Digital Fitness Assessment and Patient Journey Mapping to improve patient outcomes for a US-based Medical Group

Challenge 

Our client, a distinguished national medical group, delivers personalized primary care at home to those confronting various health challenges. Operating under a value-based model, their services are rendered in unconventional care settings, focusing on client engagement, integrated systems and care documentation to realize revenue. 

The client wanted to implement an enterprise operating clinical technology solution to fortify their distinctive business model. To ensure their future success, it was pivotal for them to foster customer engagement, secure payer approvals for member services, meet contractual requirements for Quality Assurance in documentation and coding, and meticulously document care for precise coding and revenue realization, all within a framework of integrated systems. 

Emids was brought on board by the client to validate the system choices crucial for supporting their business model and addressing the various functionality assessment related to their CRM, Scheduling, Coding, and Revenue Cycle Management.  

Solution

Emids initiated a rigorous fitness examination to clarify the client’s business model, document and facilitate a deeper examination and validation of the functionalities in accordance with their business needs. The solution involved a collaborative exploration to understand the complexities of the client’s unique care model and to refine the business model through in-depth workflow mapping leveraging a digital visual collaboration platform.   

Emids led the assessment in three phases which involved reviewing existing processes, identifying possible solutions and determining the future course of action. This was implemented through meticulously documenting the workflow of the client’s business model and aligning the future functionalities to it. We spent time with their existing vendors to do a rigorous examination of the functionalities to deepen our understanding of the workflow/ functionality impact. We further developed options and impact to time/cost, day in the life of key stakeholders to determine the efficacy of the functionalities of the legacy technology systems and solutions. Through a thorough review of the functionalities against the business model requirements we successfully assessed the supportive capabilities of their existing enterprise operating clinical technology solution. 

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We also created significant value for the client by discerning the need for a coding system tailored to support the specific business requirements of their payer customers. We recommended a solution that could plug those gaps seamlessly, streamline their Document QA and Coding QA processes in accordance with the payer guidelines.  

Our assessment concluded that their existing platform worked for their EMR solution but did not cater to patient engagement, scheduling, billing and coding requirements of their business operations. We also evaluated various other vendor platforms and did their cost and functionality analysis. Accordingly, we recommended to the client an enterprise operating platform that was best suited to their business model and which included and supported integration of CRM, Scheduling application and Billing & Coding solutions along with EMR.  

Emids also developed a unique patient journey map to help the client plug gaps in the patient delivery lifecycle and lay a foundation for effective patient engagement. We provided recommendations offering a detailed perspective on the requisite technology to bolster integration of sales enablement, CRM, documentation, and RCM.  

Outcome

This collaboration and the subsequent solutions facilitated the client in authenticating the digital fitness of their operational technology, systems, and processes against the aspired business model. 

The approach yielded in decoding incompatibilities in the functionalities of their operating technology in alignment with their distinctive care model. The insights from our findings empowered the client to optimize their workflow and processes and select the right technologies to support and address the specialized needs and complexities of delivering home-based care. The client was successfully able to validate their system choices and confirm their capability to effectively support the business model and operational needs, ultimately leading to improved patient care outcomes. 

By identifying the need for a specialized coding system and recommending a suitable solution, the client was positioned to align better with the specific business requirements of their payer customers. Not only this enabled the client to streamline their processes but also mitigated compliance risks, ensuring adherence to payer guidelines. This shows how Emids’ proactively understood the client’s needs and created value with potential enhancements in their overall efficiency and compliance for improved satisfaction and trust among their payer stakeholder group. 

This demonstrates Emids consulting expertise in creating a unique patient transformative journey map with tailored technical solutions to enhance the business model and services of the client. Thus, setting a robust foundation for a personalized home care experience. 

Transforming Patient Record Access Management for a leading Tennessee-based Medical Center 

Challenge

Our client, one of the leading Medical Centers in Tennessee, has a wide network of hospitals as well as clinics and facilities throughout the state. During and after the pandemic there was a significant turnover of their front-office staff, and the Medical Center was dealing with a staggering backlog of thousands of documents inaccurately linked to patient records. 

In addition to this, there was a surge in the utilization of Epic MyChart Proxy Access requests and telehealth services from their customers seeking access to their family’s/patient’s medical records at the Medical Center. This resulted in a high volume of daily requests for Epic MyChart Proxy access across various patient categories.  

With limited trained staff available to handle these requests and emerging escalated internal costs the client recognized the need for an agile and sustainable solution.  

They contracted with Emids for 1) a one-time clean-up of their Epic HIM Work Queue and 2) outsourcing of their Epic MyChart Proxy Service on an ongoing basis.  

