HIT Deployment Strategy: Adopting SaaS and Why Adaptability is Critical

In 1997, a man walked into his local Blockbuster Video with an overdue copy of Apollo 13, for which he was charged a $40 late fee. Stung by his experience, the man decided to create his own video-rental company, centered around one simple idea: that we could do better than Blockbuster.

That man’s name was Reed Hastings, but you may know him as the founder of Netflix.

When Netflix first launched in 1999, few believed it could supplant Blockbuster as the go-to video rental service; in fact, in 2000, Blockbuster had an opportunity to purchase Netflix for $50 million and passed. But over time, that’s exactly what happened: by 2010, Netflix had signed a five-year deal worth $1 billion to stream films from Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM. Blockbuster, on the other hand, owed $1 billion to its creditors and filed for bankruptcy. Today, Netflix is a streaming giant worth more than $150 billion, while Blockbuster’s sole remaining location is a tourist attraction in Bend, Oregon.

The rise of Netflix and the fall of Blockbuster are reminders that in any industry, the most successful organizations are the ones who are willing to adapt. For healthcare organizations, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are an essential part of adapting to a changing technological and compliance landscape.

SaaS and Interoperability

In 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. The rule is intended to “help liberate health information and move the healthcare system toward greater interoperability,” and it has provided the necessary impetus for healthcare organizations to invest in interoperability. This is a good thing: building a more interoperable healthcare system has long been the goal for healthcare organizations.

There are a number of technology solutions designed to increase healthcare interoperability. Many of these solutions are Software as a Product (SaaP) or “on-premise,” meaning the software or software license is sold as a one-time purchase. Once the purchase is complete, the organization is responsible for managing any upgrades or updates that may be needed.

There are plenty of useful applications for SaaP solutions; however, when it comes to interoperability, healthcare organizations need to be agile, flexible, and scalable in order to keep pace with industry and regulatory standards. Many organizations lack the IT infrastructure necessary to revamp or update their existing SaaP solutions or even implement new SaaP solutions as their needs change. As a result, more healthcare organizations are moving to SaaS solutions.

SaaS-based solutions are typically designed to work more efficiently and securely with other systems and applications, which provides a greater degree of flexibility and scalability—and, in many cases, significant cost savings in the long run. SaaS-based solutions are typically less time- and resource-intensive to implement, and upgrades and updates are both less costly and more easily managed.

The goal of interoperability is to improve the way different systems and applications work with one another, and SaaS solutions are ideally suited to this task. By reducing reliance on on-prem/legacy solutions, organizations can more readily scale to meet their business needs—all while reducing IT costs, minimizing technical debt, and improving security. Migrating to SaaS-based solutions is a great way for healthcare organizations to adapt and thrive in a highly competitive industry.

How Edifecs Can Help

By remaining adaptable ourselves, we are better able to help our customers adapt to a changing landscape. Agility, scalability and interoperability have become increasingly important for healthcare organizations, so we’ve optimized the way we deliver our solutions. Rather than continuing to rely on legacy technology, we’ve modernized our portfolio and created a series of SaaS-based, auto-scalable microservices designed for interoperability and seamless integration with your existing systems.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been the backbone of our business for more than 26 years, and our SaaS-based solutions are a reflection of our experience. We work with over 300 health plans, providers, and government agencies; no matter the intricacies of your business, we’ve seen it all. Our solutions are cloud-agnostic, so whatever your deployment and operational needs, we can meet them.

Our SaaS solutions are HITRUST CSF certified for Edifecs-hosted customer environments in Edifecs private and public clouds. We offer best-in-class reliability and redundancy to ensure near-continuous uptime, as well as robust data recovery processes to reduce the risk of data loss.

By partnering with Edifecs, your organization can benefit from immediate savings on IT, software, security, and monitoring. We can also help reduce ongoing costs related to maintenance, management, updates/upgrades, onboarding, and more: our SaaS customers realize, on average, a 20% reduction in IT costs over 3–5 years. Best of all, the pay-per-use structure of SaaS-based solutions means costs are more predictable and flexible, which allows for increased accuracy in budgeting and financial forecasting.

There’s an old saying about professional athletes: “The best ability is availability.” When it comes to the healthcare industry, however, the best ability is adaptability. The healthcare landscape is continuously evolving, and SaaS solutions offer faster deployment and implementation to reduce time-to-market and empower organizations to capture opportunities as they arise.

Healthcare organizations can either embrace new technology or stick to the old ways and hope for the best. If you’re considering the latter approach, ask yourself this: how’d that work out for Blockbuster?

To learn more about how our SaaS-based solutions can help you move confidently into the future of health care, get in touch with us today.