Christopher Johnson, President and co-CEO of TeleTracking, has suggested that healthcare organizations need to focus on operational interoperability, adopt the idea of “Boundaryless Healthcare,” and reflect on the progress made during the pandemic. He has also highlighted the need for a sustainable approach to preparedness for natural disasters, health emergencies, terrorism, or other widespread events. Johnson emphasized the importance of creating shared situational awareness of capacity, referral patterns, and patient demand and expanding partnerships to create a true healthcare ecosystem.
As the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) officially comes to an end on May 11, healthcare organizations and IT leaders must begin to consider what changes this new era will bring. In an interview with Healthcare IT News, Christopher Johnson, President and co-CEO of TeleTracking, discussed the potential impact of the end of the PHE on healthcare systems and the need for new platforms and strategies.
TeleTracking is a healthcare operations platform that combines technology with clinical expertise to optimize access to care, streamline care delivery, and connect transitions of care. Johnson spoke about the need for health systems to focus on operational interoperability, which would allow for real-time visibility across the enterprise and the market. He suggested that health systems could become innovators rather than just consumers of technology and that they should reflect on the progress made to create national visibility of hospital capacity and preparedness during the pandemic.
Johnson also discussed the need for an “All Hazards” platform, which would centralize important capacity metrics across America’s more than 6,000 hospitals, 3,000 therapeutic sites, as well as local and state agencies. This platform would go beyond the latest pandemic to create a sustainable approach to preparedness for natural disasters, health emergencies, terrorism, or other widespread events. The data collected as a result of these efforts, including more than one million distinct data points, played a critical role in the allocation of funding, equipment, vaccines, therapeutics, and staff in response to the pandemic.
Furthermore, Johnson highlighted the need for health system operations to adopt the idea of “Boundaryless Healthcare,” an operating model that allows them to look beyond the four walls of their health system by creating shared situational awareness of capacity, referral patterns, and patient demand. This model expands the capacity to care by optimizing access to care, streamlining care delivery, and connecting transitions of care across all care settings. By creating shared visibility into capacity, health systems can maintain and grow market share and “flatten the care continuum,” creating seamless transitions between stages of care.
