Home

Digital transformation essentials — Interpretation services

Interpretation Services solutions encompass technological platforms and systems designed to help healthcare organizations effectively communicate with patients who have limited English proficiency (LEP) or are deaf or hard of hearing. These solutions leverage a variety of delivery methods—from real-time human interpreters to AI-powered automated systems—enabling healthcare providers to bridge language barriers while optimizing operational efficiency and improving patient outcomes.

Interpretation services solutions

Synchronous interpretation solutions	Real-time interpretation services that provide immediate language support for live patient interactions, including video remote interpreting and over-the-phone options. Example companies: LanguageLine Solutions, Martti, AMN Healthcare Language Services, CyraCom, GLOBO
Asynchronous interpretation solutions	Language services that enable communication across language barriers through pre-translated materials, document translation, and non-real-time interactions. Example companies: Lionbridge, TransPerfect, LILT, Morningside Translations

These are example companies, and not meant to be comprehensive. Did we miss your company? Schedule some time to connect.

The case for interpretation services

The language diversity of patient populations continues to expand, creating urgent communication challenges that traditional interpretation methods cannot effectively address. As healthcare facilities serve more LEP patients and hard-of-hearing individuals, digital interpretation solutions have emerged as essential technologies that transform how care is delivered across language barriers.

Prevent clinical miscommunication and medical errors

Language barriers significantly compromise patient safety and clinical effectiveness when not properly addressed. Patients with LEP experience worse hospital outcomes, including more readmissions, adverse events, longer lengths of stay, mortality, and decreased patient satisfaction compared to their English-proficient counterparts.¹ Furthermore, adverse events affecting LEP patients are nearly twice as likely to involve physical harm compared to English-speaking patients.² Interpretation services address these challenges through immediate access to qualified interpreters and translation tools.

Address overhead costs

Traditional interpretation methods can create substantial administrative and financial challenges for healthcare providers. Digital interpretation services streamline these processes through on-demand access and resource optimization. While these services can cost around a few hundred dollars per patient per year, this cost is often offset by enhancing patient experiences to encourage them to comply with their care and reducing testing and visit time.³ Strategic deployment of synchronous and asynchronous solutions allows healthcare systems to match interpretation modality to clinical and patient need, creating substantial operational efficiencies.

Improve patient experience and regulatory compliance

Language barriers significantly impact patient satisfaction and create compliance risks. LEP patients report lower satisfaction scores compared to English-speaking patients, with communication difficulties cited as the primary concern.⁴ Simultaneously, language access in healthcare is governed by multiple federal regulations, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Digital interpretation services address both challenges through consistent, documentable language support. This enhanced experience translates directly to improved HCAHPS scores, higher patient retention, and reduced legal risk.⁵

Sources

March 13, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Care transitions

Care Transitions solutions encompass technological platforms and systems designed to help healthcare organizations optimize the coordination and movement of patients between different care settings. These solutions streamline and optimize the process of transitioning patients between different care settings, enabling seamless coordination among providers, real-time information sharing, personalized care planning, and proactive interventions.

Care transitions framework

Post-acute network management	Specializes in connecting hospitals with post-acute providers through curated networks of high-quality facilities with digital connectivity. These solutions enhance visibility into post-acute options, provide analytics on provider performance, and streamline the referral and placement process to help match patients with the most appropriate care settings for their needs. Example companies: WellSky, Aidin, Optum
Patient flow management and discharge planning optimization	Centralizes and automates patient movement logistics within and between facilities through digital command centers that manage bed capacity and transfers. These platforms optimize patient flow to standardize handoff communications so patients move timely throughout the care continuum. Example companies: TeleTracking, LeanTaaS, Qventus
Predictive risk analytics	Empowers healthcare organizations to identify at-risk patients and determine optimal next-care settings through sophisticated algorithms that predict readmission risk, complications, and other adverse events. These solutions provide evidence-based care setting recommendations based on patient data and outcomes, while generating intervention triggers that notify care teams when patients require additional support during transitions. Example companies: Health Catalyst, Innovaccer
Care collaboration platforms	Delivers comprehensive platforms that streamline communication and care management as patients move between care settings. These solutions support cross-organizational care team coordination, promote information sharing at transition points, and enable more seamless handoffs between providers involved in a patient’s care journey. Example companies: WellSky, Bamboo Health, TigerConnect, Pulsara
Longitudinal patient record and care continuity	Creates a unified view of patient information across care episodes and settings through interoperable data platforms that aggregate information from disparate EHRs. These solutions enable care plan persistence across transitions, medication reconciliation tools that reduce adverse drug events, and structured clinical documentation sharing that improves handoffs between providers. Example companies: Bamboo Health, Arcadia, Innovaccer

These are example companies, and not meant to be comprehensive. Did we miss your company? Schedule some time to connect.

The case for digital in care transitions

The fragmented nature of healthcare delivery creates significant challenges as patients move between care settings. Traditional transition processes—relying on paper documentation, phone calls, and manual coordination—frequently result in communication breakdowns, medication errors, unnecessary readmissions, and poor patient experiences. These care gaps impose substantial clinical, operational, and financial burdens on healthcare organizations while undermining patient outcomes. Digital care transition solutions address these challenges by creating connected ecosystems that promote information sharing, standardize workflows, and enable proactive care management.

Bridge care gaps to improve clinical outcomes

The transition between care settings represents one of the most vulnerable periods in a patient’s healthcare journey. Gaps in care persist as providers struggle to connect disparate pieces of data and information with one another. This communication gap leads to medication discrepancies affecting up to 70% of patients during transitions and contributes to 80% of serious medical errors.¹ Digital care transition solutions address these challenges through structured communication protocols and patient engagement tools. Organizations implementing these technologies have the ability to reduce information gaps during handoffs, decrease post-discharge adverse drug events, and improve patient satisfaction scores related to discharge processes.