Solution

Emids delivered a robust and cost-efficient solution to address the client’s challenges during and after the pandemic. By deploying a highly skilled team of Epic specialists Emids was able to optimize and streamline the Epic Work Queue Management for HIM and MyChart Proxy Services. We enabled efficient processing of a huge backlog of documents and integration of the correct patient’s medical records ensuring patient data accuracy.  

Post the pandemic, Emids took ongoing charge of the Epic MyChart Proxy Work Queue with the aim to enhance operational efficiency and maximize productivity, while adhering to client’s internal compliance and guidelines. We provided an on-demand flexible and scalable service tailored to cater to their unique requirements to optimize resource utilization while reducing costs and expediting the workflow. 

Outcomes

The partnership successfully eliminated the Epic HIM Work Queue Backlog of incorrect documents mapped to the wrong patients as well as the Epic MyChart Proxy Work Queue backlog of access requests that had been affecting the Medical Center’s operations and patient satisfaction. This collaboration optimized patient safety by ensuring precise and timely record management. Emids’ team proficiently managed the daily influx of requests, resulting in significant reductions in the customers resources man-hours. This enabled the client to redirect their higher costs Epic staff towards more strategic initiatives, ultimately resulting in significant cost savings for them. 

Emids adeptly adjusted and flexed the team size to address sudden spikes in demand, delivering not only improved turnaround times but also enhanced customer satisfaction. With the challenge of time-consuming Epic Work Queue management alleviated, the client’s staff members experienced increased job satisfaction, which contributed to improving their employee retention rate. 

Emids partnered with the client, functioning as an extension of their in-house team, significantly boosting productivity and effectively addressing business challenges. This successful partnership highlights Emids’ expertise, dedication, and agility, ultimately enhancing patient experiences and customer care. 

Cloud-Based Web Application for Clinical Trial Design and Optimization 

Challenge 

Our client, a multinational statistical software development and contract research organization, is one of the largest providers of statistical software and advanced analytics for clinical trial design and execution. They sought to develop a cloud-based web application to optimize clinical trial design and management, aiming to reduce risks, improve operational efficiency, protect patient safety, and enable informed, data-driven decisions during initial trial design and on an ongoing basis. 

The objectives were to launch a multi-tenant SaaS application, offer real-time trial design alterations, enhance engine capability to handle more complex algorithms, provide a premium user experience, enable real-time application monitoring, and facilitate easy customer onboarding. Additionally, the application was intended to help development teams reach data-driven consensus rapidly and collaboratively through interactive visuals. 

Solution 

Emids’ dedicated teams embarked on the journey in February 2020, starting with knowledge transfer sessions and stakeholder visits. We built a robust foundation with the formation of core and scrum teams, and an initial four-week immersion in the client’s location. 

We focused on incorporating agile framework and practices into the client system, with regular sprints to accelerate the alpha release. Infrastructure recalibration, architecture optimization, and automation were some of the key steps towards the successful alpha release. 

The solution’s architecture was designed to be highly scalable, with a microservices-based approach and built-in application performance monitoring. We leveraged tools like Jest, Xunit, and JSLint for unit testing and integrated code quality reports. The CI/CD pipeline was automated, and we used CoreAccel and Pendo integration to enhance the platform’s functionality. 

Outcomes 

By deploying multiple scrum teams with domain and technology expertise, we fast-tracked development and launched the application 1.0 within two quarters of engagement. The result was a green field, cloud-based SaaS platform with end-to-end ownership, from architectural design and product ownership to production deployment. 

The new platform, equipped with superior compute power, can simulate 150k models simultaneously, providing real-time notifications. The platform has increased the probability of success for clinical trials and saved weeks to months of time by achieving consensus faster. It has delivered a potential business impact of 10-20% cost savings for drug trials and a 10-20% reduction in drug trial durations. 

The engagement also led to the development of a highly secure SDLC, compliant with OWASP top 10 web application security. By following a test-first approach and using code quality tools, we reduced defects and prevented manual errors. This successful engagement has underscored Emids’ dedication, nimbleness, and impact, making a real difference in the field of clinical trial design and execution. 

MYO-SHARE: Advancing Rare Disease Diagnosis Through Global Collaboration 

Challenge  

Diagnosing and treating rare diseases is a complex task that often presents barriers. The MYO-MRI consortium, a dedicated group of healthcare professionals focused on rare conditions, was limited by an outdated method of sharing crucial patient images and data. In 2019, vital images were still being transported physically on CDs, causing substantial delays and potential risks to patient data. 

