Top 10 Technology Solution: OPTIMIUM Health

Healthcare Technology Outlook recently selected OPTIMIUM Health, and specifically its feature product OPTIMI$ER, as one of the 2019 Top 10 technology solution providers for operating room management. Selection criteria included demonstrable patient outcome and staff satisfaction improvement as well as increased day-to-day operational efficiency and financial performance. OPTIMI$ER has a strong track record for delivering on each of these measures.

“Optimizing Workflows for Improved Medical Outcomes” – Healthcare Tech Outlook: A typical, moderately accommodated hospital in the US undertakes approximately 100 to 150 operations on a daily basis. Care providers start preparing patients for surgery at least 10 days prior to the day of the operation and continue post-surgical follow-up up to two weeks after the procedure is completed. Caregivers schedule surgeries considering the medical status of the patient and the anesthesia to be administered at the time of the operation. Besides assuring that patients have all appropriate tests and procedures, preparing equipment for surgeries and obtaining the necessary medical and financial clearances, caregivers focus on educating the patient about the nature of the operation and how to adapt to their health conditions after the procedure.

However, if a patient’s health deteriorates or one of the above mentioned procedures, tests or clearances are missed on or before the day of surgery, the entire schedule is upset, giving way to a huge financial loss for the hospital. Aiming to eliminate missed steps, lack of transparency and inefficiencies that cause case cancellations, delays and loss of revenue, Optimium Health was formed. Led by Vicki G. Harrison, and Mark Stega, M.D., the company improves interoperability, operational efficiency, and improved communication among staff at caregiver organizations via its perioperative workflow management software, OPTIMI$ER™.

To read the full Healthcare Tech Outlook article and and learn more about Optimium Health, a top 10 technology solution provider please follow the link: https://operating-room-management.healthcaretechoutlook.com/vendor/optimium-health-optimizing-workflows-for-improved-medical-outcomes-cid-1048-mid-91.html

OHI Named A Finalist in Chesapeake Regional Tech Council 2016 Awards

OHI Named Finalist for Tech Award

2016 has started with a great deal of buzz around Optimium Health (OHI).In March, the Chesapeake Regional Tech Council (CRTC) named OHI a finalist in the women in technology award category. The CRTC awards recognize top-performing and high-growth technology companies in the Baltimore-Washington region. Finalists were selected from more than 75 nominees. Winners will be named at the tech council’s Tech Awards 2016 event April 28 at the Hilton Baltimore BWI Airport Hotel.

In February, OHI was asked to speak at the OR Manager Annual Business Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. The talk focused on OHI’s results at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. OHI’s OPTIMI$ER workflow technology helped deliver an incremental $2.6 million to the bottom line by increasing productivity and lowering surgical case cancellations. OR Manger is a national publication for hospital operating room professionals, reaching over 20,000 clinicians and administrators across the US.

Also in February, OHI was asked to participate in an American Hospital Association (AHA) request for information (RFI) for perioperative workflow, technology and non-technology solutions. OHI was selected as one of 4 companies nationally to present to the AHA at its Chicago headquarters in May. The AHA serves most of the 5700 hospitals nationwide with educational programs, best practice guidelines, and awareness of leading edge solutions to lower costs and provide better patient care.

For more information about Optimium Health, please contact: Heather@waohi.azurewebsites.net or https://waohi.azurewebsites.net

Optimium Health Invited to Cerner Global Conference

Each year Cerner, one of the largest and most innovative health technology companies in the world, holds a conference for 10,000+ health care professionals and administrators who are on the hunt for solutions to make patient care more efficient and effective. In October 2015, the “invitation only” conference will include Optimium Health (OHI) as one of its emerging technology exhibitors. OHI’s inclusion is in recognition of the impressive results OHI has achieved with OPTIMI$ER, a clinical workflow software designed to eliminate the process errors and communication breakdowns that can plague a patient’s surgical journey from surgical decision to the day of surgery.

Positioned as an opportunity to drive the health care industry forward and create a culture of connectivity, the Cerner Health Conference (CHC) brings client and industry partners together to show how technology can be used to communicate differently and more efficiently within the health care community as well as out to patients. The CHC offers a gateway to the leading-edge technologies Cerner and companies like OHI have developed to meet the complex and ever-changing needs of healthcare today.