Streamline operations to maximize resource efficiency

Care transitions impose significant operational burdens on healthcare organizations, with discharge planners reporting significant time constraints and delays, with studies showing that approximately 25% of hospital days for Medicare beneficiaries could have been avoided with more efficient care transitions.² Digital platforms streamline these workflows through automated discharge planning, real-time post-acute provider directories, and digital handoff tools. This enables providers to perform at the top of their license by giving them more time for high-touch patient interactions along the care journey.

Drive financial success in value-based care models

As growing interest in value-based payment models persists, effective care transitions become increasingly important financial drivers. Medicare’s Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program penalizes hospitals with excessive readmissions, while bundled payment programs include post-acute care in the episode cost. Digital care transition solutions directly address these financial imperatives. One health system was able to save $3.2M annually by improving how they support patients in their care transitions.³ As reimbursement models continue to evolve, the financial return on these solutions will only increase as payers increasingly reward coordinated, high-quality care across the entire continuum.

Sources

March 13, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Primary care

Digital-first primary care enables health systems to provide digitally-enabled, consumer-centric access to end-to-end primary care services, anchored on longitudinal, whole-person care and continuity of the care team.

Primary care digital solutions

Targeted segment-specific solutions	Solutions that offer integrated or add-on services to targeted audiences, providing specialized care pathways for distinct population needs while increasing market reach and patient acquisition. Example companies: Tia, Patina Health, Folx, Oak Street Health
Virtual on-demand solutions	Platforms that enable virtual access to providers anytime, anywhere, delivering immediate care through synchronous and asynchronous modalities while reducing utilization costs and expanding geographic reach. Example companies: K Health, Teladoc, Firefly Health, Galileo, CirrusMD
Convenience-driven retail solutions	Retail clinics offering convenient, immediate brick-and-mortar access with complementary virtual services, providing consistent experience, reduced wait times, and increased consumer satisfaction through pharmacy integrations and multiple access points. Example companies: Amazon One Medical, Carbon Health, VillageMD
Preventive health and lifestyle-based solutions	Multidisciplinary long-term care models focused on prevention and wellness, with high-touch in-person and virtual services that reduce downstream costs and enhance chronic condition management through digital health tools. Example companies: Carbon Health, MDVIP, Amazon OneMedical
Value-based solutions	Care delivery models that take on risk to manage patient care costs and offer preventative and wellness programs for unique populations, delivering improved outcomes and reduced total cost of care through integrated health solutions. Example companies: Oak Street Health, ChenMed, VillageMD, Cityblock Health
Primary care transformation enablers	Platforms and services that equip traditional primary care practices with the capabilities, technologies, and operational models needed to succeed in value-based arrangements and digital-first delivery without replacing the core practice. Example companies: Lumeris, Aledade, Privia Health

The case for digital in primary care

Healthcare organizations face a critical supply-demand imbalance in primary care delivery that threatens both patient outcomes and business sustainability. Traditional one-size-fits-all approaches to care delivery are proving insufficient amid workforce shortages and evolving consumer expectations. While digital-first primary care offers transformative potential, health systems struggle to implement these capabilities at scale without robust digital solutions that address their specific challenges.

Transform clinical care delivery

The primary care workforce is at an all-time low, with two out of every five currently active physicians projected to be 65 or older within the next decade, and one in five PCPs expecting to leave the field within the next three years.¹ By 2034, a projected shortage of between 17,800 and 48,000 primary care physicians will further strain access to essential preventive and chronic care services.² Digital-first primary care practices address this critical shortage by fundamentally reimagining how primary care is delivered, not just by adding digital tools to traditional models. These comprehensive digital practices enable physicians to care for larger patient panels through innovative care delivery models that leverage team-based approaches and digital care pathways. By completely reimagining primary care delivery through digital platforms rather than merely digitizing existing processes, health systems can deliver high-quality care more efficiently while addressing the growing workforce crisis.

Drive market growth and competitive advantage

Consumer expectations for healthcare are rapidly evolving, with 90% of health systems being outperformed when it comes to providing seamless, integrated digital experiences.³ One in four consumers report willingness to switch to a primary care provider that offers virtual options, signaling a critical competitive advantage for organizations that embrace comprehensive digital primary care practices.⁴ These solutions can help health systems improve patient acquisition and expand geographic reach without physical infrastructure investment, facilitating market entry and growth in previously untapped communities. Organizations deploying complete digital primary care models can expand into new markets with less capital than traditional brick-and-mortar expansions while achieving comparable patient volume growth, with opportunities ranging from direct-to-consumer subscription models to value-based care arrangements with payers.

Optimize financial performance

Healthcare organizations face intensifying financial pressures from rising labor costs, shifting reimbursement models, and market competition. Complete digital primary care practices provide a pathway to financial sustainability through fundamentally different operating models. These virtual primary care models excel at preventive care, chronic condition management, and mental health services—three areas where early intervention dramatically reduces downstream costs.⁵ As such, they can help health systems generate savings through multiple mechanisms: preventing unnecessary emergency department visits, reducing readmissions through better transitions of care, and lowering out-of-pocket expenses for patients through a more efficient delivery model. As healthcare payment shifts toward risk-bearing arrangements, comprehensive digital primary care practices can provide the distinct operating models needed to succeed in next-generation reimbursement models while maintaining financial sustainability.

