July 2022

May 17, 2022

Medical labs have the highest interaction with patients in healthcare. Often overlooked by way of importance, labs collect more patient data than any other avenue of medicine. However, for many health systems, the patient lab data collected does not flow among internal departments in a cohesive or standardized way. As a result, patient care can be adversely affected. This disconnect between labs with other clinical departments can lead to misinterpretation of test results, unnecessary prescriptions and misalignment with patient diagnosis.

So, how can this be remedied? One way is through lab stewardship. The AACC states laboratory stewardship refers to correctly ordering, retrieving and interpreting laboratory tests. Inefficiencies in these three aspects of the total testing process cause most diagnostic errors and the majority of significant patient harm and malpractice litigation in the laboratory industry.

Labs play a very important role in optimizing value-based care and ensuring the responsible use of resources, which ultimately improves patient care while reducing cost. Diane Janowiak, Sr. Director, Clinical Solutions at hc1 said, “In order to have successful lab stewardship, the engagement and partnership with clinical and administrative individuals who support the implementation of program initiatives are essential,” Janowiak continued, “Using clinical data as the basis for change, lab professionals can develop organizational support for proactively improving laboratory use. In so doing, lab professionals take on a leading role in providing top-level patient care and become instrumental in the leadership of their health systems.”

Quest® Lab Stewardship™ powered by hc1® is a strategic collaboration focused on improving the costs and clinical impact of lab testing. It employs machine learning to harmonize laboratory testing across health systems in order to optimize laboratory test utilization allowing actionable insights into laboratory testing trends that can identify missed opportunities to deliver the right test to the right patient at the right time. Quest Lab Stewardship is an offshoot of the professional lab management services of Quest Diagnostics, which Quest provides to dozens of health systems and hospitals in the U.S. to help enhance their laboratory quality and cost-efficiency. Quest also provides reference testing, often involving highly advanced diagnostics services, to nearly half of the hospitals and health systems nationwide.

The construct of lab stewardship programs typically consists of four essential components: governance, interventions, data extraction & monitoring and continual assessment/improvement. Successful stewardship programs see a significant return on investment through better insurance reimbursement and savings from avoiding unnecessary and uncompensated laboratory tests. These programs typically produce a direct positive impact on patient safety and initiatives which also improve the patient experience.

hc1 senior business intelligence consultant, James Haarbauer said, “Nobody likes unnecessary tests. They cost money, time, and create an uncomfortable patient experience. The ability to leverage analytics in a lab setting will improve the lives of your employees and your patients as you ensure that the right patient gets the right test at the right time.”

On June 2 at 12:30 p.m. PDT, hc1 and Quest Diagnostics are together hosting a workshop at PLUGS Summit 2022. With the goal of Building a Culture of Lab Stewardship, Haarbauer, along with Donna D. Cooper, MS, MBA, Senior Director of Product Solutions at Quest Diagnostics, will share how to go beyond basic reporting and leverage data from the macro-level to individual physician ordering behaviors.

Session attendees will learn about: key players and top strategies for building an effective lab stewardship committee, a 3-step informatics process for building out your project pipeline and how hospitals can support lab stewardship programs and improve human health.

Will you be at the 2022 PLUGS® Summit? Be sure to join us for the Building a Culture of Lab Stewardship workshop to be held in the Sound Room on the 3rd floor of the Bell Harbor International Conference Center.

June 10, 2022

Connection: Our Opportunity to co-create the Future of Work

Did you know Mental Health Awareness Month has been observed in May in the United States since 1949?

Were you also aware that American businesses lose an estimated $500B to preventable workplace stress which has only been exacerbated due to COVID-19? According to TalkSpace, 66% of workers who’ve considered quitting say access to mental health services might convince them to stay at a job.

Could The Great Resignation have been greatly reduced if more employers knew what was stressing out their employees and how to help with mental health support options? Perhaps, but we will likely never truly know.

I do know that flipping a binary switch and returning life to February 2020 wasn’t an option, so we at hc1 had to get creative and rethink ways to support our team and we did so by challenging them…

Purpose: A navigational process with a spectrum of options

In May 2022, we invited all hc1 team members to participate in a month-long Mental Health Fitness Challenge using the Wise@Work App as the foundation of our Challenge. We believed this was a fantastic opportunity to create more awareness around mental health and to have fun as a team while becoming stronger and more connected.

