The Ankota Healthcare Delivery Management Blog

Home Care Software Geek uncovers Four Key Mobilization Trends

My friend Barbara Bix from the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (www.masstlc.org) was able to attend a session on the future of mobility sponsored by MassTLC and featuring John Donovan, the Chief Technology Officer for AT&T.  We're in an exciting time of "disruptive technology" (learn about disruptive technology here and by video here) with respect to mobile applications running on phones.  Due to the availability and improved affordability of wireless data to cell phone a whole consumer industry has been born for "mobile apps", led primarily by the iPhone and the Droid phone.  The importance of this for home care is that the consumer market will drive down the prices for phones and data plans and will rapidly improve the user interfaces for these mobile apps; and will thus pave the way for rich home care applications to move to cell phones.   Here's Barbara's article:

Mobilization: 4 trends to watch

By Barbara Bix

This morning John Donovan, AT&T’s CTO, spoke to the Mass Technology Leadership Council about four trends that will shape the future.  For each trend, Mr. Donovan described the trend, illustrated it with some examples, and provided data on how fast the trend was accelerating.  Here are my notes.

Always on networking

“Always on networking” has shortened the distance from intent to action.  Now, that people can get information immediately and effortlessly, consumption of applications has exploded.  An increase in WIFI connections has also caused consumption to increase since people can now access the network from more places.

As application consumption has increased, network demand has soared.  Mr. Donovan pointed to people addicted to watching the stock market as examples.  In the past, due to delay and access issues, there were limits to the information they could consume.  Now that they can get updates immediately, they check the market at every opportunity.

Similarly, as an outdoor enthusiast, he checks the weather constantly.  Moreover, because he can, he checks the weather in each of the places his family members live.  His parents, on the other hand, could only get weather reports for the next day on the nightly news–and not until 20 minutes into the program.

To give us a sense of the growth rate, Mr. Donovan said that the range of error in AT&T’s demand forecasts now exceeds their total activity 3 years ago.  Nevertheless, he noted that the pace of growth, while still strong, is now slowing.

Video

Mr. Donovan sees video as the next frontier.  Now, rather than “talk to me” it’s “show me”.  Asynchronous communication enabled people to time shift work.  Video allows you to place shift work.

Demand for video is growing so large, we’ll need to find new ways to carry more data on the network.  The number of YouTube videos doubled in the last six months.

Software

A common language drives integration.  IP and interoperability caused network growth to explode.

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) can eliminate the silos of voice, wireless, and Internet data because they now speak the same language.  The availability of standards has caused the pace of development to accelerate.  What IPs did for network growth, APIs now do for consumption.

The Cloud

The shift from the cloud to the network is an emerging trend. Today, people have duplicate systems on their cell phones, PCs, etc.  Moreover, each of these devices has its own processor, power cord, etc.

We’re wasting a lot of storage and too much processing power goes unused.  The situation is even worse at the enterprise level.

Standards will enable device independence and will increase efficiency.  Intelligence will move from the device to the network.

We’ll be able to put computing power and storage in the cloud.  Availability, search, redundancy, and latency will all improve.

The network will manage storage, security, consumer applications, business applications, and personas. You’ll no longer need both a home and work device.  Content and applications will adapt to users’ needs rather than the other way around.

What's Next?

Mr. Donovan said the innovation he personally would most want to see is integrated medical monitoring.  Now, there are apps to report weight, blood pressure reading, sleep restlessness etc.; but they are all point applications.  He wants his clinician to see an integrated report.

His response was timely.  MassTLC will present Emerging Technologies for the Silver Tsunami: Aging in Place through the use of Integrated Technology on the morning of September 23.
Click here to learn more or attend.

Barbara Bix is a fantastic B2B marketing professional with great credentials such as a Wharton MBA, but she really excels becuase of her ability to take a customer view.  Learn more at www.bbmarketingplus.com

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Home Care in a Hurricane - Are you Ready?

We love planning, and scheduling!  We love to be organized and efficient! We pride ourselves on being in control!  But we don't always get to dictate how things are going to run in our home care operations - sometimes mother nature has the last word.  With Hurricane Earl running its course, it's good to prepare for home care in a hurricane...

