A quick fix turned into a 'challenging' journey with mission and conviction!
Fadi Jawdat Hindi
Managing Partner | Founder | Adjunct Professor | Harvard | Stanford | Wharton | NC State Univ.
Two years into optimizing hospitals' finance management, our mission has become... carry on!
My team embarked on a journey in Dec 2021 to automate clinical coding (ICD10) for hospitals to streamline and automate their claims processing and introduce AI automation. I naively thought we could get it done quickly and help many providers solve the problem. I reasoned the technology and computing available to the human race is beyond comprehension; how hard could this be, right? Boy, was I wrong!
Today, we stand at two years of intense Research and development, co-creation with excellent partners, and pilots with several hospital networks. We integrated numerous acquisitions in advanced hardware (GPU technology) and software (NLUs, LLMs, ML & AI) technologies. However, now I clearly understand the magnitude of the effort ahead of us to solve this problem. The Architecture of the solution cross-cuts Strategy, Business, and Technology. One of the most critical factors remains the human element and change management required on the ground with finance managers and clinical coding departments. There is a fear of job loss and alien technology.
Octopian Digital's thesis has been evident for the past 30 years; we work to optimize people's work and offset manual and labor-intensive work to machines, shifting people to higher-level functions and, quite frankly, more enjoyable work.
I submit to Finance in the Healthcare community that the optimization problem and they must be tackled holistically:
A lack of expertise in ICD, Revenue Cycle Management and Change Management
Mounting pressure on front-line workers to spend more time with patients
Unethical practices exercised by insurance companies to deny claims.
The snowball effect of denials reconciliation
Providers are outgunned, outsmarted, and pressured for profit at the end of the financial year, forcing massive write-offs.
The most deceiving aspect of solving this problem is the silver bullet syndrome! Software vendors pitch an end-to-end solution for Revenue Cycle Management that includes everything the provider needs, including prior authorization, insurance submissions, and even reconciliations. However, no matter how strong the technology is brought forward, this is a multi-pronged solution to divide the problem and conquer it with multiple disciplines; it's both a technology and people problem. We submit that engaging Architecture and Strategy is an absolute must for success.
Octopian Digital's Progress & Contribution
Target Setting & Assembling a Winning Team.
We set our sights on a comprehensive problem domain, the Revenue Cycle Management for providers. We knew we could make a valuable impact on all stakeholders, clinicians, and administrators by dissecting problems and addressing them holistically with advanced technologies supported by expert services from experienced domain practitioners.
In late 2022, we formed a strategic partnership with ASUS Computers on many fronts, including Hardware, Software, and IoT. ASUS' AICS exploits Artificial Intelligence, NLU, and Medical Vocabulary in Healthcare. Their solution, Miraico, avails an AI-assisted and automated ICD coding for medical charts. Octopian Digital's advanced technologies integrated seamlessly with Miraico to provide subscription-based solutions to hospital networks to provide ICD coding for front-line workers, coders, and administrators. We see this as a solid area to help automate RCM effectively and enable rapid claims handling post-discharge. We deliver Business Value through an OPEX model and bring the latest cutting-edge AI in clinical coding to speed time to revenue.
In addition, at the start of 2023, Octopian Digital formed a Strategic Alliance with Ascend Solutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ascend is the most trusted and established organization in Healthcare that delivers advanced digital solutions to the Ministry of Health, including the private sector. Ascend built and currently operates the Command center for the Ministry of Health.
Furthermore, at the end of Q2 2023, we partnered with EDARAT GROUP in the Kingdom to bring our customers highly available, redundant, advanced, and in-country cloud solutions across EDARAT GROUP's data centers. Our co-crated solution with ASUS is deployed on an ASUS Appliance running Microsoft Azure that we are now hosting at EDARAT GROUP.
Pilot project development and results
We spent most of 2023 building and testing our advanced technologies in AI, ML, with ASUS' Miraico advancements. We deployed it in three hospital networks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I am happy to report that we are in the final phases of conversion and have achieved excellent results in the following key business areas:
Our solution achieved more than 85% accuracy in ICD coding. We continue to iterate and improve with better data cleansing.
Achieved Deep Learning from a continuous training loop of Miraico through a feedback mechanism and telemetry data from Octopian Digital's technologies
Hosted in-country in a private cloud using an ASUS Appliance running Microsoft Azure across redundant Tier-4 data centers
Delivered mobile app, desktop app, portal, and embedded systems integration with our solution
Delivered real-time dashboards to administration, finance, and coding departments with relevant business metrics: (I) Daily Prediction Accuracy & Cumulative since turned on, (II) The daily number of digital workers activated and the cumulative number since turned on, (III) The total daily cost savings and the cumulative amount since turned on
The Road Ahead
We are heavily engaged with clinical and business executives to explore adjacent areas in RCM to clinical coding to focus on bringing our AI advancements with our partners Asus and Ascend to ease further the burden of optimizing finance management.Our mission is to ‘Carry On!’
Contact Octopian Digital if you want to discuss how we can deliver business value in Finance to your Hospital network.
ASUS Ascend Solutions ICONICS Mitsubishi Electric - Factory Automation EMEA ISO56000 The Open Group Microsoft Microsoft Azure Microsoft Research EDARAT GROUP
Ali Saleh William Sheu Dr.Tariq Jbarah Rafi Yachoua Ryan Villaroman Jawdat Hindi Dr. Ivan Tankoyeu Dr. Sergey Sukhanov Bernard Sabbagh
Harvard University Harvard Business School Stanford University The Wharton School Wharton Executive Education North Carolina State University
Advisory - Microsoft Alliance
1yWe are proud Fadi of this strategic partnership, we believe that with such professional collaboration and mutual goals sky is our limit , wayyyy to go !!
Managing Director I Regional Director Strategic Accounts I Government Markets I Digital Transformation I Customer First I Consultant Business Development, Transformation & Strategy
1yWow Fadi, this is a very good example of excellence in planning, engaging and executing. It is a clear reflection of mission deployment in such a promising industry with huge room for innovation. Now is the time , All the best
Entrepreneur | Invested | Involved
1yOnwards and upwards Fadi and Dr.Tariq!