Our goal was to get as many of our team members to join and complete 20 practices. We were delighted with how many people participated!

We discovered the top practices our team engaged with were achieving work-life balance, resilience, working with stress, and emotional agility for the ‘New Normal.’

The information we received from the Challenge is invaluable. We finally have a starting point for addressing the emotional strain accumulated over the past couple of years.

Clarity: Shifting to a more holistic approach to employee experience

The key takeaway is that employees are looking for more than a job; they expect a personalized work experience aligned with their values and preferences.

According to Forbes, “the modern employee cares about much more than just a good salary. While earning potential will affect their decision to stay at a particular company, they are equally concerned about a healthy working environment.”

Benefits alone aren’t enough to improve employee health and well-being. Employers can do more to support employees’ mental health not just in the month of May, but every day. I challenge you to check out the following resources for your own well-being as well as to enhance the mental wellness of your workplace and teams!

Below are a few great resources to check out!

Wise@work

TalkSpace

Local Mental Health Awareness & Resources

Mental Health 101 – MHA Screening

2021 State of Mental Health in America

Youth.gov

March 17, 2022

If you think that the U.S. technology industry skews young, you’d be right. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the median age for the U.S. workforce as a whole to be 42.2, whereas the median age for the Computer Systems Design and Related Services industry is a sprightly 40.7. The attitudes that different generations have toward their careers and workplaces are affected not only by their stage of life but also the cultural changes that have occurred during their lifetimes. To build a strong talent pipeline and retain top performers, technology leaders must foster company cultures that engage workers of all ages, no matter where they are in their career journeys.

When I chart this median age data (as hc1 employees are known to do), it’s clear that the peak age range for tech workers is 25 to 44, a span that encompasses the Millenial generation, which is defined as those born between 1981 and 1996.

Millennials are only half the story when it comes to the tech workforce. The age span at hc1 shows nearly half of our employees are over 40, which includes Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980; and Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964. About 5% of our workforce is from Generation Z, born after 1997. This number aligns with the nationwide number for our industry.

Entry-level Exploration

Most candidates for entry-level positions are likely to be Generation Z or young Millennials. What’s important to these job seekers? “It’s the purpose and the potential,” says Lori Smith, Senior Vice President of Talent at hc1. “They want to be able to grow their skills pretty quickly.” These candidates ask about on-demand learning, career development plans, access to leaders and mentors and stretch assignments. They want to go beyond what’s listed in the job description.

Executive assistant Tory Hungria and software engineer Zach Spitzer, leaders of hc1’s Young Professionals group (also known as the YoPos), echoed this idea when I asked them what was important to have at work in order to be successful. Tory spoke about wanting to connect to the company’s values, social responsibility and overall mission and vision. Zach valued having people throughout the company who were ready and willing to answer his questions and give context about why things are done a certain way. Tory agreed, saying, “It’s nice being in a culture where that’s okay, to have those questions and a questioning mindset, and, in fact, it’s celebrated.”

In addition to connecting to a broader purpose and learning opportunities, Generation Z wants to connect with each other. Zach and Tory surveyed their fellow YoPos about what they wanted the group to be, and the highest response by far was a social group. “When you go directly from college to a new job, or you hop into a new job, it can be difficult at times to be able to try and connect with your other coworkers and your peers, particularly if you’re working remote. Being able to find a way to be able to bridge that gap is what we are hoping to do,” he said.

Lori notes that if these needs aren’t being met, younger folks aren’t likely to stick around. Their drive to pursue their passions, expand their skills, make new connections, and achieve their own financial stability can lead them to develop other opportunities for themselves or find a completely different career path.

Mid-level Growth

Tech folks tend not to have long employment tenures, and demand for their skills remains high. Now that remote work has become the norm for technology jobs across the country, midwest companies like hc1 are having to compete with the higher salaries offered by tech companies on the West Coast. To prevent top talent from moving on, leaders need to regularly evaluate what they offer their employees in terms of pay, benefits and opportunities for advancement to make sure they are in line with others in the industry.

A company of hc1’s size, with a fairly flat hierarchy, doesn’t offer a variety of management roles, but it does have the flexibility to empower managers to offer different avenues of access to employees who want to take their career to the next level. Employees may choose to deepen an existing skill set, take on different roles within their team or even move to a different team. For example, a senior developer might want to use the latest AWS offerings to solve a problem on a project, or a talent team member might take a course in career coaching and begin to offer that benefit to the entire company.

Experienced tech workers want to have autonomy in deciding where, when and how their work gets done. They are looking to have a healthy work-life balance with an employer that expects them to be accountable and awesome while they are at work but gives them the freedom to focus on their other responsibilities and enjoy their time away from work.

Executive Adaptation

Given the amount of experience required, candidates for executive-level jobs are mainly Generation X or Baby Boomers. These candidates want to know what they’re getting into. They are likely to have questions about the company’s financial stability and 401(k) matches. They want to succeed in the role they have.

Once Boomers are brought on board, they are much more planted. They’re focused on using their expertise to build a legacy. They are not necessarily more loyal, but they are more likely to ride out difficult times, because this isn’t their first rodeo. However, executives have changed with the times as well, recognizing that the employer-employee relationship is now a partnership. Executives need to be proactive in getting feedback from employees about what they want from the workplace. Employees need to see that they are being listened to, or they will leave.

Age and generation are, of course, just some of the factors that contribute to a person’s approach toward their job, career and work as a whole. Life circumstances, past experiences, values and personality all play a part, too. The fact that there is such a diversity of approaches to tech careers suggests that leaders who can personalize employee recruiting, engagement and retention efforts will be more successful. Even though Lori actively works to personalize the employee experience as much as possible, she points out that employees of all ages have the same core feelings when it comes to work. “People still want to have purpose. They want to feel like they’re making a difference, they’re having an impact and being respected. It’s really that simple.”

Curious about what hc1 has to offer? Visit our Careers page to learn more about available positions and apply.

April 8, 2022

If you’re a professional coach or athlete you expect your physical and mental wellness to be your work focus. If you’re a personal trainer, physical therapist or psychologist, for example, you also expect your mental well-being to be intertwined with your daily work.

Physical and mental well-being are two big attributes in our lives, but what about those of us with jobs that have nothing to do with athletics, coaching or physical or mental training? According to the latest information from the Federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Americans spend roughly 24% of their time in any given work week, remote or in-person, working. This results in nearly a quarter of our lives each week being devoted to our employment. So, what happens when that 24% is not being mindful of physical and mental well-being?

Let’s face it, most places of employment, until recently, have not invested in the physical and mental wellness of employees. Yet the CDC states that worksite wellness programs promoting physical activity can help create healthier employees, as well as proactively lowering healthcare costs for both employee and employer.

Worksite wellness programs can also:

Increase employee productivity
Reduce absenteeism
Increase employee morale
Help attract and keep high-quality employees

Mental wellness in the workplace has become more prominent, to the point that a one-of-a-kind center recently opened at Johns Hopkins dedicated specifically to mental wellness in the workplace. The Johns Hopkins Psychosocial, Organizational and Environmental (POE) Total Worker Health Center is devoted to improving workforce mental health. According to the POE, workplace mental health took on more importance and visibility during the pandemic, when remote work and high-risk work environments caused or exacerbated workers’ psychologically and behaviorally.

Daniele Fallin, Ph.D., co-director of POE noted that the pandemic brought workplace mental health issues to light for a lot of employers, specifically first responders and health care workers, but other employers became aware and started paying attention too.

Michigan State University identifies several ways to promote workplace wellness through easy and practical solutions for staying fit during working hours such as three-minute low-impact activities that have been proven to increase brain cognition and decrease the risk of serious health problems forming. The benefits of incorporating and encouraging positive physical health practices while working provide a win-win for both employer and employee.

hc1 founder and CEO, Brad Bostic believes in an “exercise your mind, exercise your body” philosophy and expanded his dedication to precision health even further when it comes to those working at hc1 headquarters. Every employee has free access to a personal trainer on-site and a fully equipped gym. The culture of hc1 is employee-centric. Employees are encouraged to regularly move their bodies by visiting the gym at any given time throughout the day, after hours or on weekends, or simply taking frequent walks away from workspaces to break up time spent sitting. Staff is also encouraged to utilize workstations that best suit their personal health and wellness, such as stand-up or treadmill desks. Employees may take advantage of quiet time in one of several dedicated spaces that are aesthetically pleasing allowing focus and meditation, or just a few minutes to clear their heads.

Many employees enjoy access to hc1’s on-site personal trainer, Kristy Pingel, BS, Exercise Science and Physiology, who provides one-on-one personal training sessions. This is one of the perks available to every employee each week, with the option of additional weekly scheduled sessions before or during work hours. Pingel said, “coming into the gym is a way for employees to decompress. It provides an outlet for them to focus on themselves, forget about meetings or personal stressors and invest in their own wellness for 30 to 60 minutes. Others simply enjoy kickstarting their mornings by working out to set a healthy tone for the day. They always seem to leave with a higher sense of accomplishment and ready to take on the rest of their day with confidence and positive energy.”

Aligned with hc1’s business vision that every patient should be treated as a unique individual it’s also true that each individual employee is different. Pingel assesses each person, takes into account their level of fitness and overall wellness and guides and oversees their workout to help achieve the individual’s maximum desired goal they’ve set for themselves.

For those not seeking a structured fitness regime with Pingel, employees have access to the gym freely each day or anytime after hours and on weekends to work out. A boxing heavy bag, basketball area, treadmill and ping pong are also available to employees at any given time in the recreational meeting area of the hc1 headquarters.

hc1 also recognizes the benefits of being Curious, Accountable, Collaborative, Ethical (CACE) which additionally fosters the mental wellbeing of employees. This is made possible and encouraged daily in various ways by hc1’s Team and Talent department from the time a new employee begins onboarding and throughout their employment. TnT fosters getting to know each individual employee, asking what they need and encouraging working hard, but having fun, too. Employees at hc1 are not just coworkers, but also a collective team that succeeds and celebrates together through supportive methods that enhance both professional and personal well-being.

Interested in joining the hc1 team? Check out these currently available positions.

April 12, 2022

Physician and provider burnout along with inadequate access to siloed medical data are hurdles healthcare faces today. With so much technology available, collected medical data can be organized and used more effectively and efficiently to help resolve the burdens placed on providers, as well as help identify important aspects of each individual patient. The benefit is getting the right test and prescription to the right patient for optimum health benefits.

3 Ways to Advance on a Path to Precision Health were shared during a Precision Medicine Leaders Summit (PMLS) webinar by Dr. Brian Patty, CMIO Medix Technology along with hc1’s Brad Bostic, Chairman and CEO, and Charlie Clarke, SVP of Technology, with moderator Nigel Russell, Editor, Journal of Precision Medicine. The webinar took place on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, and identified solutions to today’s healthcare challenges by focusing on precision health and the benefits of pharmacogenomics.

Brad Bostic indicated, “by empowering physicians and providers to better identify patient needs” utilizing collected medical data we can elevate the future of healthcare.

Knowledge and workflow are key in finding resolutions.

There are significant challenges. What is the best approach to the mountain of data collected by clinical labs and hospitals? How can data be organized when patients see multiple providers in various locations with information scattered between systems? Not to mention, providers are already limited with time in their current day-to-day workflow.

According to Dr. Patty, a key viable solution is adopting more Value-Based care vs. Fee for Service care. In other words, keeping people healthy vs. keeping people sick. Dr. Patty noted, “we tend to be disease-focused.”

Dr. Patty identified one solution, Pharmacogenomics (PGx), as having a much larger ability to resolve some of the issues providers face today and bring a higher level of care to patients. Patty went on to say, “PGx testing as part of precision health can impact drug exposure and clinical response variabilities, identify the risk for adverse events and provide insight for genotype-specific dosing.”

Relying on a patient’s family history doesn’t tell the story of a person’s ability to tolerate medications which results in a trial and error prescribing methodology. Implementing precision testing and precision prescribing as a regimented part of patient care can provide exceptional benefits to both patient and provider.

Brad Bostic agreed and said, “thirty years ago people saw one physician and that physician had all the records for his/her patient in one file in front of them to look over the history of the patient.” Bostic went on to say, today, we have siloed digital records and information and multiple specialists and providers in various locations that have fragmented patient information making it difficult to have a total view of a patient in one location, not to mention we also have much more advanced diagnostic techniques and options making it a challenge for the provider to know how best to support the care delivery process.

