The reality is that healthcare reform is rapidly changing the business of healthcare as new regulations and requirements continually roll out. To remain competitive in today’s market, health plans must remain extremely agile, and be willing to upgrade their software and reporting solutions before requirements are fully defined.
Improving engagement at key touchpoints in a consumer's health care journey could help health care stakeholders improve patient outcomes and reduce the cost of care. Consumer engagement could be the key to improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs; patients who are informed about their condition and involved in their treatment decisions tend to have better health outcomes and typically incur lower costs. Many health systems, clinicians, and health plans—as well as biopharmaceutical and medical device companies—are developing tools and strategies that can help consumers become more engaged in their health.
Understanding consumer attitudes and preferences across the patient journey can be central to supporting healthy behaviour, achieving better health outcomes, and improving the patient experience. As life sciences and health care organizations continue to evolve their strategies, they should consider offering tools that are flexible and meet the changing needs of consumers as they transition through life stages, disease states, and health status; and creating a seamless experience, including tools that are connected and easily accessed by the patient, caregiver, and care team.
The need for improved data management and quality reporting is increasing exponentially as various healthcare reform measures take effect. This has given rise to the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model. In essence, PaaS provides users with both the SaaS-based solution and industry-specific application platform or operating system they need to manage data needs. For healthcare organizations that utilize various software solutions, this means that all of their solutions and the accompanying information can be found within the same user-friendly interface, thus removing the silos inherent in the SaaS model and streamlining information management and sharing. And because these solutions are compatible with most existing software solutions, including electronic medical records (EMRs), they also eliminate the need to replace systems that providers are comfortable with.
Unlike traditional IT infrastructures, PaaS solutions can be rapidly deployed to meet healthcare organizations’ comprehensive patient population management and data tracking needs. In fact, because the PaaS model allows software to be deployed as individual modules or comprehensive end-to-end solutions, providers can easily add or remove products as the needs change. This also eliminates the need for investment in long-term technology strategy that may be outdated before the phase ever goes live.
In the UAE, Etisalat offers a Virtual Healthcare Platform-as-a-service is a cloud-hosted platform that enables a contactless patient journey through various digital touchpoints from patient registration, to content streaming, to in-room automation, interactivity, as well as allowing the caregivers to fulfil and update using a progressive web app and smart TV. It consists of voice, internet, and TV services to meet the demands of the changing needs of the healthcare sector, with a highly scalable and secure platform, fast onboarding, intuitive UI, integrated payments, and endless opportunities for innovation.
So how do you evaluate what would work for you? The strength of a good ePaaS system will provide these healthcare organisations the right infrastructure to manage all their resources in one place through a dedicated Internet access, PRI Voice (existing ISDN) along with call plans, a choice of TV channels for the hospital and waiting rooms, static IP addresses, LAN connectivity, Internet-based Wide Area Network (WAN) to link two or more remote offices as well as the option for a VPN network to offer Internet to all branches via the main office.
Reliability is key to the success of a good PaaS system. It needs to have a high-speed dedicated Internet access to ensure connectivity is at an optimum level. This should be able to provide cost-effective, guaranteed Internet access to all the relevant users within the organisation with the capability of regular back up (shadow, diverse, and disaster recovery).
The reality is that healthcare reform is rapidly changing the business of healthcare as new regulations and requirements continually roll out. To remain competitive in today’s market, health plans must remain extremely agile, and be willing to upgrade their software and reporting solutions before requirements are fully defined.
PaaS provides organizations with the agility and flexibility needed to rapidly respond to regulatory and market changes. Further, by leaving all of the heavy lifting up to a service provider who can provide an end-to-end solution from specializing in holistic data management on a single platform along with providing the related services, the healthcare sector can focus its time and efforts on what matters most – the patient, who at the end of the day is the true consumer of healthcare.
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© e&. All Rights Reserved.