(phote courtesy of National Geographic web site)

Here are some ways you can plan and respond for the hurricane:

• Be Proactive in Your Agency: Are there weekly visits in your plan that can be pulled ahead to avoid the heavy weather days?  Are there other routine tasks like creating next month's schedule or preparing your payroll that can be done now?  Do them!
• Help Your Clients be Proactive: Can you get the groceries earlier than normal?  Can you make sure that your client has water, blankets, prescriptions filled, easy to eat food, a movie rented?  Help them be prepared and avoid strife when the storm hits.
• Can you provide additional Services?: Do the patients or clients you care for need help with their storm shutters or making sure that their sump pump is plugged in and ready to go?  Given that they need your services for medical care or help with other ADLs, there's a good chance that
• Don't start what you can't finish:  If your patient is due for a 48 hour chemo infusion to go from Thursday through Saturday and the storm is supposed to be heaviest in your area on Saturday, you might want to rethink.  Once you start that treatment, you're commiting that you'll be there within a 4 hour window on Saturday to turn it off.  So think twice!
• Set Priorities and Back-up Plans: If you can't get to everyone in the height of the storm, know which patients are urgent and which can wait.  Know who has a backup plan for ther care and who doesn't.

Hopefully you the storm will be mild when it gets to you, but if you follow the above steps, you'll be prepared for the worst.  The projected path of the storm is below.  Will you be ready?

As you go through this process and "weather this storm" I'd also challenge you to see if your software is helping you during the storm or just getting in your way.  Can you reschedule visits easily?  Can you update your worker's shifts?  Can you visualize which caregivers live near which patients?  If not and you're ready for an upgrade, be sure to let us know!

Related articles you might be interested in:

• Managing Home Care in a Blizzard here
• Maximizing the Value of your agency software here

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Blackberry & Home Care Businesses

I usually leave this type of information to the Home Care Software Geek to report on, but some news is just too good not to pass along right away.

You can now get Blackberry Enterprise Server Express for free.

So what? Well, let me first say that we are not taking a position on one mobile device vs another. We at Ankota like to profess that we are device agnostic, choosing instead to make even our most advanced technology available via web browsers and common mobile devices that our customers have readily available. Frankly, we don’t want to force new infrastructure or hardware requirements on our customers. That just wouldn’t be efficient...and those of you who know Ankota know that we are efficiency zealots.

A more pragmatic description of our position is that we are in favor of anything that helps mobilize technology for our customers and does so securely, productively, and affordably. Blackberries have proven to be excellent mobile devices for many of our customers. Our customers include Home Health, DME, Private Duty, Infusion, Respiratory Therapy and other companies that we say make up the “Homecare Ecosystem.” In the past, the cost of purchasing mobile devices like this (& their service plans) has been a deterrent to many. As devices and plans continue to get cheaper, more and more of our customers will buy them. This announcement helps make it cheaper and easier for our customers to manage their mobile staff and their Blackberries.

Blackberry Enterprise Server Express synchronizes wirelessly with Microsoft Exchange, calendars, contacts, and provides remote file access & access to your intranet. It will run on your existing mail server whether you run that yourself or have that managed for you by another company.

Of course, schedules, calendars, POC forms, and even optimized route plans created in Ankota HDM can be pushed to Blackberry devices in real time. You can still utilize Ankota's telephony interface as you would with any other mobile phone.

Click on this image to view key features:

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside of the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

 

Productivity in Home Health Care, DME & Therapy businesses

Let's think about PRODUCTIVITY – arguably the single greatest opportunity for your business today.

Ankota is first and foremost a process management company. We develop technology that helps organizations run their Home Health Care and related businesses more efficiently. More profitably. More productively.

What we do is revolutionary because we're the only company that has organized health care into a delivery model and optimized it for performance. That takes some high-powered technology, but all you really need to know at the moment is that it helps you run your business better and achieve immediate results. 

Our customers include home health care agencies, HME and DME companies, Private Duty care agencies, and "the therapies" - infusion therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, respiratory therapy, and more. If you need to mobilize staff, equipment, medications, and supplies for health care, we’re the experts you trust to help optimize your business.

I would argue that the single greatest business opportunity before these companies--companies like yours--lies with improving productivity. The greatest opportunity to improve profitability lies with better utilizing staff and resources. Relative to other markets, this business has traditionally lacked a performance culture. The market has not demanded it until now, with new pressures on revenues, limited staff, and the ever increasing costs of doing business. The most immediate option is to improve productivity. That is, generate more output with the same or fewer resources. The good news is that there are many opportunities for immediate improvement, spanning from reduction in miles driven to increased utilization of staff and equipment. Downstream benefits abound, such as reduced paperwork, improved record keeping and accountability, happier staff, and so on.