Moreover, the lack of a unified platform combining genetic diagnosis, imaging pathology and muscle MRI images added to the challenge. This technology gap wasn’t exclusive to neuromuscular diseases but extended to many other disorders as well. 

Solution  

Emids, a trailblazer in healthcare technology solutions, collaborated with the Ottawa Hospital and the MYO-MRI consortium to create MYO-SHARE, a novel, cloud-based platform. This platform facilitates more efficient collaboration among clinicians working on rare diseases. Utilizing the robust framework of Emids’ HealthConnect platform and hosted on Azure, MYO-SHARE was designed using existing backend components, enabling fast deployment of this transformative tool. 

MYO-SHARE offers a secure platform for storing and reviewing patient images, with utmost respect for ethical laws and patient confidentiality. It also simplifies the sharing of intricate patient images with colleagues across the globe. In addition, MYO-SHARE has the unique capability of integrating genetic diagnosis, imaging pathology and muscle MRI images. 

Built-in data security and user management layers in the Emids HealthConnect platform ensure that MYO-SHARE is secure. By using previously tested and deployed components, the platform is not only reliable but efficient. 

Results  

MYO-SHARE’s successful implementation has significantly improved physicians and scientists’ ability to diagnose and assess the impact of therapeutic trials for patients with rare diseases. Its secure and user-friendly interface allows healthcare professionals to collaborate seamlessly, sharing complex patient images in real-time. 

The cloud-based platform not only speeds up the diagnostic process but also enhances patient outcomes. MYO-SHARE’s transformative role also extends to other diseases, showcasing its wider applicability. 

The joint efforts of the Ottawa Hospital, the MYO-MRI consortium and Emids have resulted in MYO-SHARE becoming a groundbreaking tool for the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases globally. This is a testament to Emids’ commitment to leveraging existing and emerging technologies to make a meaningful impact on healthcare. 

Unifying Data and Streamlining Service Delivery for a Health Benefits Administrator 

Challenge

Our client, a full-service Third-Party Administrator (TPA), serving a significant number of lives across multiple employer groups, faced a series of operational and technological challenges. Their growth strategy, involving the acquisition of multiple TPAs, led to a decentralized and siloed IT landscape, resulting in increased operational costs and complex data management. Their outdated legacy web portal for population health management was inefficient, leading to missed performance benchmarks in clinical case management and quality outcomes.

Moreover, the disparate systems and data structures across TPAs resulted in scalability issues, lengthy data load times, and relied heavily on manual processes. This resulted in non-uniform models and structures, thereby affecting data quality and trust.

Solution

To solve these challenges, we partnered with the client to undertake a series of transformative initiatives aimed at improving operational efficiency and service delivery.

Unified Data Platform (UDP)

Recognizing the difficulties posed by data management across multiple TPAs, we embarked on a project to create a unified data platform. The goal was to consolidate, rationalize and standardize data assets, effectively creating a single, comprehensive source of truth for business intelligence and analytics. The process involved careful planning, design and development, ensuring that the new platform could seamlessly integrate data from the various systems and formats previously in use.

Population Preventive Care (PPC)

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the client’s disease management processes, we developed a new product offering named PPC. This initiative was based on the existing Disease Management (DM) care gaps addressal process but aimed to provide a more robust and comprehensive solution. A critical part of this project was the development of a new multi-tenant clinical portal. Built using Design Led Engineering, this portal integrated all necessary member data in a single, user-friendly interface, greatly enhancing the efficiency of case managers and nurses.

Online Portal 2.0

Alongside these specific projects, we also recognized the need for a comprehensive, unified platform for various client services. We worked closely with the client to understand their specific needs and goals, leading to the development of a new portal integrated with the UDP. This platform, dubbed “Online Portal 2.0”, was designed to be highly intuitive and user-friendly, providing a seamless experience for both the client and their customers.

Payment Gateway Integration

Recognizing the importance of a seamless payment process, we integrated the client’s online platform with a payment processing solution. This project required careful coordination with various stakeholders and thorough testing to ensure secure, reliable operation. The result was a significantly improved user experience, empowering patients and members to make payments easily and securely.

Throughout these initiatives, we provided staffing services and implemented Agile project management methodologies. This approach ensured efficient project planning, tracking and reporting, and it allowed us to adapt and respond to any challenges or changes that arose during the projects.

Outcomes

The partnership led to significant positive outcomes. The creation of the Unified Data Platform resulted in a single, trustworthy source of data for all TPAs. This improved scalability and significantly reduced data load times, thereby overcoming one of the major challenges the client was facing. The new PPC product offering and the development of a clinical portal increased the productivity of case managers and nurses. By providing comprehensive member data in a single location, it became easier to identify care gaps, conduct screenings and provide preventative care.