Sources

March 5, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Consumer insights

Consumer insights solutions provide health systems with the ability to leverage solicited feedback and indirect information about the comprehensive consumer healthcare journey (clinical & non-clinical) from live interactions (in-person and digital) & self-directed transactions.

Consumer insights solutions

Market insights	The ability to leverage industry-level trends and data about consumer needs and expectations within a target market to inform competitive positioning, suite of offerings, marketing strategies, and focus areas. Example companies: Advisory Board, AlphaSense, Quantilope, WBA Research, Definitive Healthcare
Experience insights	The ability to leverage solicited feedback and indirect information about the comprehensive consumer healthcare journey to understand consumer behaviors and inform opportunities for improving the patient experience within the organization. Example companies: PEP Health, Feedtrail, NICE Satmetrix, Authenticx
Brand insights	The ability to leverage reported data about perceptions of the health system brand within local and broader markets, to inform brand positioning & strategy, opportunities for growth or improvement. Example companies: Awario, Quantilope
Comprehensive consumer insights	The ability to integrate market, brand, and experience insights into a unified platform that provides a holistic understanding of the consumer across all touchpoints and enables coordinated strategic action. Example companies: The Harris Poll, InMoment, Radius, Qualtrics, Fuel Cycle, Press Ganey, BRAND24

The case for digital in consumer insights

Consumer expectations have drastically evolved, yet healthcare’s ability to understand and meet these expectations has lagged behind other industries. The gap between what patients expect and what healthcare organizations deliver continues to widen, with traditional healthcare feedback mechanisms failing to capture the comprehensive voice of the consumer. While sectors like retail and hospitality have transformed how they gather and act on customer insights in real-time, healthcare has remained largely reliant on limited, outdated feedback methods that provide only retrospective views and miss crucial aspects of the consumer experience as they occur. Digital consumer experience insights solutions have emerged as transformative technologies that close this gap, offering not just better feedback collection but a pathway to improved loyalty, operational efficiency, and market differentiation in an increasingly competitive healthcare landscape.

Elevate consumer loyalty and reduce attrition

Consumer loyalty represents a significant challenge to healthcare organizations’ financial health and care continuity. Studies show that 44% of Generation X, 42% of Millennials, and 20% of Boomers are likely to switch primary care physicians in the next three years, which can result in substantial financial impacts on health systems when they lose patients to out-of-network providers.¹ Digital consumer experience insights solutions transform this dynamic by providing comprehensive visibility into what drives loyalty and attrition. Organizations leveraging these solutions have significantly improved consumer retention rates, especially as healthcare consumers increasingly expect experiences matching the caliber of other industries like retail and hospitality.

Streamline operational efficiency and reduce waste

Healthcare facilities face significant administrative burdens responding to poor consumer experiences. Daily, 25% of healthcare customers are caught in an “eddy effect”—a cycle where the customer gets stuck being sent from one service representative to another without resolution.² This operational inefficiency translates directly to financial waste, with healthcare organizations spending an average of $3.8M each year and $323K each month on staff time and resources devoted to resolving these disruptions.³ Consumer experience insights solutions identify these inefficiencies and routes them to the appropriate stakeholders for actions. By pinpointing the exact touchpoints where consumers struggle most frequently, organizations can implement targeted improvements rather than system-wide changes. The downstream effects of this are substantial—reduced call volumes, shorter wait times, more efficient staffing, and significant operational cost savings that can be redirected to patient care initiatives.

Differentiate in competitive markets

In increasingly competitive healthcare markets, understanding and acting on consumer insights can be a key differentiator. With non-traditional competitors entering healthcare and offering superior digital experiences, established providers risk losing market share if they don’t understand evolving consumer expectations. Consumer experience insights solutions provide the data needed to identify specific areas for competitive advantage. Hospitals with patient satisfaction scores falling substantially below retail healthcare competitors can use these insights to identify and address the most impactful experience gaps.⁴ Companies that can increase loyalty by just 7%, can increase customer lifetime value by 85%.⁵ By implementing comprehensive consumer experience insights solutions, healthcare organizations can transform their understanding of consumer needs from fragmented to holistic, their approach from reactive to proactive, and their market position from undifferentiated to distinctly consumer-centric—delivering better experiences, improved operational efficiency, and stronger competitive advantage.

Sources

March 5, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Complex care management

Complex Care Management involves using advanced analytics and digital tools to identify and proactively manage high-risk, high-cost patients through coordinated, personalized interventions. Digital solutions in this space integrate predictive analytics, care coordination tools, and patient engagement platforms to enable healthcare organizations to deliver targeted interventions that improve outcomes while reducing costs.

Complex care management framework

High-risk population identification
Predictive risk stratification	Platforms that apply algorithms to identify high-risk patients to determine which individuals are most likely to benefit from specific interventions, and recommend targeted actions with patient-specific guidance for care teams. Example companies: Lightbeam Health Solutions, ClosedLoop, n1 Health, Innovaccer
Rising risk tracking and utilization monitoring	Systems that track emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and care transitions across healthcare settings to enable immediate intervention, manage critical transition points, and identify patients with rising utilization patterns before they become high-risk. Example companies: PointClickCare, Bamboo Health
Comprehensive care orchestration
Cross-continuum care planning and coordination	Solutions that enable diverse care team members to collaboratively develop personalized care plans and coordinate implementation across disparate care settings and organizations. Example companies: WellSky, Dina, Olio Health
Social care integration	Platforms that connect clinical teams with community-based organizations to address social determinants of health. Example companies: Unite Us, findhelp
Intensive outreach and engagement
Personalized behavioral engagement	Platforms supporting outreach through multiple channels (text, voice, video) while leveraging behavioral science principles to motivate engagement from hard-to-reach, high-risk patients. Example companies: Personify Health, Lirio, Wellth
Digitally-enabled wrap-around care	Solutions that power both digital and physical delivery models to extend care beyond traditional settings, into patients’ homes and community environments, enabling care teams to provide services where patients live and interact. Example companies: Homeward Health, MedArrive, DispatchHealth, Luna, Reimagine Care

