needs and sought help with the right partner who exactly knows how to address their demands.
We’ve gathered the following success stories so you can learn more about their outsourcing journey and how they were able to achieve their business objectives with the help of the right partner.
Infinit-O has been in the outsourcing industry for 15 years, creating long lasting partnerships and endless opportunities to small and medium businesses across the Healthcare, Finance and Accounting, Research and Development, and Customer Service industries.
Our vision is to help small and medium sized companies to grow and prosper by enabling them to experience the full benefits of partnering with an outsourcing company.
We build great teams for our partners through understanding their unique needs in order to help them achieve their business goals and the vision they have for their company. We have rendered a strong combination of business consultancy, process optimization, and outsourced services; all utilizing the latest technology to provide excellent value for our clients.
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We share 15 years of experience in navigating data privacy laws and regulations. We guarantee strict compliance from the best information security practices with up to date cybersecurity certifications because your data is in our care. At Infinit-O, we not only value your business but acknowledge the importance of information security especially in this digital age. To overcome customary challenges and build a better cybersecurity system that ultimately protects and secures data, we are certified and compliant with:
Learn more about the full list of our Information Security bundle in this Whitepaper.
Having an extensive and profound expertise in the finance and accounting industry, we’re here to help you build a great RCM team for your unique needs and promise the following key benefits:
