by Lumeon
There’s nothing quite like “real world” customers’ perspectives to inform a company’s product strategy and development. Which is one reason why Lumeon was delighted to host the inaugural client summit, a virtual gathering that took place in October, as an opportunity to share information about, Lumeon Conductor™, and elicit feedback about hot topics in the healthcare IT space.
Conductor, the latest evolution of Lumeon’s care orchestration platform, is a clinical workflow automation solution that closes the gap between clinical intent and operational action. Conductor eliminates many of the manual and administrative tasks that bog down care teams and gives them back time for patient care and for more fulfilling use of their skills. Because Conductor’s actions are personalized and specific to each individual patient, each one can have a better experience – they feel less like a number and more like they’re receiving tailor-made care.
Lumeon’s approach to automation employs deterministic logic rather than artificial intelligence (AI)– where every decision taken by the system is explainable and adheres to established protocols and governance structures. There is nothing “predictive” or “probabilistic” about it – so care providers can fully trust the actions of the system.
Still, given all the buzz about AI, Lumeon was interested in customers’ thoughts about and plans for incorporating AI. The feedback during the client summit revealed mixed feelings – “a combination of excitement, trepidation, and uncertainty,” as one Lumeon customer put it. “Excitement is probably the overwhelming feeling, but we’re just very cautious at the moment,” he said.
Lumeon’s chief clinical transformation officer Cindy Gaines noted, “I think of AI as an extension of the clinician – as a support, not a replacement. In particular, AI has made huge inroads in the specialties of radiology and ophthalmology, where imagery is used in the diagnostics. AI has been truly beneficial to the providers in these fields.”
On the other hand, in clinical workflows, particularly care orchestration, “Many of the tasks that can be readily automated are rules-based and can be automated without the use of AI, carrying fewer risks than AI enabled tools,” according to a recent white paper by healthcare IT consultancy Chilmark Research. (Hence, Lumeon’s deterministic approach in its care orchestration platform.)
Another subject Lumeon probed with participants at the summit was strategies to improve patient engagement. Respondents to an online poll were equally split between implementing new tools to support patient outreach and hiring more staff and/or leaders responsible for patient experience. Care orchestration strikes a balance between these two approaches: it uses technology to streamline processes for patients who require less handholding (making their personalized healthcare journey more efficient), while offering those patients who require more of a human touch with the support they need to become fully engaged participants in the process.
And speaking of human touch, the nurse staffing shortage – a problem for every provider organization –was also a popular topic among attendees. In response to the question, “What methods (other than overtime and travel nurses) have you tried, or are interested in trying, to alleviate your staffing shortages?”, two-thirds of respondents said their preferred approach to date is workflow redesign and team realignment. Care orchestration’s value is, in large part, as an enabler of thoughtful workflow redesign – specifically, off-loading administrative tasks from highly trained staff, especially nurses, and freeing them to deliver their greatest value (direct patient care).
The conversations that began at the Lumeon client summit will continue over time, and the ideas shared by our customers will continue to inform Lumeon’s product strategy and development in the years to come. We thank all who participated and look forward to doing it again soon.
Curious to learn more about Conductor? Click Here.