The case for digital in complex care management

The success of complex care management hinges on three fundamental capabilities: identifying the right high-risk patients to focus on, orchestrating care across multiple providers and settings, and maintaining consistent engagement with hard-to-reach populations. While healthcare organizations recognize these imperatives, they struggle to execute them effectively using traditional approaches that are often prohibitively labor-intensive and cost-inefficient at scale. Digital solutions offer the potential to transform complex care management by precisely identifying impactable patients, enabling seamless care coordination, and fostering lasting engagement through innovative outreach strategies – all while making efficient use of limited clinical resources.

Identify high-impact opportunities with precision

The current healthcare model misses critical intervention opportunities, as many hospitals lack effective screening for social needs that drive utilization.¹ The impact is significant–80-90% of health outcomes are determined by factors outside traditional clinical care.² Digital risk prediction platforms enable systematic identification of high-risk, high-cost patients before they experience avoidable utilization. For example, predictive analytics for complex care management can identify patients with similar levels of future cost but much lower levels of mean reversion (the tendency for current high utilizers to utilize care in the future) compared to traditional risk scores (predicting high utilizing members through inpatient and emergency department costs), allowing for more effective intervention targeting.

Coordinate complex care across multiple settings

Complex patients interact with multiple providers annually, creating significant coordination challenges that lead to unnecessary spending on repeat tests and avoidable emergency department visits and hospitalization.³ Traditional care management approaches rely on manual processes and siloed communication, resulting in fragmented care and missed intervention opportunities. Digital platforms enable seamless coordination across care settings, which can help organizations reduce readmission rates, lower healthcare costs, and keep patients out of risk.⁴

Drive consistent engagement with hard-to-reach populations

Health systems struggle to maintain meaningful connections with complex patients, with traditional outreach methods failing to reach many high-risk individuals who often lack access to meaningful solutions and care. A leading children’s hospital found that 50% of families in their network were not reachable by phone and one-third of all automated, outbound phone messages resulted in additional questions (AVIA Insights). Digital engagement platforms enable consistent, personalized outreach across multiple channels. Additionally, beyond just expanding reach, these sophisticated platforms leverage behavioral science principles, personalization algorithms, and precision engagement timing to significantly increase patient activation. Organizations implementing these omnichannel digital engagement strategies can achieve significant improvements in patient outreach effectiveness by substantially reducing no-show rates and improving patient care plan adherence through behavioral science-informed communication approaches. These platforms generate insights about individual communication preferences and response patterns, enabling increasingly refined approaches that drive meaningful behavior change even among traditionally disengaged populations.

Sources

March 5, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Hospital at home

Hospital at Home represents an innovative care delivery model that enables health systems to provide acute-level care in patients’ homes through a combination of digital technologies, remote monitoring, and in-person care teams. Digital solutions in this space integrate virtual care platforms, remote patient monitoring, logistics management, and advanced analytics to enable safe and effective hospital-level care delivery outside traditional facilities.

Hospital at home solutions

Non-emergent and urgent care	The ability to provide timely medical attention for acute, non-life-threatening conditions in the patient’s home, including daily physician visits (e.g., in-person, telemedicine) and 24/7 on-call support to address urgent medical needs without requiring hospital admission. Example companies: myLaurel, MedArrive, Dispatch Health
Diagnostic services	The ability to perform various diagnostic tests in the patient’s home (e.g., point-of-care blood tests, ultrasounds, X-rays, and electrocardiograms) and ensuring timely diagnosis and treatment adjustments. Example companies: Sprinter Health, Getlabs
Home delivered pharmacy	The ability to dispense, deliver, and administer medications directly to the patient’s home (e.g., including intravenous medications), ensuring proper dosing and adherence to prescribed treatments. Example companies: Capsule, Alto Pharmacy
Home care nursing	The ability to provide skilled nursing care in the patient’s home (e.g., including two daily visits by registered nurses or mobile integrated health paramedics) and administer treatments, monitor patient condition, and provide education to patients and caregivers. Example companies: BrightStar Care
Durable medical equipment (DME) and supply chain	The ability to efficiently deliver and manage durable medical equipment (DME) and necessary medical supplies to the patient’s home, ensuring that all required tools and resources for hospital-level care are available and properly maintained. Example companies: Parachute Health, Tomorrow Health
Infusion	The ability to administer intravenous fluids, medications, and other infusion therapies in the patient’s home, including training caregivers on proper administration techniques when appropriate, to maintain hospital-level treatment protocols. Example companies: CareCentrix, Dispatch Health
Rehab	The ability to provide rehabilitation services, such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, in the patient’s home environment, facilitating recovery and preventing functional decline associated with traditional hospital stays. Example companies: Luna, Spinezone
Care delivery platforms	The ability to leverage a combination of remote monitoring technologies, telemedicine, and in-home healthcare services to deliver acute medical care, including diagnostics, treatment, and monitoring, to patients at home. Example companies: Medically Home, Contessa, Inbound Health, Dispatch Health, Current Health

The case for digital in hospital at home

Healthcare organizations face an urgent need to extend acute care capacity beyond their physical walls. With inpatient units routinely operating over occupancy, emergency departments facing extended wait times, and patients increasingly seeking alternatives to traditional hospitalization, the facility-based care model has reached its limits. While Hospital at Home programs can effectively deliver acute care in patients’ homes, health systems struggle to scale these programs without robust digital infrastructure to manage distributed care teams, remote monitoring, and complex logistics.

