
HealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsDeliver custom or industry designed product training directly to patient and resident care environments to reinforce proper use.
View All ProductsTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsFinally, a comprehensive resource to support collecting, storing, and sharing credentialing data with ease.
View All ProductsHealthcare scheduling software designed to optimize staffing requirements & elevate patient care
View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
View All ProductsMitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.
Learn MoreThis blog is from a recent interview with Kevin O’Hara, HealthStream’s Senior Vice President, Platform Solutions, discussing how HealthStream is leading the way towards improved interoperability in healthcare.
O’Hara leads the effort to build the technology platform that supports HealthStream’s products. This platform also supports HealthStream’s partners and other organizations by enabling them to build products on top of that platform.
Pawlus began by asking O’Hara to define interoperability and discuss its importance to healthcare. O’Hara explained that there are two ways in which to think about interoperability. The first is interoperability between systems. This allows different systems such as HealthStream’s applications, hospitals, and third-party applications to talk with one another. The second aspect of interoperability is how those applications communicate with one another. O’Hara explained that communication is built on application programming interfaces (API). APIs establish the taxonomy that is essential to communication –systems talking to one another in a language that is understood by all of the programs as well as what they are talking about.
O’Hara also described something that is critical in healthcare – interoperability at the individual level. A consistent means by which to identify providers is essential to credentialing and patient safety. “Getting to a unique identifier for everyone in all of our systems, and ultimately for everyone who works in healthcare is a key focus of ours,” said O’Hara. This makes it possible to exchange data at the individual level across multiple systems and applications.
The current state of the art is not terribly advanced in terms of interoperability at the individual level. Currently, there is a national system to identify physicians and some advanced practice practitioners - the National Provider Identifier or NPI number. It is a helpful means of identifying individual practitioners, but it obviously does not extend to everyone who works in healthcare. There have long been efforts to create a similar system for nurses, but even that will still leave large numbers of people who work in allied health fields and ancillary services who would not be covered.
Recruitment and retention are, have been and will likely continue to be among the top issues facing healthcare executives. O’Hara shared that interoperability could take the friction out of these issues as it contributes to the understanding of who these individuals are – what is their experience, where have they worked, what is their competency, what are their credentials, and what training have they had. “Essentially, anything you need to know about a person before they can begin to work in healthcare, you should be able to find out from our platform,” said O’Hara. It also reduces the number of times that employees will need to enter (and re-enter) their education and work histories as well as their credentials.
Another area in which HealthStream supports interoperability is in medical device training. In some cases, staff need to be trained on medical devices prior to being cleared to use those devices. HealthStream can automatically communicate with those devices, allowing them to be turned on for qualified users. Of course, that requires seamless and accurate communication about precisely who that individual is and what they are credentialed to do.
Interoperability means that Human Resources professionals, Chief Nursing Officers and others can have confidence in a more efficient process. Rather than trying to manually aggregate information from a variety of different sources, that information is now available from a single source. It relieves both the employee and leaders from having to manually enter information from multiple sources on such things as licenses, certifications, work experience and education. Interoperability allows that information to be easily surfaced and reported for managers and senior leaders.
It also helps send a message to employees. It gives employers an opportunity to ensure that employees are getting what they need in terms of credentials and certifications and to help them build great professional portfolios. It can also surface any gaps and bring opportunities to employees wishing or needing to close those gaps.
HealthStream has ten applications that cover learning and development, credentialing and privileging, and scheduling. O’Hara pointed out that organizations can stack these applications, that are all working together, to ensure that an employee’s learning history, competencies, certifications and licenses can be used to build the optimal schedule for patients and staff.
HealthStream has recently introduced a developer portal that will create opportunities for developers of other applications and customer systems to easily see what is necessary to integrate with HealthStream’s systems. “As long as a developer looks at HealthStream’s documentation, they are going to be able to integrate their application with HealthStream’s,” said O’Hara.
O’Hara also shared that as part of the growing hStream platform, is the hStream ID, a unique identifier for individuals, The hStream ID acts as a passport for any individual working in healthcare as it is a unique identifier that can follow the individual across their entire career and across applications.
HealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsThe leadership development program from HealthStream helps mold your high-potential healthcare employees into proven leaders.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceFulfill compliance requirements with a variety of programs and courseware designed to address critical regulatory requirements as well as educate staff to recognize and mitigate risks.
View All ProductsBy increasing your healthcare staff's focus on quality and safety with HealthStream, they can help to reduce medical errors and readmission rates.
View All ProductsLearn about what HealthStream's healthcare policy management software and how it can help aid your organization efforts.
View All ProductsHealthStream's education helps address diversity, equity, and inclusion within your organization, as well as promoting health equity in the communities you serve.
View All ProductsHealthStream offers professional training and education on how to best optimize your reimbursement process within your healthcare organization.
View All ReimbursementTeach your healthcare staff about the revenue cycle and claim management through targeted training and video tools from HealthStream.
View All ProductsLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ResuscitationIn all areas of resuscitation, from neonatal to elderly care, clinical deterioration is a risk that can be avoided with the help of HealthStream's training programs.
View All ProductsHealthStream's EMS Program offers a comprehensive, CAPCE accredited EMS course library that meets National Registry annual recertification.
View All ProductsNurture the skills of your nurses and medical staff to help mold them into effective leaders with development training from HealthStream.
View All ProductsExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentMake sure your clinicians have the support they need to provide competent care with clinical competency training and development from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s learning management system and comprehensive suite of competency management tools empower your healthcare workforce to deliver the best patient care.
View All ProductsThe suite of healthcare onboarding solutions available from HealthStream aids in nurse retention and improved patient outcomes.
View All ProductsGive your healthcare staff the decision support and skills training they need with the online products available from HealthStream.
View All ProductsHealthStream leverages medical professional development in healthcare by providing staff training programs
View All ProductsLearn more about HealthStream's Provider Credentialing, privileging, & enrollment solutions.
View All CredentialingExperience standardized and centralized healthcare credentialing, privileging, and enrollment that is smarter and faster than ever before.
View All ProductsAutomated, web-based provider credentialing and enrollment software for growing medical groups.
View All ProductsNCQA-certified CVO verification services for initial and re-credentialing files in an overflow or full-service capacity for healthcare organizations.
View All ProductsSearch, review, and add providers into the Epic provider master file with our Epic app integration, Provider Validate.
View All ProductsMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All SchedulingHealthcare scheduling software designed to optimize staffing requirements & elevate patient care
View All ProductsPrecisely align staffing and needed resources to enable efficient patient flow and high-quality, cost-effective patient care.
View All ProductsHealthStream’s free nurse schedule app, NurseGrid™, is built to help you care for your staff and engage with their specific needs.
View All Products