The user experience was also enhanced by integrating the payment gateway, which facilitated easier and more streamlined payment processes. The engagement showed steady growth, starting with a small team and expanding to a large team with a high retention rate. This growth was accompanied by multiple successful releases, including the rollout of the new online portal, improved messaging and other feature enhancements.

This engagement exemplifies a comprehensive digital transformation journey, highlighting the immense value that strategic partnerships can deliver in overcoming complex operational and technological challenges.

Streamlining X-ray Processing with AI

Challenge

Over the past two decades, the number of data points per patient has increased exponentially, with a thousand more images per patient being produced today compared to the turn of the millennium. This surge in data has created a significant challenge for radiologists who are struggling to keep up with the volume of examinations. The ability to effectively diagnose and monitor diseases through X-rays was becoming increasingly difficult due to the sheer volume of data. Emids was approached to find a way to manage this data effectively and efficiently without compromising on the quality of patient care.

Solution

In response to this challenge, a collaborative project was launched with Emids (formerly Macadamian), Radiobotics, and Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen. The project, known as X-AID, aimed to streamline the workflow of processing X-rays, particularly for non-acute patients. The solution involved the integration of an AI algorithm into the workflow to provide an automated assessment of musculoskeletal X-rays.

The AI technology was trained on unlabeled data from experts within the field to predict unseen instances. This allowed for the automation of text reports, making the report creation process faster and enhancing the quality by identifying things that might have been missed by human radiologists.

The project leveraged Emids’ HealthConnect platform-as-a-service, to accelerate the development and integration of this AI algorithm into clinical workflows. Once commercialized, the solution could be scaled up at other hospitals using the existing integration tools built into HealthConnect.

Results

The implementation of the AI solution led to significant improvements in the diagnostic quality of reading X-rays. It reduced the variation between different radiologists’ interpretations, leading to a more uniform description of the diseases that the machine learning algorithms were trained to find.

This innovative solution demonstrated the power of collaboration, bringing together the clinical and domain expertise of the team at Bispebjerg Hospital, the specialists in machine learning and AI algorithm development at Radiobotics, and Emids’ domain expertise in the healthcare space.

By leveraging the strengths of these three organizations, the project was able to tackle a significant challenge in healthcare, driving a higher likelihood of success and demonstrating the potential for innovation in the field.

Transforming IT Infrastructure for a Top-Tier Healthcare Company 

One of the largest healthcare companies in the Fortune 500 approached Emids with a vision for a modern IT ecosystem. They found themselves in a situation where their IT infrastructure and capabilities were not scalable to support their rapid growth.

These infrastructural shortcomings were not merely internal roadblocks. They directly impacted the customer experience and created friction between different businesses within the enterprise.

The customer wanted to build an IT ecosystem that would enable swift integration of its various lines of businesses from a data perspective and place them on a scalable, secure, and flexible cloud platform.

The goal was to develop an enterprise platform that supported the organization’s future organic and inorganic growth endeavors, and that also leveraged its current assets. To realize this vision, the client required a strategic partner with extensive experience in strategic consulting, data & digital engineering, and product engineering.

Emids was brought in to provide technical leadership while building a cloud data platform and various enterprise data products. Emids also supported the building of enterprise governance processes along the way to ensure data was being accessed, processed and stored in line with organizational policies.

The solution involved a three-pronged approach:

  1. Operating Model Development: Emids designed an Operating Model for a multi-tenant ecosystem grounded in four principles: Minimum friction across all interactions, Self-Service, Tenant Collaboration, and Risk Reduction. This model served as a blueprint, outlining the organization’s data-focused operations, enabling them to manage, share, and utilize data for insights and business outcomes.
  2. Data Strategy Formulation: Emids collaboratively developed a data strategy with various lines of businesses, enabling subsidiaries to use data in a self-serve manner while migrating existing data to the enterprise platform. This alignment of data strategy with the corporate vision ensured a unified data-driven culture across the organization.
  3. Enhancement of Platform Capabilities: Emids defined and prioritized platform capabilities such as DevOps patterns, infrastructure automation, test data management, data catalog, and metadata management. These capabilities empowered internal teams to build new solutions effectively and manage data efficiently.

Thanks to its deep domain expertise and outcome-oriented team, Emids delivered a modern IT ecosystem including a robust data platform to support the organization’s overall growth and collaboration among lines of businesses. The scalable and secure IT ecosystem now stands ready to support the client’s growth vision.