Expand acute care capacity

Traditional hospital expansion requires massive capital investment — ranging $500K-$1.5M per bed for new construction — and years of planning and building.¹ Digital Hospital at Home solutions enable health systems to add acute care capacity rapidly and flexibly. Each Hospital at Home “bed” has the capacity to serve more patients annually than a physical hospital bed through more efficient workflows and shorter lengths of stay, with a 1.2-day reduction in average length of stay.² This allows health systems to treat more patients and capture more revenue. By shifting appropriate patients to home-based care and backfilling higher-acuity cases, a leading health system generated $6.6M annualized additional revenue through their Hospital at Home program (AVIA Insights).

Enable safe acute care at home

Managing acute patients across distributed home settings creates unique clinical and operational challenges that digital solutions help address. Remote monitoring platforms with automated early warning systems have enabled programs to detect patient deterioration hours earlier than traditional rounding.³ Virtual command centers staffed by physicians and nurses can oversee multiple home patients simultaneously 24/7.⁴ Programs leveraging comprehensive digital infrastructure have demonstrated equivalent or better outcomes compared to facility care, with hospitalization-associated disabilities reduced by 70% and hospital-acquired infections occurring in just 0.1% of patients compared to 8.6% in traditional settings.⁵

Drive scale through digital operations

Achieving meaningful financial impact from Hospital at Home requires operating at scale, which is impossible without robust digital infrastructure. The manual approach to Hospital at Home that worked for early pilot programs with 5-10 patients breaks down at larger volumes that health systems need to achieve ROI. Digital platforms have proven essential for scale as leading health systems have relied on a digitally-enabled command center to coordinate care across their entire service area, serving thousands of patients by operating as a “virtual hospital” within their EMR (AVIA Insights). The financial impact is significant with AVIA analysis showing that a 50-bed Hospital at Home program can generate $35M+ in annual revenue through a combination of direct program revenue and backfill of higher-acuity inpatient cases (AVIA Insights). This scale would be operationally impossible without digital solutions managing patient identification, care coordination, supply chain, and monitoring across distributed settings. Additionally, digital infrastructure enables programs to flex capacity up and down based on demand without the fixed costs of traditional hospital expansion, providing strategic advantages as health systems face increasing pressure to shift care to lower-cost settings.

Sources

February 19, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Customer relationship management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in healthcare represents a transformative approach that enables health systems to personalize interactions throughout the customer lifecycle to meet customer expectations and influence behavior. While patient engagement and outreach is a primary focus, CRM capabilities extend to managing relationships with physicians, caregivers, community partners, payors, and donors. The platform also serves internal departments like Human Resources, Philanthropy, and Community Relations teams by providing tools to manage their unique constituent relationships and engagement needs.

Digital solutions in this space integrate consumer data analytics, omnichannel communication capabilities, and advanced workflow automation to enable healthcare organizations to deliver personalized experiences at scale while optimizing operational efficiency.

Customer relationship management framework

Patient engagement and outreach
Marketing optimization	Platforms that enable targeted outreach, campaign automation, and ROI tracking through data-driven insights and consumer analytics to acquire and retain patients effectively. Example companies: Cured, Salesforce, WebMD Ignite, Personify
Call center optimization	Solutions that streamline contact center operations through unified service desks, intelligent routing, and comprehensive patient views to improve first-call resolution and patient satisfaction. Example companies: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, TalkDesk, Cogito
Personalized engagement	Tools that enable personalized patient interactions across touchpoints by leveraging historical engagement data, preferences, and predictive analytics. Example companies: Salesforce, CipherHealth, OneView, Microsoft Dynamics 365
Care coordination	Platforms that facilitate care team collaboration, care plan management, and patient communication to improve outcomes and reduce gaps in care. Example companies: CipherHealth, Epic, Salesforce
Care delivery and operations
Physician alignment	Solutions for managing physician relationships, analyzing referral patterns, and optimizing network utilization to improve care coordination and market share. Example companies: Trilliant Health, Definitive Healthcare, ReferralMD
Strategic and operational planning	Analytics solutions that leverage CRM data to inform strategic decisions around service line planning, facility operations, and market expansion. Example companies: Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Personify
Population health management	Tools that integrate CRM capabilities with clinical data to identify at-risk populations, manage care programs, and measure outcomes at scale. Example companies: Epic, Salesforce, Personify, WebMD Ignite

The case for customer relationship management

As patients’ relationship with health systems becomes more akin to consumer experiences in other industries, healthcare organizations face mounting pressure to anticipate, understand, and respond to consumer behavior. Traditional approaches to patient engagement lack the personalization and consistency that modern healthcare consumers expect. While health systems recognize the need to transform their consumer relationships, they struggle to deliver personalized experiences at scale without robust digital solutions that can unify clinical and non-clinical patient data and orchestrate interactions across touchpoints.

