Helping our Clients Enhance & Value Optimize their Operations
The Last Mile of the EHR implementation:
In the Healthcare industry, 97% of hospitals in the US have migrated to EHR systems, and many hospitals are working on 2.0/3.0 upgrades with integrated AI-based analytics.
However, these now legacy paper archives accumulated over many years of paper usage remain in storage vendor warehouses, even though many of these historical records are likely to have matured past their required retention periods and thus no longer have any value to patients or the organization. This excess storage thereby unnecessarily eats up huge portions of the organization’s records storage budget and cost, with negative ROI.
Many of the left-behind legacy paper records date back decades yet continue to sit in storage vendor warehouses, despite the fact that:
* Many of these historical paper records may likely be well past the applicable state or federal statutes or mandatory internal policy retention maturity or guideline dates.
* Many of these historical legacy paper records are no longer “mission critical” and have no value to the patients or the organization.
* Many of these historical legacy paper records are not synchronized with the EHR information.
The above issues tend to prevent clients from normal periodic inventory purging. Coupled with the industry-wide complex vendor rates/pricing structure, many clients become overly risk averse about the normal purging of their records inventories, even though they may be operating under retention policies which have been approved by senior management. Thus, the organization's information management costs/plans continue to consume a huge portion of the inventory, dragging down the information management ROI.
Sometimes, management may not even recognize this issue, as the full RIM Cost structure may sometimes not be included in the IM model/budget but buried in some other part of the organization’s financial model/plan.
A major GPO has estimated that the total cost of paper records in the U.S. healthcare system is substantial and simply daunting, at an estimated $18 billion to $22 billion in unnecessary annual expenses. This includes the cost of paper, printers, toner, physical storage space, and labor to manage them. This GPO has long advocated the importance of expense reduction, noting that “Every dollar saved equals five dollars in new revenues.”
Although it’s tempting to define the mission of EHR as having been completed, for those organizations with tons-loads of no-value historical records that remain on vendors' shelves, the EHR last-mile journey is not yet finished, and it will remain unfinished until these paper records have been moved to a Paper-Lite environment.
At most healthcare organizations, legacy paper storage represents an average of 20,000 boxes (40 million sheets of paper) and up to 500,000 boxes (1 billion sheets of paper) per organization.
In healthcare, the gold standard, Stage 7 of the HIMSS Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM), is achieved when healthcare institutions can use their EHR systems to provide a strong analytic capability and use technology meaningfully for the benefit of patients. Essentially, Stage 7 entails “not using paper charts to deliver and manage patient care.”
The APA RIM Transformation Model is geared toward working with your organization’s Financial, Operational, Administrative, and Supply Chain Management leadership and providing Data-Driven Facts that will impel the organization toward a Paper-Lite environment while ensuring that the right services are utilized to Improve the Process and Drive down Costs.
APA’s RIM expertise is empowered by staffing from healthcare, records management, information technologies, banking, accounting, business analytics, and business management. Our partnerships with AI and technology-oriented companies provide best-in-class leveraging solutions to transform our clients’ legacy paper processes and guide them toward a Paper-Lite process.
Keeping the legacy paper volume “in case you need it” just isn’t an optimal strategy.
APA can assist you to reach the final destination within this last mile - A Paper-Lite Environment. Let’s Talk - Contact Us at 877 425 7051 or sales@aboveparadvisors.com
What our Clients/Customers are saying about our RIM Programs:
“Above PAR Advisors immediately engaged with us, developing the plan transformation, efficiency, and cost-effective process. They did a thorough audit, framed the issues fast, deployed the right skills, and inserted good infrastructure, and we were off and running. Good results were driven from the very beginning and continue to flow. Most importantly, there is no burden on the client’s staff to capture these savings, as APA handles all the heavy lifting. They are great to work with.” (New York-based healthcare teaching institution).
“Over the last two years, we successfully consolidated and centralized all record/paper storage. This project started with many areas full of paper and boxes not stored in compliance with regs, fire hazard issues, and multiple storage contracts with different pricing. I highly recommend speaking with Above PAR Advisors if you have similar issues.” (Regional Westchester-based specialty hospital.