Enterprise Data Platform Implementation for Leading Payer

The Emids customer is a leading payer—with nearly 47 million members operating across the commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid markets—focusing on whole-person health for improving outcomes.  

The customer had developed and acquired applications across their business, primarily leveraged for internal use with a few external clients. They saw a market opportunity to commercialize these apps for external use. The key challenge was that the suite of applications wasn’t created for data ingestion from external sources. Emids was approached to build an ingestion framework that allowed for these apps to absorb data from both internal and external sources. 

Having a tight deadline of six months, the customer tasked Emids with developing a cloud-data platform with the ability to ingest data from multiple parties in a secure, multi-tenant way. That’s where Emids’ CoreLAKE™ came into the picture.  

CoreLAKE™ is a ready-to-implement data management solution that can ingest and integrate disparate data in a comprehensive health care data model—helping customers get to market faster.  

The customer’s data platform was built on CoreLAKE™ and deployed on the Google Cloud Platform to ingest, cleanse, standardize, and harmonize the data streams coming from multiple external sources into a unified data model residing in Snowflake.

Emids helped the customer integrate with their existing client systems and provided high-quality data delivery via CoreLAKE™, which also enabled the client to build upon their high-value analytics assets. Emids also provided end-to-end data operations to achieve significant cost reduction.

Through its deep domain & technical expertise, Emids helped accelerate the client’s time to value using CoreLAKE™’s out-of-the-box functionalities.

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Humana’s Low-Code Partnership Approach to Rapid Digital Innovation

In an era of rapid digital healthcare innovation, Humana, the third largest health insurance company in the U.S. faced several challenges within its digital channels unit to rapidly bring new solutions to market. It was laden with complex architecture, which meant IT had to tread carefully, given the importance of safeguarding personal health information for millions of members.

Amid this complexity and the COVID-19 pandemic, Humana needed a solution for its contact center’s number one ask: locating a COVID-19 testing center for its members.

The existing giant spreadsheet was slowing down contact center staff, so Humana turned to its low-code delivery partner, Cloud Development Resources (CDR)—an Emids company—to co-deliver a solution on the OutSystems platform. Through this low-code co-creation approach, Humana was able to create the web app experience on OutSystems in a weekend and Emids was brought in to develop a full suite of back-office functions, allowing 30 reps to regularly update the testing locations database in real time on the web app.

Within a month, Emids also created a mobile-friendly customer-facing app to help members directly find testing sites through a Google-map-like search experience leveraging artificial intelligence in OutSystems.

Speed to market is a key challenge for digital innovation and Humana now delivers four times faster for its members thanks to a low-code platform approach to application development and its partnership with CDR. This shows that a vast range of innovations once considered cost-prohibitive or risky are now viable. Finally, Humana now has a mobile-friendly customer-facing app that allows members to self-serve, taking pressure off of their call center agents.

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Learn more about the partnership between CDR, OutSystems and Humana here.

Medtronic Seamlessly Integrates Nerve Monitoring System Data with Backend EHR

Medtronic is the largest maker of surgical equipment in the world. One of its offerings is a nerve integrity monitoring (NIM) system to help surgeons avoid accidents that can impede or even end nerve function for patients during surgery. 

With its existing product, operating room staff copied reports from the NIM to the EHR using a USB memory stick or by printing and then scanning reports, but neither approach was elegant or efficient. Medtronic wanted to explore a more seamless integration between its NIM system and backend electronic health records (EHR).  

That’s where Emids came into the picture.  

Emids set up an on-site alignment workshop where it explored a range of options for integrating the NIM into back-end EHR systems. These included cloud-based solutions, Interface Engines, FHIR and HL7—two data-interchange standards commonly used in healthcare. Emids created a proof-of-concept dashboard for device-specific information. This cloud-based functionality took only a week to develop and showcases some of the potential benefits of cloud-based service and support for Medtronic. 

“Cloud integration gives us business intelligence we’ve never had before, and that opens the door to all sorts of possibilities, from better product planning to novel revenue models.”

Paul Cox

Former head of software development & architecture, Medtronic

Following the workshop, Medtronic settled on a combination of FHIR integrated into the NIM units for patient record lookup to prevent patient mismatches—important because patient mismatches increase the complexity on data submission—and HL7 to do the actual data updates. Within a few months of starting the project, Emids had designed and built a working prototype for the next generation NIM. 

The new device allows reports to be uploaded to a hospital’s EHR system over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi with a couple of button presses. And it is future proof too, since FHIR is quickly becoming one of the most popular standards for health data exchange.

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