Personalize and enhance consumer experience

Healthcare systems often struggle with siloed data and disconnected touchpoints that create frustrating patient experiences and prevent meaningful engagement. Digital CRM platforms solve this fragmentation by unifying patient data into a comprehensive view that enables truly personalized interactions across every channel–from marketing outreach to clinical encounters. With 80% of patients now preferring digital communication with their healthcare providers, health systems implementing CRM solutions have seen dramatic improvements in patient engagement, including 83.5% reductions in website bounce rates and 21% higher click-through rates on targeted communications (AVIA Insights).¹

Drive growth through streamlined acquisition

In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, health systems struggle to effectively attract new patients and retain existing ones without a data-driven approach to consumer engagement. CRM platforms enable organizations to identify high-value growth opportunities through predictive analytics and propensity modeling while automating targeted outreach to the right consumers at the right time. Health systems implementing these solutions have seen dramatic results, including an improvement in marketing campaign effectiveness and an increase in new patient acquisition rates (AVIA Insights). Furthermore, by leveraging consumer insights to personalize engagement strategies, organizations can achieve higher patient retention rates and significantly increased lifetime patient value through improved service line utilization.

Automate processes and improve operational efficiency

Health system operations are significantly impacted by disconnected patient engagement processes and systems. With increasing pressure on both clinical and administrative resources, organizations need solutions that maximize efficiency while maintaining quality. Digital CRM platforms have addressed this by reducing call handle times and improving first-call resolution rates.² By automating outreach and communication workflows, digital solutions can help organizations create personalized experiences at scale while simultaneously providing staff with real-time patient information. This automation reduces manual work in patient engagement processes and enables more efficient, data-driven interactions.

Sources

1. https://www.redpointglobal.com/press-releases/80-of-patients-prefer-to-use-digital-communication-to-interact-with-healthcare-providers-and-brands/
2. https://www.sequencehealth.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-aht-in-a-call-center-top-strategies,
  https://www.qliqsoft.com/ultimate-guide/to/healthcare-call-center-software

February 19, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Coordinated community networks

Coordinated Community Networks are digital platforms that integrate healthcare providers, community-based organizations, and social services to systematically address patients’ social determinants of health and improve outcomes. These digital solutions connect healthcare providers with community-based organizations and social services to deliver whole-person care, integrating screening, referrals, and analytics to reduce disparities and avoidable utilization.

Coordinated community networks framework

Community resource referral platforms	Solutions that help connect clients with community-based organizations (CBOs) and other resources, track their progress, and link information back to the clinical care team. These platforms enable standardized screening, resource matching, and closed-loop referral management. Example companies: Unite Us, WellSky, findhelp
Social determinants of health analytics	Predictive analytics solutions that help surface at-risk clients for immediate referral and social need management options. These platforms analyze patterns in social determinants data to identify high-risk populations and inform intervention strategies. Example companies: Socially Determined, N1 Health, Activate Care, Unite Us
Equity-based decision support	Solutions that deliver integrated insights in real-time during care delivery to connect patients with appropriate social determinants of health resources at the point of care. Example companies: TruLite Health, Alvee
Population health analytics	Comprehensive platforms that enable data acquisition, risk stratification, and predictive modeling to understand community needs and measure program impact at scale. Example companies: Datavant, Arcadia, Innovaccer, Lightbeam Health Solutions

The case for coordinated community networks

Healthcare organizations are struggling to address the growing crisis of unmet social needs that drive poor health outcomes and rising costs. While many health systems recognize the importance of connecting patients to community resources, manual screening processes, fragmented referral systems, and lack of outcome tracking make it impossible to scale these efforts effectively. Without digital solutions to coordinate care across healthcare and social service providers, organizations cannot systematically identify needs, manage community partnerships, or demonstrate the impact of social care programs. Coordinated community network platforms offer a transformative approach to build and manage high-performing networks of community resources that can measurably improve outcomes.

Reduce disparities through systematic social care

Health systems need better ways to manage patients’ social needs as unaddressed social factors lead to increased risk of hospital readmission and significantly lower medication adherence rates.¹ Once underserved patients are connected with coordinated community services, they experience fewer ED visits and health systems achieve significant savings through reduced avoidable utilization.² Digital platforms address this by enabling systematic screening and efficient referrals, with organizations implementing these solutions reporting over 70% of needs resolved across the nation.³

Scale community networks and partnerships

Healthcare organizations struggle to maintain current information about community resources, with traditional resource directories becoming outdated. Manual coordination processes result in staff spending significant amounts of time on social need navigation, creating significant operational overhead that prevents scaling.⁴ Digital platforms have addressed this by providing centralized, real-time resource directories and automated referral tracking, reducing staff time spent on coordination while enabling organizations to manage networks of hundreds of community partners effectively (AVIA Insights).

Drive data-informed population health impact

Health systems need data-driven insights to target interventions effectively, as traditional approaches miss high proportions of high-risk patients who could benefit from social need interventions.⁵ Without digital solutions, organizations lack visibility into community needs and have difficulty reporting intervention outcomes consistently.⁶ Coordinated community network platforms address this through integrated analytics, enabling organizations to identify at-risk populations with greater accuracy through comprehensive tracking of referrals, service utilization, and population health metrics. Leading organizations leveraging these platforms report improvements in their ability to identify and address resource gaps in their communities (AVIA Insights).

Sources

February 19, 2025

health system resources

Digital transformation essentials — Second opinions

Digital second opinion solutions enable patients and providers to obtain expert medical consultation and validation of diagnoses, treatment plans, and care decisions through virtual platforms. These solutions facilitate systematic medical record collection, expert specialist matching, and comprehensive case review to deliver thorough medical recommendations and care planning support at scale.