“It can be overwhelming,” Bostic said of providers today, “huge amounts of electronic health records stored in multiple locations throughout health systems and labs make it more difficult for providers to have all the right information at the right time.” Bostic went on to say, “we can turn things around and utilize this technology to provide an even higher level of care by gathering and organizing the data from all areas and getting it in front of providers in real-time for each patient.

According to Dr. Patty, a healthcare technologists’ job is to seamlessly deliver patient information data to the provider. Providers shouldn’t have to gather it. Technologists can capture the data from all the disparate sources, aggregate it and turn it into knowledgeable decision-making tool providers can access easily and offer that knowledge as part of the patient care process.

The incentive to make the best possible care decision that’s going to drive all these activities to support the systems and integrations at the right time to the right person and instantly reveal the best health option a physician may not otherwise be made aware of. This will help improve the future of healthcare.

“hc1 has been able to build in the intelligence of the smartest laboratory experts and clinicians to instantly analyze all the diagnostic testing across an entire health network. This automatically identifies and prompts clinicians on the tests they should not be doing and the tests they should be doing, to get people diagnosed more effectively, more efficiently and sooner. The result is getting people on the right medications and navigating a process that results in a better outcome,” Bostic said.

But where does a healthcare organization begin when it comes to the first steps of getting data organized and aligned so that providers can easily access it? According to Charlie Clarke, “just start. You’re always going to be dealing with hurdles, but you could begin with, for example, prescribing information, which makes it easier to then bring in additional data to continue working throughout a system. The most important thing is to just get started and grow from there.”

Clarke went on to say, “EMR is likely the best place to begin, because it’s where there is access to the broadest range of data today, making the cross-system integration more effective and cleaner from a data standpoint and being able to get it back to a provider in the right time.”

Where do you think you would like to start? If you’re ready now, hc1 can help, Just contact us. You can also watch the full webinar on-demand and learn more in-depth information.

April 14, 2022

Clinical labs could arguably be identified as the heart of any health system. Lab testing is the single highest-volume medical activity within a health system. Without the results and data from lab work, clinicians, providers and patients wouldn’t have clear insight into patient needs. Approximately 70 percent of medical decisions are based on pathology and laboratory test results.

hc1 looks forward to recognizing medical labs each year during Medical Laboratory Professionals Week. This year’s Lab Week takes place April 24–30, 2022. It’s an annual celebration of the medical laboratory professionals and pathologists who play a vital role in health care and patient advocacy.

The past two and a half years stressed many clinical labs beyond the point of reason. Overworked lab staff and the increasing demands of the pandemic thrust labs into critical overload in all directions with abundant tests data collection. Join us in recognizing the hard work and exceptional effort those working in medical labs provide by creating and sharing social posts during this week.

Over 2.3 trillion gigabytes of data are generated every year in healthcare. Harnessing the vast amounts of healthcare data generated by clinical laboratories is crucial to achieving goals that move toward a more value-based care framework rewarding performance over volume. Health systems and providers are increasingly looking to leverage clinical data to gain greater insights in order to develop new interventions that improve quality care.

We must collaborate to proactively remove data silos to quickly identify warning signs, achieve timelier disease detection and better health monitoring. As part of this collaboration process, it’s important to share knowledge and resources with others in the healthcare industry.

This April 27 and 28, hc1 is participating in the Executive War College (EWC) annual conference for clinical laboratory managers, pathology group managers, In Vitro diagnostics, lab sales managers, lab analysts and lab investors in New Orleans.

EWC brings lab executives and their teams together to learn what’s new, what’s working and how to lead their lab to success. On Wednesday, April 27, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:20 a.m. John Moyer, Senior Product Director, Lab Division, and Andrew Boyle, Operational Analytics Manager, Sonora Quest Laboratories/Laboratory Sciences of Arizona, will presenthttp://executivewarcollege.darkintelligencegroup.com/executive-war-college-agenda-2022. They will share a case study on how Sonora Quest Laboratories has used hc1’s robust Lab Insights Platform to unlock actionable insights within the lab’s data using real-time analytics.

