The Big Why!

Over the past several years, I have interviewed countless social workers, case managers, therapists and other direct service providers and asked them this question: 

“How many hours a week do you spend searching for information?” 

 The responses have varied and perhaps you will not be surprised by the answers, but the overall conclusion that an be derived by my interviews is that individuals in behavioral health care are spending far too much time searching for information, completing paper work, and not enough time with their clients. 

The answer to my question has produced numbers ranging from 10 hours a week to over 20 hours a week.  My follow up question to the first is: 

“How many hours a week do you spend searching for the same information you searched for the week before?” 

The hours only decreased slightly. 

This highlights the epidemic of workflow disruption in the behavioral health field and the immediate need for a solution that produces and promotes efficiency.  

If you are one of the business leaders in your organization, please take a moment to consider this economic question now:  “ What is the average pay for my employees and if I multiply that by 10 hours a week, how much money am I losing per employee every week?”  Now take that number and scale it across your agency. 

The math is simple and the answer is both economically and analytically painful to acknowledge. 

 We are reminded in this new presidency that health care has been the last to adopt new technologies.  As an industry we have failed ourselves in keeping pace in leveraging technology to provide higher quality service to our clients. The prohibitive amount of documentation, paperwork, and knowledge to manage on a daily basis has reached an unmanageable peak. 

The White House through its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has announced that it is time to reform health care [59 Billion].  One of the major reforms is the introduction and implementation of technology solutions to provide better care. 

In the foreseeable future, every hospital, clinic and private practice will have to adapt with technology to some degree. 

I strongly encourage you to take the opportunity to schedule a meeting either in person, through a web conference, or a conference call with my organization to discuss and learn about the emerging trends and the options that exist for technology adaptation in your organization.