Digital second opinion solutions

Diagnosis and need identification	Solutions that streamline initial case intake through automated medical record collection, consent management, and case documentation that help identify and validate the need for expert consultation. Example companies: 2nd.MD, Included Health
Case review and triage	Solutions that enable systematic medical record review, specialist matching, and payment processing through AI-assisted documentation analysis and expert network management. Example companies: MORE Health
Consults	Solutions that facilitate expert case review through synchronous and asynchronous specialist consultations, supporting both patient-facing and provider-to-provider interactions. Example companies: MORE Health, RubiconMD
Recommendations, referral, and follow-up	Comprehensive platforms for delivering expert recommendations, coordinating with primary care teams, and tracking clinical outcomes. Example companies: AristaMD

The case for digital second opinion solutions

Healthcare organizations face increasing pressure to improve care quality, reduce unnecessary procedures, and enhance patient satisfaction while managing rising costs. Traditional approaches to second opinions often involve complex logistics, delayed access to expertise, and fragmented communication. Digital solutions offer healthcare systems the ability to scale their second opinion services efficiently while improving outcomes and patient experience.

Reduce diagnostic errors and treatment variations

Traditional approaches to medical decision-making can lead to diagnostic errors and suboptimal treatment selection. Studies show that up to 20% of patients receive incorrect initial diagnoses, while second opinions result in 37% of cases seeing major changes in either diagnosis or treatment plans.¹ Digital second opinion platforms address this by enabling systematic expert review and providing access to specialized knowledge. Organizations implementing these solutions have demonstrated significant improvements in care quality, including a 72% reduction in unnecessary procedures.²

Expand revenue growth and drive cost savings

Digital second opinion platforms create significant financial value for health systems through both cost avoidance and revenue generation. Expert second opinions can lead to changes in diagnosis or treatment plans, helping avoid unnecessary procedures and reducing treatment costs. For example, Cleveland Clinic’s second opinion program demonstrated that up to 85% of recommended surgeries were deemed unnecessary after expert review, representing substantial cost savings with $8,705 being saved on average per patient.³ Health systems can also expand their reach through multiple models, such as hub-and-spoke networks where academic medical centers provide expert consultation to community hospitals, employer partnerships that establish direct-to-employer centers of excellence, and strengthened referral relationships with independent physician groups. Leading institutions have found that these virtual consultation programs not only reduce costs but also create new revenue streams by capturing downstream care for complex cases that require in-person treatment.

Transform complex case management

Managing complex cases through traditional second opinion processes creates a significant operational burden for both providers and patients. Complex cases often require coordination across multiple specialists, gathering records from various providers, and managing back-and-forth communication–a process that can take weeks or months. Digital platforms transform this experience by automating record collection, facilitating asynchronous specialist review, and enabling structured multidisciplinary consultation. This systematic approach not only reduces the administrative burden on clinical staff but also helps health systems handle higher case volumes without proportional increases in overhead. Additionally, these platforms create digital documentation trails that support quality assurance, enable outcome tracking, and facilitate research on treatment efficacy across similar cases.

Sources

February 12, 2025

health system resources

The rapid adoption of virtual care: A new era in healthcare

As the healthcare industry evolves, Virtual Care and Virtual Nursing are emerging as transformative solutions that enhance care delivery and address the growing complexities of modern healthcare. As nurses, embracing Virtual Care offers us the opportunity to reimagine our roles, focusing on what we love most: hands-on care, less administrative distractions, and building meaningful connections with our patients.

Differentiating virtual care and virtual nursing

Virtual nursing is a distinct component of Virtual Care, which encompasses a broader range of innovations, including:

Predictive analytics
Streamlined documentation
Consistent monitoring
Personalized patient support
Telehealth integration
Family connection
Real-time support
And more.

While Virtual Care empowers bedside nurses through tools like alerts and notifications, Virtual Nursing specifically focuses on alleviating the bedside nurse’s workload by taking on tasks such as admissions, discharges, and patient education. Importantly, neither replaces the bedside nurse but rather enhances their ability to deliver exceptional care in a lower-stress environment while avoiding adverse outcomes.

Shifting time-consuming tasks to virtual nurses

One of the most compelling benefits of Virtual Nursing is its ability to alleviate the burden of time-intensive and often tedious tasks. These responsibilities, while essential, can detract from the direct care we provide at the bedside. Virtual nurses can assume these duties, allowing bedside nurses to dedicate more time to patient care. This not only improves job satisfaction but also contributes to better patient outcomes.

For example, a study published in the Journal of Nursing Administration found that when virtual nursing programs were implemented, bedside nurses reported a 25% increase in the time they spent on direct patient care. This shift enhances the quality of care while reducing the risk of burnout among nurses.

Expanding career opportunities for nurses

Virtual Nursing also offers a sustainable career path for those who may find the physical demands of bedside nursing increasingly challenging. Over time, the intense nature of 12-hour shifts and prolonged periods on our feet can take a toll on our bodies. The role of a virtual nurse provides a viable alternative, enabling experienced nurses to continue contributing their expertise in a less physically demanding capacity. This transition not only prolongs careers but also ensures that the wealth of knowledge and experience accumulated over years of practice is not lost.

Transitioning experienced bedside nurses to virtual care leadership roles within the organization is widely regarded as best practice. These nurses bring valuable knowledge of the organization, patient population, policies, staff, and providers. This approach should also be viewed as a retention strategy, allowing tenured nurses to continue making a meaningful impact on patient care—a true win-win scenario.

Empowering new nurses with on-demand support

For new nurses entering the profession, Virtual Nursing serves as a safety net, fostering confidence and competence. Having on-demand support from experienced virtual nurses allows novice nurses to navigate complex situations with guidance and reassurance. Evidence supports this impact: a survey published in Nurse Educator Today revealed that 85% of new nurses felt more confident in their roles when they had access to virtual support during their shifts. This mentorship model bridges the gap between education and practice, creating a supportive environment that benefits both new nurses and patients.

