Bill Siwicki

Bill Siwicki

Bill Siwicki is Managing Editor of Healthcare IT News. Bill has nearly 40 years of experience in journalism, with more than 25 years experience in healthcare IT.

Strategy
McLaren Health Care reduces lab tests per patient per day by 5.6%, saving $383,000
By Bill Siwicki | 03:07 pm | October 31, 2019
Partnering with two firms focused on lab analytics and building a High-Value Care program, the health system within 15 months reduced unnecessary potassium tests by 63%, unnecessary magnesium tests by 40%, and unnecessary lipid panels by 40%.
Cybersecurity tips for CIOs and CISOs dealing with the widely dispersed data of healthcare
By Bill Siwicki | 01:29 pm | October 30, 2019
A security expert says discover assets on a network, perform vulnerability assessments, embrace identity governance, perform privileged access management, hire white hat ethical hackers and more.
How clinical documentation improvement helped one hospital boost speed, efficiency
By Bill Siwicki | 02:16 pm | October 29, 2019
At Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall, prior to the CDI technology, query responses took several days to three weeks. Now, the average response time is 1.4 days. And within the hospital, there are responses within minutes.
Strategy
LCMC Health uses pop health tech to attack value-based care head on
By Bill Siwicki | 02:34 pm | October 28, 2019
Among other successes, the health system surpassed its first-year revenue goals ($3.6 million versus $3.1 million) through a combination of quality improvements and shared savings.
With payment IT, hospital reduced statement costs by half and saved $200,000 in collections fees
By Bill Siwicki | 01:24 pm | October 25, 2019
At Boston Children’s, end-of-day reconciliation became quicker; no more cash drawers for the front-end. The entire hour and a half or more of reconciliation at the end of day was eliminated.
Jefferson Health combines genomics, population health to enhance employee wellness
By Bill Siwicki | 12:38 pm | October 24, 2019
More than 30% of the health system’s employees have signed up for a precision medicine program that helps get predictive genomics data straight to frontline caregivers.
Implementation best practices: The optimal way to approach security
By Bill Siwicki | 01:39 pm | October 23, 2019
Three healthcare cybersecurity experts showcase the most effectual strategies CIOs and CISOs can take when erecting defenses against criminals seeking valuable patient information.
EHR vendor Veradigm and partners creating new shared data tools for researchers
By Bill Siwicki | 02:18 pm | October 22, 2019
Veradigm and NextGen capture 20% of the U.S. population’s health data, with the former gaining even more data from the American College of Cardiology. Veradigm and Microsoft are also building an EHR-agnostic research platform.
Strategy
Hospital replaces manual Rx process with e-filling, achieves error rate of just .006%
By Bill Siwicki | 01:52 pm | October 21, 2019
LIFE St. Mary hospital uses Tabula Rasa HealthCare’s pharmacy platform, which has helped lead to a 16% decrease in ER use and a 27% decrease in total hospitalization.
ACO integrates decision support with its EHR to improve pop health efforts
By Bill Siwicki | 01:20 pm | October 18, 2019
The decision support tool brings holistic data to the clinical team via predictive analytic modeling, while also automating all the data points to help clinicians make optimal interventions.