3 Ways for Independent Hospitals to Achieve Cost Containment

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2. Utilizing Managed Companies to Fight Employees Shortages

As rural, impartial and group hospitals assess their IT infrastructure, execute cost-saving measures, and contemplate new options and methods, it’s essential to maintain cybersecurity prime of thoughts. A cyberattack not solely threatens an impartial hospital’s backside line and places affected person knowledge in danger nevertheless it additionally threatens the hospital’s model fame and sufferers’ belief.

Whereas cybersecurity is critically essential for impartial hospitals, it may be tough for his or her well being IT groups to take a position closely within the workers, instruments and methods wanted to guard the group. That’s the place managed providers are available in. With a managed providers companion like CDW, an impartial hospital can monitor its community visitors 24/7 with out the hospital having to make use of workers with the talents to carry out the duty.

Any funding in cybersecurity additionally may also help to cut back the price of cybersecurity insurance coverage, which is a rising necessity within the trade on account of a rise in assaults concentrating on healthcare.

One other good thing about managed providers and a managed community monitoring system is that they release an impartial hospital’s IT workers to concentrate on different strategic duties. It may be laborious for rural, impartial and group hospitals to search out CISOs or expert safety engineers. By empowering a companion to handle safety by a digital CISO or different managed cybersecurity service, an impartial hospital can make the most of an amazing talent set that they may not have been capable of finding domestically amid a scarcity in IT and safety consultants.

It’s attainable for impartial hospitals to recruit from outdoors of their areas, however they’re competing with massive hospital techniques who can probably supply in-house safety consultants bigger salaries.

READ MORE: Discover the proper cloud answer on your impartial, rural or group hospital.

3. Impartial Hospitals Ought to Take Benefit of Federal Funding

Impartial hospitals can leverage federal {dollars} to assist pay for cybersecurity and IT infrastructure investments. Through the pandemic, a number of one-time grants had been made accessible to assist offset prices related to treating sufferers with COVID-19. A lot of these {dollars} had been put aside for IT investments, notably telemedicine. Whereas these grants are not accessible, there are nonetheless annual grants accessible to rural, impartial and group hospitals.

Changing into educated about these applications may also help diversify the hospital’s income stream on an ongoing foundation. These grants embody the Well being Care Join Fund from the Common Service Administrative Co., the Distance Studying and Telemedicine grant program from U.S. Division of Agriculture Rural Growth and the Small Rural Hospital Enchancment Program from the Well being Assets and Companies Administration.

Many smaller hospitals that want federal funding and which might be the supposed recipients of those {dollars} don’t have grant writers on workers like bigger hospital techniques may. It may be useful for impartial hospitals to rent consultants to navigate the grant software course of. Whereas CDW doesn’t do grant writing or have any contractual relationships with grant writers, our strategists can level impartial hospitals towards grant consultants who’ve been useful to different clients.

Rural, impartial and group hospitals don’t need to navigate right this moment’s advanced healthcare panorama alone. A strategic IT companion comparable to CDW may also help them to attain price containment whereas defending affected person knowledge in order that they will concentrate on affected person care.

This text is a part of HealthTech’s MonITor weblog sequence.