Posted by Ken Accardi on Thu, Sep 02, 2010 @ 04:35 PM
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.
Posted by Will Hicklen on Wed, Sep 01, 2010 @ 12:55 PM
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.
Posted by Will Hicklen on Wed, Aug 18, 2010 @ 12:01 PM
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
Posted by Ken Accardi on Sun, Aug 15, 2010 @ 10:53 PM
The Home Care Software Geek posts in this blog don't talk about Home Care Nursing Software, Private Duty Telephony, DME Delivery Software, Home Infusion Care Management or the other topics we focus on regularly at Ankota. Instead, these posts are intended to keep our readers up to date with technology trends that might be useful to your agencies, such as social media technologies, mobile devices, and what's happening from the big-boys like Microsoft, Google and Apple.
Many home care business leaders started their companies because they had skills as a caregiver and a heart for providing care. Along the way, they've needed to learn a lot about running a business. This post is a primer in how to buy software for your agency taught from the perspective of a software vendor. Here's what you need to know:
- You should look for a partnership with your software vendor and shouldn't select a vendor who doesn't want to engage in partnership with you.
- Let the vendor know about any gaps that are holding you back from purchasing or getting the maximum value from the software.
- If you go through an evaluation process to choose between several vendors, share the results with the top few and see how they respond. For example, the vendor with three deficiencies might be willing and able to solve all three faster and better than the candidate vendor with only one.
- Sometimes the issue holding you back from moving forward is not directly related to the software. For example, you don't know how to organize your information to load into the software, or you want to do the project but you first need to focus on a higher priority like an audit. Explain this to the vendor because they might be able to help or plan for the delay.
- If you see some software that you like but it needs to work with some other software you already have, explain this to the prospective vendor and set up a call between your existing vendor and the new vendor to see if they can work out the interface.
- If a vendor reaches out to you, and there's no way you'd consider working with them, it's better to tell them "no" than to "string them along"
- When you set up a meeting with a prospective vendor, and something changes requiring you to move or cancel, let them know.
- When negotiating with the software company, focus on the items that are critical to you and also think about items you might be able to offer to the vendor. For example, if they are able to give you a lower monthly price, can you give them more up-front or might you be willing to help as a reference or by providing a case study.
- There are advantages to using the software without customizing it. You'll get better support and easier upgrades, so if something doesn't work as you expect, first ask the vendor how the software is intended to work before customizing.
- Once you engage in a relationship, continue in the spirit of partnership by letting the vendor know how they can continuously improve their product. Chances are that if you're a good partner to them, that you'll get preferential treatment, and that the improvements you suggest will be helpful for the vendor to sell to other customers.
Bottom line is that it's all about developing and maintaining a strong partnership.
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.
Posted by Will Hicklen on Wed, Aug 11, 2010 @ 05:14 PM
Brightree’s acquisition of CAU should surprise no one. See full HME News story here
CEO Dave Cormack said it clearly, “Their customer base is right in the sweet spot of our customer base.” Cormack wants to grow by acquisition, consolidate his customer base with others, and expand his services. It is a wise strategy. Other industries have followed this path, and quite frankly, it’s about time that DME & other businesses in the home health care ecosystem do the same.
Consolidation among DME providers will drive a similar consolidation among the companies that develop technology for them. Simply put, there will be fewer deals for the software companies to win. The ones that win will be those that provide the highest business value at the most compelling price, and deliver it in a model that is easy to implement & use. Even so, compared to other industries, DME is still highly fragmented. Just as there are many DME providers, so too are there many software companies selling to them, and none with a dominant market position. That is the definition of a market ripe for consolidation and it is still anyone’s market to win in DME. It will likely take a few years to settle.
So how will this go? The industry has focused long and hard on improving billing practices and decreasing the time it takes to get reimbursed. Companies like Brightree and Care Centric have built businesses that include both billing-related software and actual billing services. The next great opportunity is in using technology to increase business productivity. DME has seen little in the way of productivity improvement in recent years and has suffered through decreasing reimbursements while energy and labor costs continue to rise.
Resource and staff utilization is inefficient in DME, relative to other industries. For example, research conducted by Ankota, Inc. indicates that DME providers can cut operating costs such as mileage and fuel expenses by 25-35% immediately, simply through better scheduling and route planning. The same applies to home health care, respiratory therapy, rehab, and others that depend on home delivery and mobile workforces. Further, the addition of real time, mobile technologies and practices known in other industries as business performance management (BPM) will allow them to better model capacity and use it more efficiently. Technology can improve tracking and accountability, reduce mileage, eliminate paperwork, and improve quality.
The immediate business benefits include more deliveries in less time and at lower costs. Higher revenue. Lower marginal costs. That sounds simple, right?
The software companies that help DME companies actually run their businesses better and more profitably will be the ones that win. If you are a DME company, make software companies prove that they can reduce your operating costs and improve productivity. You should be able to tell whether they have expertise in business performance management and they should be able to prove it.
Those are the ones you can bet on.