Leadership’s role in successful integration

While Virtual Nursing programs offer a transformative approach to patient care, their success hinges on thoughtful implementation. Leadership plays a pivotal role in fostering cultural buy-in, sustaining program success, and ensuring adaptability to change. As Page Twenter’s article, “Don’t ‘cannibalize’ virtual nurses, nurse leaders say,” highlights, leadership’s influence is critical in preventing pitfalls such as misusing virtual nurses as a staffing buffer. Instead, leadership must ensure virtual nursing is integrated as a reliable and indispensable component of care delivery.

The primary objective of virtual nursing is to assist bedside nurses, easing their responsibilities while upholding the highest standards of care. For these programs to succeed, they must be implemented with a clear purpose, strong organizational commitment, and a cultural shift that integrates virtual nursing seamlessly into the care team. Reliability is key; sporadic availability risks undermining trust and cultural buy-in among staff.

Role differentiation is another essential aspect. Virtual nurses should not be treated as extra staff to be pulled to the bedside during shortages. Their role must be clearly defined and consistently upheld to reinforce their value as allies who enhance efficiency and patient care. By maintaining this distinction, bedside teams can fully appreciate the benefits of virtual nursing without feeling undermined or shortchanged.

A win-win for nurses and patients

Incorporating virtual nurses into the care team creates a symbiotic relationship where both nurses and patients benefit.

For nurses, the reduction in administrative burdens and the availability of virtual mentorship enhance job satisfaction and professional growth.
For patients, Virtual Nursing ensures timely and comprehensive care, as virtual nurses can provide immediate assistance, address questions, and support bedside teams in delivering high-quality care.

Research supports these benefits. A pilot program at a large healthcare system found that integrating virtual nurses led to a 20% improvement in patient satisfaction scores and a 15% reduction in hospital readmissions. These results underscore the potential of Virtual Nursing to enhance care delivery while addressing critical healthcare challenges.

Embracing the future of nursing

The world of nursing has evolved through various care delivery and staffing models, adapting to changing patient acuity, organizational growth, and innovation. Virtual nursing now adds to this dynamic mix, transforming what patient care delivery looks and feels like for all. This is no longer a concept for the future—it is here and now, actively utilized in dozens of healthcare systems globally.

By committing to a well-structured and reliable virtual nursing program, organizations can alleviate the workload of bedside teams while fostering cultural buy-in. A virtual nursing cohort that complements bedside teams, rather than competing with or depleting them, ensures both models thrive. This balance is essential to delivering high-quality patient care and sustaining a supportive environment for all nursing staff.

Leadership support is the cornerstone of overcoming resistance and ensuring virtual care programs align seamlessly with organizational goals. Nurse executives who demonstrate accountability and visible commitment foster trust among staff and stakeholders, signaling unwavering dedication to the program’s success. By aligning their actions with the organization’s mission and engaging stakeholders at all levels, leaders can drive the scalability and sustainability of Virtual Nursing programs. Together, we can build a culture of excellence in care delivery and innovation, ensuring that nursing remains a fulfilling and impactful profession for generations to come.

Works cited

Journal of Nursing Administration. Impact of Virtual Nursing on Direct Patient Care Time and Nurse Satisfaction. Vol. 50, no. 3, 2023, pp. 45-52.

Nurse Educator Today. Virtual Nursing and New Nurse Confidence: A Quantitative Analysis. Vol. 60, 2022, pp. 112-119.

Twenter, Page. “Don’t ‘Cannibalize’ Virtual Nurses, Nurse Leaders Say.” Becker’s Hospital Review, 2024, https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/news-and-analysis/dont-cannibalize-virtual-nurses-nurse-leaders-say.html

[Large Healthcare System]. Pilot Program on Virtual Nursing Integration: Patient Outcomes and Readmission Rates. Internal Report, 2023.

NESA: Enabling Virtual Care. The Right Team at the Right Time. Natively Embedded in Epic.

February 12, 2025

health system resources

Interpretation services solutions

The case for interpretation services

Prevent clinical miscommunication and medical errors

Address overhead costs

Improve patient experience and regulatory compliance

Sources

Care transitions framework

The case for digital in care transitions

Bridge care gaps to improve clinical outcomes

Streamline operations to maximize resource efficiency

Drive financial success in value-based care models

Sources

Primary care digital solutions

The case for digital in primary care

Transform clinical care delivery

Drive market growth and competitive advantage

Optimize financial performance

Sources

Consumer insights solutions

The case for digital in consumer insights

Elevate consumer loyalty and reduce attrition

Streamline operational efficiency and reduce waste

Differentiate in competitive markets

Sources

Complex care management framework

The case for digital in complex care management

Identify high-impact opportunities with precision

Coordinate complex care across multiple settings

Drive consistent engagement with hard-to-reach populations

Sources

Hospital at home solutions

The case for digital in hospital at home

Expand acute care capacity

Enable safe acute care at home

Drive scale through digital operations

Sources

Customer relationship management framework

The case for customer relationship management

Personalize and enhance consumer experience

Drive growth through streamlined acquisition

Automate processes and improve operational efficiency

Sources

Coordinated community networks framework

The case for coordinated community networks

Reduce disparities through systematic social care

Scale community networks and partnerships

Drive data-informed population health impact

Sources

Digital second opinion solutions

The case for digital second opinion solutions

Reduce diagnostic errors and treatment variations

Expand revenue growth and drive cost savings

Transform complex case management

Sources

Differentiating virtual care and virtual nursing

Shifting time-consuming tasks to virtual nurses

Expanding career opportunities for nurses

Empowering new nurses with on-demand support

Leadership’s role in successful integration

A win-win for nurses and patients

Embracing the future of nursing

About AVIA Intelligence Platform