Helping federal agencies with healthcare solutions

Collaboration and interoperability help federal agencies improve the delivery of healthcare solutions. 

Federal agencies have made a lot of progress toward better meeting the needs of the citizens, beneficiaries and partners they serve. Advances in technology, updated business processes and a move to digital transformation have allowed agencies to meet their goals faster and improve the delivery of services. Yet agencies continue to struggle with new and ongoing challenges, and they still face barriers optimizing technology. 

Part of the problem stems from organizations using various systems. This is usually the result of agencies adding new or open-source technologies onto their legacy platforms to gain new capabilities or to solve a specific issue. Now, agencies are saddled with a variety of systems that are outdated, don’t communicate, create even more silos or support projects that are no longer funded. 

Agencies such as the Defense Health Agency (DHA), Health and Human Services (HHS) and Veterans Affairs (VA) don’t need an expensive and disruptive rip-and-replacement of their current systems. But they do need their disparate technologies to communicate and share information. Until that happens, their technologies will create obstacles rather than eliminate them. 

Intelligently connect all systems  

DHA, HHS, VA and other federal healthcare service agencies are striving to improve the quality and delivery of care. They’re discovering that to be successful, the entire organization must be aligned behind the same goals and seamlessly share information. Departments can no longer work in isolation or use their own data sets to drive results. Instead, they need to collaborate with all other departments and even outside organizations, such as universities and private sector healthcare companies, to best serve their citizens. 

While departments may experience short-term gains by working in a silo or achieve their individual objectives quickly, reaching organization-wide goals requires collaboration. And collaboration requires interoperable technology that cooperatively shares data and information in an intelligent, coordinated way. This results in improved medical treatments and care for veterans, service members, seniors, citizens, and others. 

A single platform—the Now Platform® from ServiceNow—can connect all technologies across an agency. The connectivity delivers a range of benefits to accelerate and enhance healthcare and other services. For example, interoperability allows agencies to transparently and securely share the electric health records of beneficiaries or veterans. 

Interoperability also enables end-to-end digital workflows, which gives agencies the ability to share best practices and other information. Agencies benefit from enhanced levels of collaboration to foster better, faster, more efficient care. 

A modern approach to care via a modern approach to technology 

The need for modern technologies is not new. Agencies, just like innovative businesses, rely on tech solutions to fulfill their mission. The solutions play an increasingly critical role as agencies shift toward digitalization, modernize the delivery of healthcare, and improve outcomes. For large agencies like DHA, HHS and VA, a single technology will not meet all of their vast and diverse needs. Multiple and sometimes specialized solutions are needed, and they must be able to “talk” to each other. 

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the need for interoperability and information sharing. Agencies have most of their staffs working from home, and they need to connect remotely to systems to access information. To be efficient, employees should be able to access an ecosystem from a single point of entry to get all of the information they need rather than signing on to several systems. 

The pandemic also emphasizes the need for digital processes that can share information organization-wide and with third parties. This helps, for example, agencies and their partners to digitally share health records about beneficiaries and patients who were transferred to different care facilities due to COVID-19 or needed to receive treatment. The ability to share information eliminates the need for patients to fill out redundant forms for each treatment or transfer. 

ServiceNow offers a platform and solutions to help agencies and healthcare providers eliminate pain points and solve problems through digital processes and interoperability. See a recent data sheet for the details. 

Digitize processes without the drawbacks

Agencies realize the value of digital processes, such as the ability to quickly and transparently share information such as medical records. Agencies may have also experienced that a digital transformation can have unintended consequences, such as creating an additional administrative burden for many clinicians who need to learn new skills. 

The upside is that the hurdle to digitalization is temporary. Agencies and healthcare organizations will ultimately see a time savings and less admin work. They’ll also see more satisfied patients who appreciate that they don’t have to fill out similar forms every time they see a doctor. A complete electronic record, for instance, that stays with the patient results in better care because providers can see the person’s entire medical history, including when and where treatments were provided. 

Our infographic shows how technology is modernizing healthcare. See the latest stats and data on healthcare and digital processes. 

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