Now that schools across the UK have shut down, it’s left some parents and carers – many of whom are working from home – with the additional burden of teaching and entertaining their children full-time. The logistics of working while caring for children is complicated at the best of times. Working from home during the lockdown, and since as schools started to return, has left many parents fearful and continually challenged with an even more impossible juggling act.

Meet the new air cooled, single-frame IBM z15 T02 and LinuxONE III LT2 models designed to provide organizations of all sizes with flexible compute options.

The idea of protected execution eliminates the ability for someone to use their access for malicious purposes. Using Secure Service Containers—which have been available for over a year, effectively resolves the problem. Secure Service Containers, now called Hyper Protect Virtual Servers, are available when coding in containers. Organisation using containers require a different approach to solve the same problem, and a second solution from IBM is on the near horizon.

No matter how good their clinical experience may have been, if patients have trouble making a payment in the health system’s financial system, they’ll become frustrated with the health system as a whole. It can cost health systems time and money, risking overall patient satisfaction and revenue. This is where user experience design comes in. User Experience (UX) professionals are always on the lookout for potential usability pitfalls as people interact with software applications.

IBM's 3-pronged DevOps approach helps organizations leverage the IBM Z platform, tools and open-source strategies. Application development operates in open, cloud-native environments. DevOps and the IBM Z platform are evolving quickly to meet the rising demand for cloud-native development, striving to empower developers, system administrators and architects to build and deliver applications using common tooling across the development process and varying environments.

Security and trust are what consumers expect—businesses depend on it, and regulations require it. But cybercrime represents big money and equates to even more significant losses for business. The 2019 IBM Security Report reveals the global average cost of a breach hovers at $3.92 million, with the U.S. topping the charts with an average breach costing $8.19 million—a whopping 130% jump over 14 years. As the frequency, severity and sophistication of incursions increase, organizations must be proactive and vigilant in their approach to security. No one is immune, and the long tail costs—loss of reputation, customers, penalties and fines—are felt for years after an incident. Encryption is one of the best ways to protect data. It renders stolen data useless. However, since 2013, only 4% of the 15 billion records breached were encrypted.

To be effective, health system Chief Revenue Officers (CRO) need to have the right mindset to create a culture of growth, to experiment, and to orchestrate transformation across the entire health system. It’s no surprise that many health systems have a former CFO or a budding, emerging CFO do this role. The CRO is the CFOs righthand resource for all things revenue. Here are five must have attributes for the new health system Chief Revenue Officer.

The health system that can understand patient behavior, identify unexpected opportunities, and anticipate problems before they happen, is more likely to achieve sustainable change and results. It’s predictive analytics that ensures health care executives achieve top priority objectives such as optimizing existing processes, improving patient experience and reducing costs. True North represents the ideal vision from the standpoint of the patient and the health system.

2018 sees the uninsured rate jump, leaving an additional 1.9 million people without coverage. The U.S. Census Bureau released its health insurance coverage estimates for 2018. The new statistics reveal 27.5 million people in total had no health insurance in 2018 — which is approximately 8.5 percent of the U.S. population. The report represents the first government-based evidence indicating an increase in the uninsured rate in a decade.

Consumerism is causing healthcare consumers’ expectations and preferences to align more closely to what would be expected. The link between better patient experience scores, ratings, and financial performance is becoming more pronounced. Patients with better experiences across the different stages of care from registration through to billing are more likely to continue using the services and recommend their provider’s services to other patients. This post will examine a few evidence-based ways to accurately measure and quantify the patient financial experience.

Leveraging open standards, modern languages and open-source tools shortens the learning curve for new developers and IT professionals with cloud-native development experience.

A convergence of external and internal factors is proving a catalyst for change, prompting CFOs to re-engineer the roles within the revenue cycle from a production process into a growth-engine fuelled by a more consumer-friendly experience. The current environment represents an opportunity for CFOs and revenue cycle professionals to think about their responsibilities. Myth buster, David Kirshner dispels the myth that health systems don’t need a chief revenue officer (CRO), exploring why hiring the right CRO could be among the most critical decisions a health system can make.

A fail-safe, effective disaster recovery (DR) plan—one that’s documented and tested regularly—is essential for limiting downtime, avoiding lost revenue, ensuring a speedy recovery and allowing an organization to restore services to clients quickly. A reliable DR plan is not only good for business, it’s also good for those affected by downtime and disasters.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an exciting topic in healthcare – one which is often associated with the clinical or the research side. But what about the back office and the healthcare supply chain? Could artificial intelligence lead to significant improvements in healthcare operations and efficiency, saving billions of dollars each year? At the 2019 World Medical Innovation Forum, a group of healthcare executives formed a panel to discuss how they are using AI-based technologies to good effect.

For years, the healthcare industry has measured consumer satisfaction with clinical encounters through tried and trusted mechanisms like HCAHPS scores. However, there is a lack of data and experience when it comes to understanding what patients expect from their financial experience. Without data, providers lack insight into how to improve the consumer-facing financial process. To understand gaps in the patient experience, VisitPay conducted surveys and focus groups and identified over 80 painpoints.

Tackling the challenge of optimizing payment of patient balances requires health systems to differentiate between standardizing workflow and the creation of a true consumer-grade experience by employing specific software, coupled with marketing and consumer finance know-how. No single vendor can solve every business problem. The best hope is to find a solution that leverages the EMR seamlessly and provides the patient and provider with an integrated view.

Healthcare leaders are facing constant pressure to identify and implement sustainable strategies to effectively improve the way they provide services. To keep pace with increasing consumer expectations, new competition, and evolving delivery and payment models, healthcare CFOs are focusing on strategic imperatives. Kaufman Hall surveyed senior financial executives from more than 160 hospitals, health systems, and other healthcare to gauge organizational priorities impact.