Bed blocking costs both patients and hospitals

Dr. Michael Zappa, chief clinical officer at Cape Fear Valley Health and physician advisor at Juno Health, says maintaining close connections with clinical leaders is essential to optimizing clinical workflows.

The federal program could be a short-term patch for struggling rural hospitals or the last chance to move rural healthcare onto a model that works at scale. Michael Dalton of non-profit virtual care provider Ovatient explains.

Recovery, downtime and disruption from IT outages cost some independent and senior care providers "tens of thousands of dollars per minute," lower staff morale and pose patient safety concerns, says healthcare IT security expert Danielle Morrison.