George W. Bush, in his State of the Union speech in 2004, stated, "By computerizing health records, we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs, and improve care."As a result, healthcare technology investment in the 2000s focused on the digitization of the medical record and its associated processes. President Obama solidified this mandate with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requiring the electronic medical record to take effect by 2014.

From Bed Management to Discharge Planning this period ushered in substantial investments in data collection and data digitization technologies. These investments are depicted on the left side of the infographic below.  Costs, however, were not reduced.

Experience the Joy of Practicing Medicine® with Discharge as a Service

Situation

There is perhaps no easier way to slow the throughput of your hospital than by stumbling through an ineffective discharge process. Inefficient and drawn-out discharges arise naturally out of competing staff priorities and process variations. These effectively reduce the physician’s and nurses’ ability to readily coordinate discharges. Each disjointed operational and logistical variation becomes the responsibility of yet another care giver to manage - distracting everyone from the joy of practicing medicine.