Posted by Ken Accardi on Thu, Jul 22, 2010 @ 09:28 AM
The Home Care Software Geek posts in this blog don't talk about Home Care Nursing Software, Private Duty Telephony, DME Delivery Software, Home Infusion Care Management or the other topics we focus on regularly at Ankota. Instead, these posts are intended to keep our readers up to date with technology trends that might be useful to your agencies, such as social media technologies, mobile devices, and what's happening from the big-boys like Microsoft, Google and Apple.
Let's start at the beginning and talk for a moment about what cloud computing is... The general idea is that you don't need all of your software to run on computers that you own or have in your office. Instead, the software can be hosted outside of your company and you can access it via the Internet. Another related term is SaaS which stands for "Software as a Service". Again, the concept is that you don't have to buy software and the computers, instead you can use them online, and generally pay a monthly fee. Having said this, there are different ways for your software provider to set up the system and these might impact data security and HIPAA compliance. I'll get more into that below, but first I want to share the article that inspired today's post, entitled "Healthcare Solutions Cloud Up". Click here or on the image below to read it.
The article author is Jeff Kaplan, who has dedicated himself to SaaS and Cloud Computing. Jeff is an analyst, blogger, consultant, and excellent speaker, and he also runs a site called SaaS Showplace where you can go to find a searchable catalog of SaaS solutions that might be useful for your business.
Some of the key points of Jeff's article, are as follows:
- There is an ongoing debate about whether On-Demand computing is OK for health care. Concerns are primarily related to patient information security and availability
- On the other hand, improved communication and shared information are key factors in improving the quality and cost of care
- There are now several big examples of healthcare applications on the web. Jeff talks about Microsoft Health Vault, Google Health, Dossia and the IBM/U. of Missouri Life Sceinces Research Project, plus others
- The bottom line is that there are still questions to overcome, but more and more services are becoming available and adoption is fast
For the especially geeky ones among you, there are multiple ways for your software vendor to host your application. One is via dedicated hardware, and the other is through virtual shared hardware (where software Vendor A's software runs on the same hardware as Vendors B, C, D and more) where the potential advantages are that you have more computers to help when there are spikes in traffic and less computers sitting around idol wasting electricity. Some people call the former SaaS and the latter Cloud Computing. At Ankota, we use the dedicated hardware approach because not all of the security risks of shared computing have been retired to our satisfaction yet.
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.
Posted by Marc Ottinger on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 @ 08:51 PM
Question -
When all is said and done what is the impact of Operational Excellence?
Summary
Today we operate in unsettled times. What will the impact of the Healthcare Bill be? History tells us in period of instability positive change results. The high-performance businesses, those that have put a premium on operational excellence, will excel and gain customers and as a result market share. For those companies that are stumbling during these difficult times, it is an opportunity to look at business processes and put in place operational excellence initiatives. Either way to achieve it takes management vision, commitment, and investment.
The focus of this series has been that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence. Below graphically depicts the average Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) between companies using operational excellence to excel and that of the Followers. Investing in operational excellence has great rewards.
The installments have been the five characteristic of operational excellence. These characteristics are –
1st – Identifying the “Dominant Vector.”
Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 9th blog post.
2nd – Establishing a structure to that creates an advantage.
Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 11th blog post.
3rd – Out-Executing other Home Care Providers.
Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 12th blog post.
4th – Maintaining the Balancing Act for success.
Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 13th blog post.
5th – Addressing the Journey to ensure success.
Revisit this characteristic by scrolling down to the July 14th blog post.
It is time to put in place Operational Excellence Initiatives and take advantage of instability.
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.
Posted by Marc Ottinger on Wed, Jul 14, 2010 @ 09:35 PM
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 –
1st – Identifying the “Dominant Vector.”
2nd – Establishing a structure to that creates an advantage.
3rd – Out-Executing other Home Care Providers.
4th – 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.
Posted by Marc Ottinger on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 10:23 PM
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 -
- 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.
Posted by Marc Ottinger on Sun, Jul 11, 2010 @ 10:29 PM
Question -
Do you have the structure to execute on the “Dominant Vector” of your Home Care Agency?
Preface
The focus of the first posting was identifying your Home Care Agency’s “dominant vector.” What do you need to do now the dominant vector has been identified in order to be that high performance business, and create the competitive advantage that generates cash? No one needs to tell you Home Care is a highly competitive environment. Operational excellence offers the opportunity to increase quality, reliability, flexibility, speed, and customer value. This is the second of six blog posts hiliting the five characteristics that facilitate operational excellence.
Creating Operational Excellence
To achieve operational excellence owners need to take a step back and look at how is the business set up to achieve the established goals, and how is work organized and executed. This, the second characteristic, brings organization and execution to a more concrete level -
2. Establish the correct structure that creates an advantage. This requires a clearly defined operating model, which in turn needs to describe how the company is organized to execute the “dominant vector.”
The focus of this series is that high performance businesses put a premium on operational excellence. The first installment was on creating operational excellence. The link for this is http://bit.ly/cyShNI. The third installment will ask the question, do you have the understanding, drive, and alignment to out-execute Home Care Competitors?
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.