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IHI Participants Say, "Fewer Meetings; More Action!" |
During December's Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Conference, HealthGate's CMO, Dr. Timothy McNamara presented "The Business Case for Collaboration Technology in Healthcare" at a breakfast gathering.
Attendees completed surveys related to committee work and collaboration; answering questions such as: "How much time do you spend in committee-related activities?" and "What challenges do you face in collaboration?" Analysis of responses revealed that on average, respondents are joined in meetings and co-participate on committees with 14 other people, spending a total of 40-56 hours/week on committee-related activities. Specific activities include:
- 13-16 hours/week in committee meetings
- 6-8 hours/week preparing meeting-related documentation
- 7-10 hours/week writing, editing and updating documents and reports
- 6-10 hours/week reviewing and approving documents and reports written by others
- 8-12 hours/week communicating with committee members electronically or verbally
Respondents expressed that their greatest challenges related to committee work are:
- Staying on task
- Maintaining organization
- Building consensus
- Effectively and efficiently communicating ideas
- Fostering participation
- Taking action
When asked what would help overcome such challenges, survey participants reported the need for a solution that provides them with:
- Communication tools
- Content and process management capabilities
- Task management
- Access to such tools from anywhere at anytime
HealthGate's Collaboration Architect incorporates each of these features into a web-based platform designed to help streamline committee-related and project management activities and make meetings more effective and efficient. Collaboration Architect can help engage participants and manage tasks, documents and processes from the home or office, during or after business hours.
Ask yourself, "Are your meetings and committee activities as efficient and effective as they need to be?" |
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Short Report From the Floor: IHI Orlando, December 2006 |
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The Institute for Healthcare Improvement held its 18th Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare this past December in Orlando. Approximately 4,400 healthcare professionals enrolled in the conference to learn about successful quality improvement programs and strategies for acceleration, attend special interest breakfasts and poster sessions, absorb lessons from innovative healthcare organizations, and much more.
Over 100 companies showcased a number of innovative technologies designed to facilitate hospital administration processes; enhance patient care delivery systems; complement performance measurement, Six Sigma and medical imaging and diagnostic tools; and streamline collaboration. Visit the IHI Web site for a complete list of exhibitors.
After two-and-a-half days of exhibiting, we repeatedly heard from attendees that one of the most pressing issues that healthcare professionals face is balancing the time spent in committee meetings with the provision of quality care and services. To learn more about this challenge, we administered a 10-question survey to participants of our special interest breakfast session. Findings are included in the article within this newsletter entitled, IHI Participants Say, "Fewer Meetings; More Action!"
HealthGate registered for the 2007 IHI conference, which is returning to Orlando in December. In the meantime, come visit us in New Orleans next month when we participate in HIMSS07! |
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| Sneak Peek: HealthGate is Conducting Nationwide Study With CMOs, VPMAs, and Other Hospital Leaders |
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Preliminary results from HealthGate's study on committee work and collaboration in hospitals have already yielded surprising insight into the challenges and frustrations of the nation's CMOs, VPMAs and other hospital leaders. Hundreds of hours are logged each year in face-to-face meetings that often don't accomplish much. While most of the study participants seem pleased with their progress related to quality improvement efforts, there is a need to more effectively and efficiently engage stakeholders to participate and take more sustainable steps toward improvement. Stay tuned, as more comprehensive results are expected to be published in February. |
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Build Your Business Case for Collaboration Technology in Healthcare |
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HealthGate is offering a Webinar on January 16, 2007, that will:
- Provide a description of the requirements for collaboration technologies in healthcare
- Summarize many of the key products and technologies available
- Discuss the return on investment that healthcare enterprises can achieve with the use of collaboration technologies
Healthcare executives and clinical leaders are increasingly challenged to put into place the governance structure, committee design, collaboration processes, review systems and update processes necessary to standardize care and achieve consensus among their colleagues around key aspects. Increasingly, physician and nurse executives are tasked by corporate leadership and professional commitment to do all of this work using an "evidence-based" methodology (when medical evidence exists for specific diagnostic or therapeutic interventions).
Yet, few healthcare organizations today are leveraging the kinds of knowledge management and collaboration management tools that are being adopted widely for comparable purposes in other industries.
Reserve January 16, 2007 2:00 PM EST on your calendar for this Webinar hosted by Timothy McNamara, MD, MPH. Register here |
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Product Highlight: Collaboration Architect Version Control |
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Have you ever faced the challenge of browsing through two or three versions of the same document to figure out which changes were made by whom, when, or to determine which version is the most current? Anyone who has will appreciate the version control feature that HealthGate's Collaboration Architect application has to offer.
The version control feature has been designed to allow users, at the click of a button, to:
- Keep track of several versions of the same document
- Preview current and previous versions
- Compare one version to another
- Roll back to a previous version
- View complete details and history of a document
Compare two documents: Select the documents for comparison and a screen appears showing a single, combined version of the document. Text additions to the document will be highlighted in green and text deletions will be crossed out in red.
Roll back to a previous version: Select the version to roll back to. A box appears and asks for confirmation of the selection. After confirmation, the system creates a new version of the document that is exactly the same as the document selected for roll-back. The creation of a new version the same as the rolled-back version ensures that no older versions are deleted or overwritten, and that all comments and edits associated with a given document are preserved. |
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Visit HealthGate at HIMSS07 in New Orleans |
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HealthGate is returning to HIMSS07, one of the most comprehensive healthcare IT conferences in the country. We'll be in New Orleans from February 25th through March 1st to showcase Collaboration Architect, a web-based collaboration application that debuted at IHI last month. Visit us at booth 860, right next to GE Healthcare (booth 441), the largest exhibitor at the convention! |
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