OHI and OPTIMI$ER first caught the attention of a Cerner executive earlier this year. OHI’s invitation to exhibit at the CHC came after a rigorous vetting process that included demonstrations and discussions with Cerner clients, including the MedStar Institute for Innovation and one of MedStar’s 10 hospitals in the DC Metro area.

As Pete Celano, part of the MedStar team commented, “Cerner’s invitation to OHI to exhibit is a clear signal it sees OPTIMI$ER as a complement to its existing products and a potential difference maker in the way hospitals can improve both patient care and operational performance.” And with those words of insight and encouragement, OHI is further emboldened to make a meaningful difference for patients and the people and institutions that care for them.

Optimium Health In the News

Shantee Woodards, the business writer for the Capital Gazette in an Annapolis Maryland recently reached out to Optimium Health. Impressed by what the company is doing to improve the patient experience and eliminate communication breakdowns that can cause treatment delays, cancellations or evern worse, errors, she worte a feature article. In the article, she speaks with Vicki Harrison and Mark Stega, MD about co-founding the company, the results our cleints are having and what lies ahead for Optimium Health. To view the article, please click the follwing link: https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/business/ph-ac-cn-healthtech-0730-20150730-story.html

OR Manager Magazine Features OPTIMI$ER Perioperative Workflow Success

OR Manager recently researched, wrote and published an article about Optimium Health’s feature product, OPTIMI$ER, and the impact it has had a Sinai Hospital as a perioperative workflow success story.  The focus of the article is on productivity and revenue gains achieved in the perioperative setting, specifically the pre-anesthesia testing unit.  Sinai Hospital conducts over 20,000 surgical cases per year.  Thus, making sure that people are in the right place at the right time and all goes smoothly is no easy feat.  It’s one thing to pat yourself on the back. Gratefully, in this case, our clients are doing the talking and we appreciate the credit they gave us.

OR Manager is the largest publication targeted to the perioperative staff in the United States with a circulation of over 20,000 subscribers. Below is an excerpt and link to the article:

“What the hospital was doing was just labor intensive, not cost-effective,” says Cheryl Haglauer, RN, clinical leader of the PASS department at Sinai, which handles about 100 procedures each day. “We had to physically write out a piece of paper, stand at the fax machine to send it to a doctor’s office, and document everything we had done on multiple pieces of paper multiple times.”

Nurses had to access and input patient information into three separate locations, so 40% of their time was being spent on clerical work. In addition, the 9% cancella­tion rate at Sinai translated into approximately 2,340 canceled procedures and $7 mil­lion in lost or deferred revenue each year.

In 2013, Sinai partnered with Optimum Health, Inc., a health information technol­ogy company based in Annapolis, Maryland, to transfer to OPTIMI$ER, a custom­ized, paperless tracking system that interfaces with Sinai’s electronic medical record system and provides up-to-the-minute status reports on patient readiness.”

For the entire article please click the following link: https://www.ormanager.com/2015/05/14/staff-reap-rewards-paperless-patient-tracking-system/#.VWdFRdJViko

Optimium Health brings over 25 years of clinical process and Health IT expertise. Importantly, OPTIMI$ER Perioperative & Discharge Planning workflow solutions ensure both hospital staff and patient satisfaction scores improve and that operational efficiency will lead to lower costs. Our clients consistently achieve a break-even on investment in less than 3 months. If you would like to learn more about how Optimium Health can help your organization, please contact Heather Guild at heather@waohi.azurewebsites.net

LEAN Healthcare: Improving Patient Flow Webinar Series

PLEASE SAVE THE DATES!!

WHAT:

Optimium Health and Operational Performance Solutions are please to offer an “Improving Patient Flow” Webinar Series:

  • July 30 – Discharge Planning & Readmissions Risk Reduction
  • August 13 – Perioperative Services
  • August 27 – Emergency Department

The webinars are FREE and begin at 12:00 pm EST, lasting approximately 1 hour.

WHY:

OPS (www.opsgroupinc.com) and Optimium Health (www.optimiumhealth.com) share a belief that process efficiency is a key contributor to improving both the patient experience and a care organization’s financial performance by improving patient flow. In this webinar series, OPS will share its considerable experience using LEAN principles to help its hospital clients eliminate inefficient processes that can compromise outcomes and increase costs. Optimium Health will demonstrate how OPTIMI$ER, its clinical workflow technology, can complement LEAN initiatives, enhance process sustainability, and support legacy IT system interoperability, all of which helps its clients lower costs and increase throughput. 