We’ll discuss several of those in subsequent articles here. However, for now, your homework is simple. I’d like to encourage you to think of your Home Health Care, DME, Private Duty or rehab business in terms of productivity. Take a look at the following definition of PRODUCTIVITY and begin to consider it in the context of your business. When you examine your operations or consider new initiatives, consider also how it will impact productivity.

Note that I am not suggesting that quality of care be compromised at all! In fact, quality of care should improve or remain constant to make productivity improvements measurable and valuable.  A business with a performance minded culture is one focused on constant improvement. So, while you think about PRODUCTIVITY and your business, think of it in the context of questions like

“How can we improve the consistency of care?”

“Will clients/patients and their families be better off?”

Wikipedia has a clear definition of the word PRODUCTIVITY and includes some great supporting data. Take a look and start to think about productivity in your business.

Productivity is a measure of output from a production process, per unit of input. For example, labor productivity is typically measured as a ratio of output per labor-hour, an input. Productivity may be conceived of as a metric of the technical or engineering efficiency of production. As such, the emphasis is on quantitative metrics of input, and sometimes output. Productivity is distinct from metrics of allocative efficiency, which take into account both the monetary value (price) of what is produced and the cost of inputs used, and also distinct from metrics of profitability, which address the difference between the revenues obtained from output and the expense associated with consumption of inputs.^[1]  click here for full article in Wikipedia

Another way to look at it... Borrowed from Accel, experts in team productivity, The Productivity Conceptual Modelbelow, takes the form of a 'productivity tree'. The roots denote the inputs to the system, the trunk the conversion process and the foliage and fruits the systems outputs. click on graphic to go to Accel's web site

 

 

The Journey to Operational Excellence in Home Care – 5th of 6 parts

Question -

What journey have you chosen to achieve Operational Excellence in your Home Care Agency?

Preface

This fifth characteristic may be the most difficult, because it is about leadership.  Why?  Without leadership the competitive advantage goes away and the associated cash benefits do as well.  Without leadership operational excellence and the opportunity to increase quality, reliability, flexibility, speed, and customer value tend to flash away.  This is the fifth of six blog posts hiliting the five characteristics that facilitate operational excellence. 

 

Creating Operational Excellence

Remember the big picture of operational excellence:  Is the business set up to achieve established goals and is the work organized and executed.  This is the fifth and final characteristic that facilitates this operational excellence - 

5. Choose the right journey; meaning know were you plan on taking your company.  How you choose will have significant bearing on your companies future positioning.  In theory one journey will be most appropriate for your company’s culture; however, in practice market complexities, customers, etc, mean there could be different approaches. 

 

The focus of this series is that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence.  The installments have been –

1^st – Identifying the “Dominant Vector.” 

2^nd – Establishing a structure to that creates an advantage. 

3^rd – Out-Executing other Home Care Providers. 

4^th – Maintaining the Balancing Act for success.  

This fifth installment addresses the journey to ensure success of your Home Care Agency.  To learn about this Characteristics of Operational Excellence click here.

 

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Out-Executing Home Care Competitors - 3rd of 6 Parts

Question -

Do you have the understanding, drive, and alignment to out-execute Home Care Competitors?

Preface

Now your “dominant vector” has been identified and the correct structure is in place to ensure execution; however, you can not just go through the motions of execution to have operational excellence.  Why?  Going through the motions does not create a competitive advantage nor does it generate the true potential cash benefits.  This is the third of six blog posts hiliting the five characteristics that facilitate operational excellence. 

 

Creating Operational Excellence

There is a reason for the saying, “You can not see the forest for the trees.”  You are in the trenches and cannot see the big picture of how the business is set to achieve the established goals, and how is the work organized and executed.  This third characteristic is the most dynamic one to ensure operational excellence - 

 

1. Seek to out-execute competitors by simplifying, standardizing, and the eliminating waste, which includes wasted time.  Emphasis needs to be on executing correct business processes to achieve significant and measurable performance improvements by improving flexibility, speed, quality, reliability, and customer value.  Those companies that out-execute rivals –
   • Understand what customers’ value and what customers are willing to pay.
   • Drive asset productivity, using return on invested capital to guide value creation for the customer. 
   • Stress process excellence.
   • Ensure close alignment of business strategy, goals, metrics/measurement, and initiatives.  Remember you can not improve what you can not measure. 

