While healthcare providers tend to agree on the importance of patient-centered care, many struggle to balance increased efficiency and productivity with positive patient experience and satisfaction rates.
Yet, the experience of the patient is the most basic measure of how well a health system or care pathway is performing. This follows the simple logic that a satisfied patient typically reports good waiting times and a fast or first-time-right diagnosis, with an effective treatment.
Transforming Patient Care: The Role of AI-Powered Assistants
The progress in artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping patient care, across various dimensions, from facilitating faster discharge to curating treatment plans and suggesting lifestyle changes.
Also, for a health system, a satisfied patient tends to correspond with efficient workflows, higher staff retention and a successful medical outcome achieved at the right cost. This is the essence of value-based care – it requires a more complete approach to healthcare innovation that encompasses lean workflows and performance management with intuitive and compassionate healthcare design.
Radiology and imaging centers provide a good case study in the re-evaluation of healthcare technology investments and workflows focused on a “patient-first” approach. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, for example, can be one of the most intimidating patient environments. In a study evaluating 172 patients undergoing diagnostic exams, 69 percent experienced high levels of anxiety, which can lead to hyperactivity of the autonomic nervous system and produce symptoms that can directly influence exam results. Loud noises, stark environments, and claustrophobic surroundings don’t help to soothe an already anxious person.
MRI machines are not only anxiety-provoking but are also very sensitive to patient motion, mandating absolute stillness for high quality, readable images. According to a study published in the Journal of American College Radiology, patient motion affects the image quality of an estimated 10 to 42 percent of MR sequences. Because of these degraded clinical MR exams, hospitals stand to lose upwards of $140,000 per year, per imaging machine due to patient motion resulting in MRI rescans alone. Rescans are not only expensive and redundant for hospitals, they are also largely preventable when a patient is comfortable.
For decades, it was just assumed that discomfort and anxiety were necessary evils of certain medical procedures like MRI scans. As newer medical technologies developed, comfort came at a price, or simply not at all. Over time, however, it’s become increasingly clear to hospital executives and clinical staffers just how important the patient experience is, both in terms of providing quality care and in improving accuracy, variance, and diagnostic outcomes.
Reducing Clinical and Staff Burnout with AI Automation
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
In an effort to improve the patient experience and reduce rescans, Herlev Hospital enhanced its MR suite by applying advanced technology to the most stressful part of the MR scan, the moment a patient enters the machine, (referred to as in the bore’). Such technology incorporates dynamic lighting, projection, and sound, and is specifically designed to help keep patients still, calm and less anxious before and during the scan. The in-bore solution creates an immersive sensory experience from the time patient enters the machine (the peak of anxiety) all the way through the end of the exam. After incorporating the in-bore solution, more than 90 percent of patients at Herlev Hospital reported a “better” or “much better” level of comfort during the scan.
But patient satisfaction is not the only metric the solution addresses. To prove this impression, Herlev Hospital compared the number of interrupted exams among various scanners at the facility both before and after installation of the in-bore solution; post-implementation showed a 70 percent reduction in the number of interrupted exams.
It all comes back to what we’re trying to achieve with value-based care: continually optimizing processes to provide the best experience possible for the patient while eliminating the inefficiencies limiting the effectiveness of our hospitals. By rigorously measuring systems and processes, we can identify these inefficiencies and then eliminate them through design.
Rethinking imaging design and radiology departments is just one representation of what is possible when this approach is taken with the patient in mind and applied to a process that’s operated in the same way for years. By forcing this transition, a better MRI experience is now a reality – one that can eliminate system variance and offer a better understanding of the clinical workflow. Truly achieving value-based care will hinge on finding this balance between patient-centered approaches to design and innovative processes that offer lean workflows.
Photo: mathisworks, Getty Images
Dr. Jan Kimpen serves as Philips’ first Chief Medical Officer. In this executive role, Dr. Kimpen supports the company’s strategic focus on the HealthTech market. Adding a wealth of knowledge and medical experience to Philips’ senior management team, Dr. Kimpen, joins Philips from the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) in the Netherlands, where he was Chairman of the Executive Board.
Jan Kimpen (Belgian, 1958) joined UMC Utrecht, one of the largest healthcare organizations in the Netherlands, in 1997 and became President of the Board in 2009. At UMC Utrecht, Dr. Kimpen strengthened ties with the world-renowned Netherlands Cancer Institute at the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital (NKI-AVL) and the Netherlands Pediatric Oncology Center. He has been the driving force behind partnerships with Philips and Eindhoven University of Technology, where he is a member of the strategic advisory board Health.
Kees Wesdorp joined Philips in 2017 to lead Philips’ largest business group, Diagnostic Imaging (DI). DI includes Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT), Advanced Molecular Imaging (AMI) and Diagnostic X-Ray (DXR), which includes Mammography.
Kees brings a wealth of scientific and corporate experience to Philips. Prior to joining Philips, Kees was an executive vice president at Bain Capital focused on driving transformation in selected Bain Capital portfolio companies. Before Bain Capital, Kees worked for NXP Semiconductors and has been involved in the transformation of NXP in a variety of operational and functional roles in the business. Prior to joining NXP, he was a consultant at McKinsey & Company on strategic and operational issues across a wide-variety of industries and clients. He has worked with the imaging technology during his Ph.D. in atomic physics.
This is a paid member feature of MedCitizens. Please submit here and join!
This post appears through the MedCity Influencers program. Anyone can publish their perspective on business and innovation in healthcare on MedCity News through MedCity Influencers. Click here to find out how.