Kristen Raber, corporate director of the Cloud Innovation Lab at Christiana Care Health System, uses emerging technologies to tackle problems for the benefit of the bottom line and the organization’s goals.
“I think culture is a big part of it. It’s about changing the way we’re thinking,” Raber said. “If we’re moving towards a population health perspective, culture change can’t be understated.”
The Cloud Innovation Lab creates partnerships with core vendors around such areas as patient records and billing to solve problems within those systems. It brings together people, technologies, and skills, both internally and externally.
“This innovation lab is about forming deeper relationships to bring problems forward,” Raber said.
One of the big ones is around the time it takes to hire and credential personnel.
“It takes us six months to bring a physician onboard,” she said. “Three months of that is used for us to go through 37 pieces of information and validate it. Meanwhile that physician is basically sidelined.”
It takes another three months of validating the same information to credential the new physician with each insurer.
The Cloud Innovation Lab is working with a vendor for an instant credentialing process using blockchain technology. The credentialing is instantly available digitally through a wallet app, like the one that holds credit card information. It will make for the timely hiring of resources when the app goes live.
The lab doesn’t so much present a solution, as listen to what’s needed not just within the health system but across the entire industry, Raber said. Emphasis is placed on process redesign, coordination improvement initiatives and incubating new ideas for integrating IT into healthcare delivery.
Raber has been leading innovation technology for the past 13 years.
“We look at innovation as a core competency,” she said, “and something that truly needs to be the responsibility of everybody.”
Kristen Raber, corporate director of the Cloud Innovation Lab at Christiana Care Health System, will address “Innovating With Trust, Curiosity and Courage,” on Tuesday, March 10, from 10:30- 11:30 a.m., Room W414D, in the Orange County Convention Center, during HIMSS20 in Orlando, Florida.