All industries are having to adjust to the increasing power of customer voices and on-demand consumer trends. In the world of healthcare, this makes patients the decision makers who hold the most important perspective.

In the latest installment of our thought leader podcast series, I chat with Billie Lynn Allard, MS, RN, and Jennifer Fels, RN, MSN, co-founders of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center's transitional care program. Allard and Fels explain how they designed a program that addresses recurring gaps in care caused by social determinants of health in their rural community. 

For Thibodaux’s home health center to perform at the top of its ability, we needed to make performance improvement a part of our culture. We’re constantly analyzing our own efforts and trying to find areas in which we can work more efficiently.

Interoperability has always been a cornerstone of MEDITECH’s vision for healthcare IT. And through our partnership with CommonWell Health Alliance®, we’re pleased to be taking another large step for connectivity, by successfully deploying CommonWell interoperability services at Alliance Community Hospital (ACH) in Alliance, Ohio.

An Electronic Health Record (EHR) implementation is so much more than just an information technology project — it's a vitally important transformation that impacts every clinician and staff member within a healthcare organization.

Nursing is an ever-changing field where new research is applied and the evolution of technology is constant. The last five years have felt like a great leap in technology, and nursing informatics is pushing nurses to stay five steps ahead. Nursing skill sets demand consistent updates on research, techniques, and concepts.

In this age of #MeToo, more organizations are now grappling with power structures that often have not welcomed many women and minorities at the head of the decision-making table. A 2017 study by Rock Health estimated that women make up only about 23 percent of the executive leadership at Fortune 500 healthcare companies, even though they comprise nearly half of the U.S. healthcare labor force.

Our thought leader podcast series continues with a very special guest: the 2017 CHIME-HIMSS John E. Gall, Jr. CIO of the Year Randy McCleese. Randy currently serves as the CIO at Methodist Hospital, a 192-bed acute care hospital, 25-bed critical access hospital, and 19-practice physician network based in Henderson, Kentucky.

The challenges faced by rural healthcare organizations today — Critical Access Hospitals in particular — are truly daunting. Many never fully recovered from the economic downturn and most continue to experience provider shortages while caring for an increasingly older and more chronically ill population.

The latest Home Health Conditions of Participation (CoPs) that went into effect on Jan. 13 have been making waves across our industry. These updated CoPs — standards that agencies must meet in order to participate in Medicare — included several completely new regulations, as well as revisions to many others. And despite the fact that CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) delayed the phase-in date of the new standards, many agencies had to scramble to prepare in time.