Over the past year, we’ve seen the term ‘gameplay’ popping up in more and more places. People seem to be quite taken with the notion that the logistics and patterns surrounding games and their rules can be applied to business, politics, and everyday obstacles. As I would discover at the 2018 MGMA Annual Conference, gameplay can tell us a lot about how to succeed in healthcare today.

Cancer is a relentless and complex disease. Twenty-five years ago, if you were diagnosed with cancer, your chances of being alive five years later were only about 48-49 percent. But today, thanks to medical and technology advancements, survival rates have improved to 66-67 percent.

As healthcare organizations further integrate technology into their operations, the risk of cyberattacks increases — and research shows that today’s healthcare leaders are continually looking for ways to lower that risk.

MEDITECH recently introduced MEDITECH Greenfield, our new application development environment supported by RESTful APIs, including FHIR. Greenfield is an open space for customers and third-party developers to create and share applications that drive innovation, increase interoperability, and grow the value of their Expanse EHR.

September is National Recovery Month — a time to recognize the more than 11 million Americans who are struggling with opioid addiction. This massive problem has grown exponentially over the years and, unfortunately, seems to be the new norm.

Currently, one of the most important goals in the health IT industry is making data truly interoperable.

In pursuit of that goal, healthcare organizations are seeking ways to match patient data and locate records in a fragmented digital environment where technology and processes simply aren’t set up to allow efficient data exchange and access. On top of that, regulatory requirements are putting additional pressure on healthcare organizations to meet benchmarks and reporting mandates.

In 2014, Parkview Medical Center realized that it needed to reduce its readmission rate significantly while also fixing a communication gap between home health care agencies and other post-acute facilities. To address these issues, my director and a team of other leaders joined together to pilot a new transition care center that went live in 2016.

Developing standards for healthcare is nothing new — in fact, you could say the concept of identifying quality measures started in the early 17th century, when a Hungarian Doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, championed handwashing in his clinic.

 As nurses, we know that patient care is not one-size-fits-all. Every patient has unique needs when it comes to determining the best course of treatment. But even with all of those unique patient needs, clinical documentation can be structured so that each patient gets the right individualized care while nurses use a standardized reporting system, ultimately saving nurses’ time.

It’s up to EHR vendors to create solutions that make doctors’ work easier, and give them some much-needed time back. But what doctors do with that time is up to them — so we asked members of our Physician Advisory Committee to share how they like to spend that extra time they’re getting back from their MEDITECH EHR.