Additionally, hc1 will sponsor two events providing networking opportunities. Attendees will have a chance to meet, interact and converse with top leaders in the industry with chances to forge collaborations and learn more about solutions available to help eliminate some stressors labs currently face today.

Whether you plan to attend EWC or not, it’s important to both recognize the contributions of the people who work in the lab industry and seek collaborative opportunities to help advance the capabilities and efficiencies of medical labs.

hc1 has been working with labs and transforming lab data into personalized healthcare insights® for more than 10 years. Solutions built on the hc1 Lab Insights Platform™ help labs better serve their clinicians and patients by enabling quick access to the insights needed to improve how they manage internal and external processes and relationships.

If you’re interested in collaborating and learning more, click here to schedule your customized demo.

May 9, 2022

If your company is thinking about pursuing a third-party cyber security certification, by now, you know it’s a daunting task. You may have more questions than answers. What certification resonates the most in my industry? What is the first step in selecting an external assessor or auditor? Despite these questions, if you contemplate obtaining a cyber security certification, you know you have a long road ahead, and one size does not fit all.

When hc1® began identifying various certifications, we researched the many cyber security frameworks (e.g., NIST, HIPAA, ISO, SOC2, and HITRUST), reviewing the benefits, time, and cost. After weighing the options, we landed on the HITRUST (Health Information Trust Alliance) framework and the hc1 Platform®, along with the hc1 corporate headquarters located in Indianapolis, secured HITRUST Risk-based, 2-Year (r2) certification for information security in December 2021.

The path to certification was not easy and began in 2020. You may ask why it took over one year for hc1 to become certified. It’s not because hc1 didn’t have a best-in-class solution or adhere to industry best practices when we started the process, because that is not the case at all.

In fact, the hc1 Platform is purpose-built for healthcare and built on and hosted by cloud leader Amazon Web Services. Protecting our clients’ data is hc1’s number one priority. This priority is the reason we decided to seek HITRUST certification. And not just any HITRUST certification, but the risk-based 2-year validation certification. The 2-year (r2) validated assessment certification is a tailored assessment for the highest level of assurance that an organization may earn from HITRUST. That’s right; we decided to jump in feet first and go for the most stringent certification HITRUST offers because that’s what we do at hc1. We face a challenge head-on and play to win.

We also selected the HITRUST certification as HITRUST leverages numerous security and privacy-related regulations, standards, and frameworks–including NIST and HIPAA for its certification.

By the time hc1 began the process of earning the 2-year certification, many of the nation’s top health system labs and independent labs had selected hc1 as a trusted partner, recognizing the stringent cyber security controls adopted by hc1. Earning HITRUST certification was the cherry on the top.

The Journey

Once we decided to become HITRUST certified, we signed a contract with a HITRUST authorized external assessor to complete an assessment of our information security program compared to the HITRUST framework. This assessment was the guide we used to map the hc1 information security program to the HITRUST framework. The framework includes cyber security controls, such as vulnerability management, access control, third-party assurance, and data protection and privacy, to name a few.

Once we mapped the hc1 information security program to the HITRUST framework, we were ready to complete the validation assessment with our external assessor. The validation assessment began with the arduous task of our internal team scoring hc1’s program to over 500 HITRUST controls. The scoring process involves using a weighted scale. The weighted scale was used to verify 1) each respective hc1 policy and process meets the required HITRUST control and 2) the control was implemented as required by HITRUST.

The next step involved interviews and documentation review with our external assessor over 12 weeks. Once we finalized the interviews and documentation review, the external assessor began scoring all 500+ controls, reviewing hc1’s scoring at this time. Once the external assessor completed the scoring, the validated assessment was submitted to HITRUST to perform a quality control exercise required to confirm the external assessor performed their work following the HITRUST framework.

What does it take?

What does it take to become HITRUST certified?

Goal
Leader
Committed team
Well thought out project plan
Focus
Persistence

The process is complex and time-consuming. However, if you adopt the six points above, and have a strong information security program as hc1 did prior to HITRUST, the process will be easier to manage as you pursue HITRUST certification.

Visit HITRUST Risk-based, 2-year Certification to learn more about hc1’s HITRUST certification.

Entry-level Exploration

Mid-level Growth

Executive Adaptation

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