Survey Conducted by Becker’s Healthcare Underscores Benefits, Untapped Opportunities of CWA
Healthcare organizations nationwide are increasing their use of clinical workflow automation (CWA) software to enhance productivity, reduce costs and improve patient outcomes, particularly in complex care environments. This is one of several key learnings from a recent Becker’s Healthcare benchmark survey of health systems, hospitals and transplant centers in partnership with OmniLife Health in late 2022.
A clinical workflow automation leader, OmniLife Health worked with Becker’s Healthcare to measure the current state of CWA awareness and utilization for organ transplant, organ failure and other complex care verticals. The survey, which elicited responses from healthcare executives and transplant directors, showed adoption will double through 2024.
It also revealed several misperceptions about CWA, including the belief that electronic health records (EHR) offer the same care collaboration and communication automation capabilities as programs like OmniLife Health’s FlowHawk™ platform. FlowHawk is an end-to-end solution that simplifies and automates complex clinical workflows while improving care delivery, clinician productivity and wellness, and patient safety.
“The EHR was built around a fee-for-service care delivery model, largely for billing,” said Dalton Shaull, co-founder and CEO, OmniLife Health. “EHRs are complementary to CWA, but they don’t offer many features that are critical for highly coordinated complex care or value-based care environments, like providing a real-time hub for collaboration, error-proofing workflows and capturing all revenue opportunities. FlowHawk does all of this and more.”
The survey highlighted numerous CWA benefits and opportunities. Among them:
- Implementation and expansion are on the rise.
Roughly 30% of hospitals, health systems and transplant centers use CWA, and that number will reach 61% by 2024. Additionally, 48% of organizations using CWA plan to expand use to other clinical areas in 2023.Given the adoption speed, it’s no surprise CWA is one of the fastest-growing segments of digital health. It’s likely this growth is understated, as 33% of respondents erroneously believe their EHR vendor, Microsoft Word or Excel programs provide CWA. As understanding of CWA grows, adoption is bound to increase, too. - Regulatory scrutiny will fuel CWA demand.
A 2022 National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine report proposes increased scrutiny of transplant centers. Today, one transplant averages 500 phone calls, emails and texts – often from non-HIPAA-compliant devices. The administrative burden is heavy, and opportunity for error high.A platform like FlowHawk creates detailed audit trails of all conversations and case activity, allowing transplant teams to mitigate risk, improve outcomes and drive process and quality improvement. - Healthcare organizations leave money on the table.
Transplant-related communications are reimbursable by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, yet many go unreimbursed. Moreover, faculty underreport time spent reviewing organ offers and procurement services. Respondents report they don’t know whether or how their organizations capture time for CMS reimbursement. CWA, which tracks case activity and generates documentation for reimbursement, provides untapped opportunities for organizations facing pressures to reduce costs and improve revenue
“A complexity crisis in healthcare is pushing systems to the brink,” said Shaull. “Demand for high-level care is growing, clinical staff is burned out, and costs are skyrocketing.”
View the full survey for all findings. Learn more about OmniLife Health or request a demo at omnilife.health.
OmniLife Health is a 2023 Advocate Level Corporate Partner of The Alliance.
