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Among other wins, St. Luke's University Health Network has reduced length of stay for patients going to post-acute facilities by 0.3 days. This decrease translates into significant bed availability and improved patient throughput.

Andy Sajous, a leader in digital transformation, explains. He discusses the trade-offs of building versus buying artificial intelligence tools and describes some crucial actions CIOs should take going into 2025.

New data elements related to social drivers of health, such as referrals to social services, improve standards-based information exchange with electronic health records, it says. 

The tools have helped the health system grow demand for data-driven healthcare services, measure member attribution, and gain significant cost savings from identifying and acting on key healthcare utilization patterns.

EHR customers could take part in the direct sharing of health information – including X-rays and MRIs – between providers, payers, government agencies and others under the TEFCA nationwide interoperability framework.

The strategy has had a big impact on patient access, bed capacity, and heart failure and all-cause readmissions – not to mention appreciation of patients and family thankful to receive care safely at home instead of having to be admitted to the hospital.

With automation, turnaround times are now 40-45 days – way down from 90-120, previously. And before the tools were in place, the team was credentialing eight applicants per month – now that number is 35.

The Digital Medicine Society's seal aims to evaluate health application products' baseline security, usability and clinical return on investment to help decision-makers scrutinize which tools are best for patient care.

The electronic health record giant says that it did not violate federal law prohibiting unfair business practices when it raised concerns about certain patient data requests over the Carequality interoperability framework.

Also, athenahealth intros athenaOne for Behavioral Health, and Clarify Health empowers payers with AI-driven cost containment tools and quality improvement analytics.