Rhapsody has been on the market for over 20 years and operates in thousands of provider, payer and government institutions around the world. This has resulted in a very robust and reliable product, allowing Rhapsody to become the foundation for interoperability in hundreds of locations. However, since taking on my role at Rhapsody, one thing has stood out to me in particular: Rhapsody customers want more than a great product – they want a great partner. They want our expertise, knowledge of best practices, and our insights into what they can do to make their processes faster, more accurate and supportive of great outcomes for their customers.
So, in developing this first product update in the new generation of Rhapsody, we were driven first and foremost by our customer’s desire for closer collaborator, which we broke down into three key principles:
- Data: Improving our ability to help clients better leverage their data is a big focus in this release. Rhapsody 6.5 significantly improves our ability to see what is going on with client data flows, diagnose problems and help provide guidance on process improvements specific to the challenges each client faces on a regular basis. This capability will also allow us to better understand our customers and help us create specialized services that meet their individual needs.
- Services: Offering new ways to engage with Rhapsody for value-added services, with an initial focus on meeting the unique needs of specific customer environments, and optimizations programs to help improve performance and adopt best practices. Enhancements in this latest release of Rhapsody will allow us to better understand how our customers are using the product and what they could be doing differently. It will also allow us to do more remotely as a means of diagnosing problems and implementing solutions. These service offerings are the first expression of the deeper customer connection we are committed to, and we plan to roll out new service packages based on customer feedback.
- Results: This is about focusing on the specific types of deliverables and services our clients require for their success. These new product updates, service designs and dataflow analyses are all about helping our clients achieve the best results possible. This means going beyond technical interoperability issues and thinking in terms of real world challenges and operational realities across the healthcare system. Our guiding principal is making sure everything we do follows a pragmatic approach to help our customers achieve the results they need.
When interoperability is no longer an obstacle, hospitals and health systems can perform at higher levels, deliver better experiences for staff and patients, and pursue initiatives without the friction of technical incompatibilities. In the new era of Rhapsody, we want our customers to feel like we are their teammates in pursuit of that goal. Rhapsody 6.5 provides customers with higher communication and support, because we want our customers to experience true partnership with their Rhapsody team and feel confident that we can deliver the best results based on their unique, individual challenges.
The healthcare industry continues to experience a breakdown in connectivity – not just at technical levels, but also between healthcare silos and functions. This is the greatest barrier to achieving interoperability at a higher level. Rhapsody 6.5 gets us one step closer to addressing these barriers and achieving our goals. By opening the lines of communication between customers and Rhapsody, and leveraging customer data, we will become more and more entrenched in the daily challenges our customers face. This unique perspective will allow us to provide higher quality and more useful services. Rhapsody 6.5 represents yet another step towards achieving our company mission by making Rhapsody a more accessible partner to its customers. The stronger our connection with customers, the closer we will be to making these high-level issues of interoperability more manageable.