 

The focus of this series is that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence.  The first installment in creating operational excellence was identifying your company’s “dominant vector.  The second points out the need to establish a structure to that creates an advantage.  The link for this is http://bit.ly/bsjKp8.

 

Ankota provides software to improve the delivery of care outside the hospital.  Today Ankota services home health, private duty care, DME Delivery, RT, Physical Therapy and Home Infusion organizations, and is interested in helping to efficiently manage other forms of care.  To learn more, please visit www.ankota.com or contact Ankota.

Care Givers use Technology to Focus on what's Important - CLIENTS!

I attended the National Private Duty Association (NPDA) Annual Conference in Philadelphiain the spring.  One of the break-out sessions I attended was Veterans & Start Ups – Access Your Agency’s Potential, presented by Regina and Kelly McNamera of Always There Home Care in Southington CT. 

What impressed me the most was how the McNamera’s leveraged technology to focus their core competencies and as a result what is most important, their clients.  Some examples of what the McNameras do includes –

• Outsourcing everything in the office except the intake of clients, e.g., payroll and even book keeping. 
• Using a virtual receptionist that covers the phone 24/7 with a live person.  I contacted the company they use, MAP Communications.  Map Communications does such a great job training employees; I challenge anyone to say the receptionist on the phone is not an employee of Always There Home Care.
• Giving Blackberrys to all their care givers, who appreciate the trust that is extended to them.  As a result there is a huge return on increased efficiency. 
• Texting instead of phone calls has been an enormous time saver.  It is amazing how something so simple applied effectively can have such an impact. 

 

 But my favorite statement Kelly made in the presentation was, “Telephony helps keep me sane.”  I continue to be amazed at how private duty agencies can turn a blind eye to technology when it is technology that will allow them to do what they want to do most … care for the clients.  

Woohoo! Home Healthcare In A Crisis!

Or: The double edged sword of health care reform

Or: What should YOU-the Home Care Provider (HHC, PD, DME, RT, Infusion ...)-do RIGHT NOW to improve your business.

There are a number of companies, like Ankota, that make their business in various healthcare markets. For many, healthcare reform presents both opportunity and risk.  I recently did an interview on this topic with Elain Pofeldt of the Atlantic Monthly, which you can read here:  http://bit.ly/cNFomN

To be sure, the constant escalation of health insurance premiums affects Ankota like any other business. It consumes financial resources that could otherwise be directed to product development, hiring and fueling the company's growth. Recent legislation adds to that uncertainty, but we were in an uncertain market before, as well.

So why are we so excited? Because our customers' businesses are in crisis. "Seriously?" you say. I don't mean to celebrate any misfortune, but consider what this means for a company like yours as well as Ankota.

Markets in crisis tend to exhibit certain behaviors. Businesses in crisis tend to innovate. They find new and more productive ways to manage their business. They are less likely to stick to old, inefficient ways. Or they die. They find ways to cut spending and reduce operating expenses.  They leverage technology to improve efficiencies, to utilize staff better, and to get rid of old, tedious (and often paper-based) methods. In short, they look to do more with less. And markets in crisis are motivated to act immediately.

Companies making decisions to spend money in this type of environment do it for one reason: to become more profitable. Often times, they do it just to survive. They hold would be vendors to a very high standard, saying,

"Don't waste my time: Show me exactly how you are going to save me money, help me bill faster, or increase my revenues."

They want immediate, quantifiable results and they want to pay for enabling technology as they use it (like current subscription based models). They won't spend a lot of money today to see nebulous returns a year or two down the road.

The exciting news for Ankota and other Health IT companies is that companies in the home care ecosystem are under extreme pressure to improve productivity immediately. A business in crisis is motivated to act. Winning technologies will help them cut operating costs by better planning and delivering home health care. The providers who adapt and innovate will ultimately thrive.   

The exciting news for those that provide home health care (Certified or Private Duty) and related services (such as RT and Infusion), and those companies that deliver home medical equipment (HME/DME), pharmaceuticals and supplies, is that there are a number of ways you can immediately improve your business:

• Get rid of paper-based processes such as scheduling and reporting. Use technology to plan schedules and routes for your mobile staff and vehicles more efficiently.
• Coordinate Care Plans with the staff and resources needed for execution. Good intentions are not enough. Efficient follow through and execution are critical.
• Keep track of work performed in real time via technology such as "telephony" that anyone with a cell phone can use. This is inexpensive and requires no additional investment in equipment. Whatever telephony solution you choose, make sure that it is integrated with the care plan and schedules.
• Measure your performance. Much of the technology mentioned above will begin to help collect the data such as time and cost information that you need to measure performance. This will lay the foundation for continuous improvement.