SIGN-UP REQUEST:

Please follow this link to sign up for the  improving patient flow webinar series. It will sign you up for all three webinar topics for ease of administration. Simply opt out on the day of a given webinar if you cannot attend one of the topics.

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1625388607523834881

OHI Speaks at Health Financial Management Association Mid-Atlantic Conference

On September 26th, OHI and our client, Jerry Henderson, LifeBridge Health’s VP of Perioperative Services at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, gave a presentation at the Health Financial Management Association (HFMA) Mid-Atlantic Region Annual Conference in Virginia Beach. Over 260 healthcare executives were in attendance from Virginia, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and several neighboring states to learn more about the future of healthcare under the Affordable Care Act and how to operate more efficiently in order to get out from under the weight of rising healthcare costs.

Workflow Technology Drives $2MM-$3MM Bottom Line Improvement

The focus of OHI’s presentation centered on lowering costs and generating revenue in the perioperative setting using LEAN methodology and the application of workflow technology to improve resource utilization and patient flow. The case study examined performance in the clinical unit responsible for clearing patients for surgery and in which the OPTIMI$ER workflow technology was recently installed. Annualized results after one month of operation total $2MM to $3MM bottom line improvement. This includes:

  • 60% increase in staff satisfaction with regard to the patient clearance process.
  • 1-2 additional surgical cases/day due to a reduction of errors and omissions leading to surgical delays and cancellations. The estimated incremental revenue is $750k-$1.5 million.
  • A technology overlay that will facilitate the unit’s ability to bill for services currently offered free of charge – the estimated incremental revenue is $1.2 – $1.5 million.
  • 1 FTE reallocated to another service area due to a reduction manual process steps, documentation, and information transfer. An additional FTE reallocation is anticipated by year end. The estimated cost savings are $150k.
  • $20k savings in paper, ink cartridges, and fax maintenance.

The attendees, largely hospital CEO’s, CFO’s, COO’s, and revenue cycle managers were very receptive to the issues outlined and the solution offered. In particular, they acknowledged that EHR’s are not providing the workflow efficiency they had hoped for. And that an overlay solution like OPTIMI$ER that can interface with the EHR as well as other clinical and financial IT systems is a promising path to explore.

If you would like a copy of the Sinai Hospital case study or would like to speak with OHI about OPTIMI$ER, please email: heather@waohi.azurewebsites.net.

Optimium Health and MS2 Form Strategic Alliance

Thursday, May 1st, 2013 – Annapolis, MD; USA

Optimium Health is pleased to announce our strategic partnership with Medical Strategies & Management Systems (MS2), a leader in patient flow logistics whose aim is to improve operational efficiency. Optimium Health’s workflow technology overlay, OPTIMI$ER (TM), will complement MS2’s existing arsenal of tools for client engagements that require a technology solution in order to achieve optimum patient flow efficiency.

Founded in 2004 by clinicians, MS2 is a team of Hospital patient flow logistics experts focused on hospital process redesign, capacity management and operational efficiency. They help hospitals identify and solve the operational constraints that limit institutional patient flow and decrease patient satisfaction with hospital services. MS2’s mission is to help develop operationally efficient and adeptly managed provider health organizations without the need for capacity expansion, staffing increases or technology investments.

MS2 currently serves Hospitals, Healthcare Systems, Physician Groups and Healthcare Consulting Firms that need to identify, design and implement fundamental system-wide changes to address complex patient flow deficiencies. Our clients are able to increase market share, improve staff retention, obtain recognition as a service leader, increase revenue margins, and avoid costly physical capacity expansions. Some of the issues we help solve include:

Emergency Department Problems:

  • ED Overcrowding
  • Lengthy Waiting Times
  • Declining ED Revenues
  • Patients Leaving Unseen
  • Ambulance/EMS Diversions
  • Patient and Staff Dissatisfaction
  • Poor Ancillary Department Interfaces
  • High Emergency Department Boarding Hours

Hospital Operational Issues:

  • High Hospital Readmission Rates
  • Low Number of Predicted Discharges
  • Low Number of Discharges Before Noon
  • High Number of PACU Boarding Hours
  • Declining or Stagnant HCAHPS Scores
  • Lengthy Admissions/Discharge Processes
  • Poor Utilization of OR, PACU, ICU and IP Units
  • Unaddressed State Reportable Core Measures

Learn more at: https://www.ms2group.com.