A) APA’s Complimentary RIM Pre-Assessment/Situational Awareness Program:
The healthcare industry is famous for its “do-no-harm” concept of always diagnosing and understanding a patient’s condition before providing treatments. APA follows a similar methodology. Our support starts with providing a Complimentary Multidimensional Pre-Assessment/Spectrum Analytics and Situational Awareness Report of the client’s records information storage, management, and operations to reveal all the open issues and what can be done to truly transform, optimize, improve quality, operational efficiency, and service delivery, drive down cost, and move toward a Paper-Lite environment.
B) APA’s 14-Point Execution RIM Value Care Programs:
01) Current & Forward Savings: This program aims to lower and stabilize costs over 10+ years, including reaching a zero or near zero on the Contingent Permanent Withdrawal Fee and other Non-Value Fees for Services and moving towards a PaperLite environment. This includes a series of diagnostics and analytics against a structured cost/value base with a core goal of initially providing 35% up to 55% cost savings within the first year and continuing to drive down this cost until a Paper-Lite environment is achieved.
02) Catch Invoice Errors: Provides a service that reconciles the monthly invoices against the contractual rates and highlights any discrepancies before the invoices are paid, thus preventing client payment frustration.
03) Inventory Management: Provides expertise and management to ensure that the records are identified (indexed/metadata-driven) and that maximum value can be achieved.
04) X-Ray Silver Reclamation: Provides execution management of the process to purge and destroy assets and achieve silver reclamation on any RIM materials where it can be achieved, such as MRI Film, CT-scan film, Radiographs, Lithographs, etc.
05) Digitization (Scan & Host): Digitization is provided in concert with one or more of APA’s strategic partners. This service provides a program that allows the client to digitize (scan and host their paper records on demand) and retrieve them on an on-demand basis so they never have to experience delays, lapses, or additional burdens in retrieving scanned and hosted records. Boxes or files that are digitized are then eligible for immediate destruction and, thus, continue to improve efficiency and reduce cost. APA also partners with AI, cloud, and digitization companies to allow clients to utilize better the massive amount of contextual data within their paper records. This is especially critical with IP records.
06) Longitudinal Linkages of Paper & Digital Records: Review the efficiency of ongoing programs to link paper records to digital records, provide efficiency improvements, and, where applicable, execute these programs.
07) Document Management Service: Provides expertise and management to encourage the client organization to retain records in electronic format and actively discourages the storage of paper copies.
08) Vendor Assessment Services: Provides a detailed understanding of the Vendor’s offsite facility and protocols and looks for efficiency opportunities, including (a) secured access to records, (b) how the records are cataloged/indexed, and how the metadata is used to ensure consistency throughout the entire records inventory, and (c) that the records are always are findable.
09) Internal Site Cleanup: Provides expertise and management to clean up sites and prevent them from falling into disarray (determining what to keep, destroy, etc.).
10) Request for Proposal (RFP): Provides an RFP process to define and vet vendor proposals on the client's behalf, ensuring that each RIM program is presented with the most favorable contract terms and pricing. Each RFP is tailored to the client's requirements.
11) Transition Management: Provides management of all facets of any transition from onsite to vendors, from one vendor to another, from a vendor to another site, or to destruction.
12) Intellectual Property (IP) Records: Helps improve information management with labeling, metadata tagging, and annotation to improve cross-referencing, speed to discovery, and IP value.
13) Retention & Information Governance (IG): APA’s strategic partner provides IG. This service provides a program that allows the client to build and tailor a Retention and Information Governance schedule using an archival database of governmental retention and privacy statutes (e.g., HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bailey, CCPA, GDPR, etc.) and internal policies.
14) Managed Services: Provides outsourced management for the client's day-to-day RIM Services using APA’s RIM efficiency experts, thus reducing the client's internal bandwidth requirements and operations cost.
Summary:
APA’s spectrum of records information management services includes assisting its clients with managing all aspects of their external and internal paper legacy records information management storage needs. These individual services are most effective when combined with specific service tranches based on the client’s unique needs.
APA RIM programs currently yield 35% to 55% cost savings/expense reduction within the first four years, which continues until a Paper-Lite cost-effective environment is achieved.
APA can assist you to reach the final destination within this last mile - A Paper-Lite Environment. Let’s Talk - Contact Us at 877 425 7051 or sales@aboveparadvisors.com