Wireless Home Health Technology Forecast to Grow 15-fold by 2013

I read a great new article on FierceMobileHealthcare.com, predicting that the market for wireless home healthcare technology will grow by 15-fold by 2013. I have provided the link to this piece below, along with another related link, and offer the following observation as we, Ankota, see this space:

New wireless solutions will make a tremendous impact on home healthcare worker productivity and help fuel home healthcare industry growth. We have staked our future on it.

The companies that provide homecare staff and services, or those which deliver equipment, medications and supplies are incredibly inefficient by other industries' standards. There are tremendous opportunities to reduce operating costs and fuel growth largely through process improvement. Much of this will be technology-enabled. We at Ankota are first and foremost process management experts, and we develop technology which enables process innovation. In short, we help these companies achieve new levels of efficiency and productivity.

Studies show that the companies involved in home healthcare  can reduce operating costs by 25% or more through better planning and utilization of staff and resources. These same companies can also free up 10-20% of their workers' time, enabling them to spend more time on activities that help patients and drive revenue for their companies.

Ankota has bet its future that wireless & mobile technologies will be critical in making homecare more effective and profitable.

Read more: http://www.fiercemobilehealthcare.com/story/wireless-home-health-said-grow-nearly-15-fold-2013/2009-08-11#ixzz0j2a5SrHU

And a related piece: http://www.fiercemobilehealthcare.com/story/m-health-market-poised-rapid-growth-despite-fragmentation/2010-03-23

 

The Wireless Future of Medicine - Video

Many of the people interested in this blog want to be pioneers in changing the delivery of healthcare.  This entertaining and informative video is a "must see".  It features Eric Topol, MD who is a cardiologist and geneticist and is the Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute.  A more complete bio for Dr. Topol is below.  The challenge for each of you is to think about the technologies shown in the video, many of which are available today, and to think how it can bring individualized medicine and home care to the next level.  Enjoy!

The video is courtesy of www.ted.com

The following bio for Dr. Topol is courtesy of Wikipedia:

Eric Topol, M.D. is a noted American cardiologist, geneticist and administrator. He is the Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, in La Jolla, California, which is a National Institutes of Health funded flagship grant, to accelerate research to change medicine. He also serves as the Chief Academic Officer for Scripps Health, a Professor of Translational Genomics at The Scripps Research Institute, and was recently named The Gary and Mary West Chair of Innovative Medicine. In addition, he serves on the Board of the West Wireless Health Institute as Chief Medical Officer.

In 2008, Topol launched an impressive large-scale long-term study of personal genetic testing to assess its impact on people who choose to get tested.^[1] Through the Scripps Genomic Health Initiative, his team is following 10,000 people who take a Navigenics genetic test to see if the knowledge they glean from the process encourages them to improve their lifestyle and get regular and recommended health care. Topol's team is also assessing the psychological impact of genetic testing, and whether participants are able to prevent or delay diseases such as type 2 diabetes, some cancers, Alzheimer's disease and more by taking action after getting their results.^[2] Besides the Scripps Translational Science Institute, study partners include Navigenics, Affymetrix and Microsoft.

Before this, he was Professor of Genetics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He was the Founder of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University.^[3] Prior to moving to Case Western, Topol was Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic where he is widely credited ^[4] with leading its cardiovascular program to the topmost position in the US. Topol left the Cleveland Clinic in early 2006 after drawing "attention to the mounting tensions between the clinic's research mission and its deep ties to the businesses that finance that research."^[5]

Topol gained prominence as the first physician researcher to raise questions about the safety of Vioxx. He has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He was named Doctor of the Decade by the Institute for Scientific Information for being one of the top 10 most cited medical researchers.

Ankota is the pioneering company in the field of Healthcare Delivery Management (HDM) and is dedicated to improving the quality and efficiency of the delivery of care outside of the hospital setting.  Ankota offers products to improve the efficiency of home care, private duty care, medical equipment delivery, and specialty home care services including infusion therapy, respiratory therapy and home physical therapy.  In addition, Ankota does research and development into advanced care management technologies to promote aging in place.  For more information please contact us or visit http://www.ankota.com/.