Advisory Board Formation

Wednesday, April 24th, 2013 – Annapolis, MD; USA

Optimium Health, Inc. is pleased to announce that Todd Lazenby and Hank Steinbrecher have joined its Advisory Board. Todd brings considerable experience from the world of private equity and investment banking and has a passion for helping young companies achieve commercial and financial success. Hank has a proven track record taking an underdeveloped organization and fueling its growth to a level of international recognition by forming strategic partnerships, gaining grassroots support and participation, and developing a long-term vision for success and growth.

R. Todd Lazenby – Finance

Todd is the founding partner of Victory Partners, LLC and Royal Ascot Partners, LLC. He brings 22 years of private equity, investment banking, and corporate finance experience to the firm, having held increasing senior level positions in start-ups, mid-sized and Fortune 500 companies. He has built an investment firm that has made control investments in companies comprising over $300 million in enterprise value and has arranged and overseen in excess of $2.5 billion in capital markets and mergers & acquisitions transactions. Prior to founding VP and RAP, Todd was the Managing Partner of Summit Capital Partners, LLC in Los Angeles, then the managing partner of WP Capital Partners, L.P. in Dallas, both merchant banking firms representing middle market companies on a national basis.

Todd holds a JD from UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, an MS from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and an MBA and a BS in Communications from Florida State University.

Hank Steinbrecher – Business Development

National Soccer Hall of Famer Hank Steinbrecher has had a life-long relationship with sport and possesses the strategic thinking skills that have made U.S. Soccer an international force. As Secretary General of the United States Soccer Federation and CEO of US Soccer throughout the 1990’s, Hank took a lead role in securing sponsors to fund its grassroots outreach and financial growth. By the end of the decade, the U.S. Men had appeared in three World Cups, won a Gold Cup, and established a national fan base. For the U.S. Women, success meant two Women’s World Cup crowns and their first of four Olympic Gold Medals. Hank was also at the forefront of the Soccer Summit, bringing together leaders from across the American soccer landscape to chart the course of the sport into the next millennium. That course would eventually result in the U.S. hosting the 1994 World Cup and the birth of Major League Soccer, the highest level of professional club soccer ever seen in the United States.

After 10 years at the helm of US Soccer, Hank is now President of Touchline Consultants Inc. Touchline specializes in strategic planning for sports organizations, management of large international sporting events, and developing sales, marketing and distribution strategies for major product companies.

OHI Will Partner With LifeBridge Health

As a follow up to our April communication that Optimium Health was named a finalist in the LifeBridge Health Entrepreneur Challenge. OHI will partner with LifeBridge Heath, specifically Sinai Hospital, to streamline the process of perioperative coordination with a leading-edge health IT solution.

Our mutual objectives are to 1) improve operating room throughput, 2) lower the cost per patient served, and 3) increase patient and staff satisfaction. Our overarching goal is to make the patient journey from first appointment to first incision as seamless and satisfying as possible.

To achieve this, OHI will tailor our clinical process orchestration engine, OPTIMI$ER, to the workflow needs of the Sinai perioperative team. This is likely to include task and summary dashboards, task alert and prioritization mechanisms, real-time posting and audit trail, and legacy system interface in order to eliminate data entry duplication. Pre- and post-implementation financial and satisfaction measures will validate the throughput, cost, and satisfaction objectives. We expect the OPTIMI$ER Perioperative Workflow Solution to provide a standardized framework for repeatable, measureable, and sustainable results while allowing for customization to meet the needs of individual hospitals.

LifeBridge Health consists of Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Northwest Hospital, Samuelson Children’s Hospital, Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, Courtland Gardens Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and their subsidiaries and affiliated units, including LifeBridge Health & Fitness and the LifeBridge Medical Care Centers in Eldersburg, Mays Chapel and Reisterstown. Both Sinai and Northwest remain acute-care general hospitals with complementary clinical centers of excellence.

To find out more about how Optimium Health can help your hospital or surgical group practice enhance the way you coordinate care for your patients from first appointment to first incision, please contact: vicki@waohi.azurewebsites.net.