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This case study shows how Hardin Memorial Hospital lowered that rate from 5.6 to 2.2 percent – and improved its HCAHPS scores thanks to better communication between doctors and patients.

While many readers are optimistic that healthcare will make progress on consumerism in one to three years, others said it will take between five and seven to actually happen.

Artesia General Hospital stays focused on building partnerships where it can, optimizing its EHR and enhancing patient and physician experience.

Automation, customization and – above all – an ability to show value and ROI are must-haves for hospitals looking to make promising tech take root.

Mobile, Alabama-based Springhill Medical Center keeps a focus on physician and patient engagement as it works to drive process improvements and stay competitive.

The software giant will enable caregivers to communicate and integrate with EHR systems.

Beth Kutscher, senior news editor for healthcare at LinkedIn, explains how the social networking platform is developing digital health content and what it believes it can do to address the disconnect between technology and care delivery.

This case study examines how patients are spending 273 percent more time booking appointments on the UAB Medicine website, a big win for the goal of boosting patient access.

The key performance indicators, measurable processes, implementation data and demonstrable value are what makes an effective innovation dashboard.

Cincinnati-based Mercy Health announced this week that it is investing in San Diego-based NucleusHealth, developer of cloud-hosted picture archiving communications systems and teleradiology services. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Mercy Health implemented the technology this past year, and apparently liked it so much that it's decided to become a minority investor in the company. It's the most recent instance of a health system embracing that strategy for innovation – partnering with a third-party vendor to help spread technology it believes can help drive improvements for other hospitals. In 2016, NewYork-Presbyterian purchased a stake in telehealth company Avizia, for instance, and UPMC invested in predictive analytics and pop health startup RxAnte. NucleusHealth's Nucleus.io platform leverages secure Microsoft Azure cloud for better scalability and cost efficiency for PACS. The health system implemented the technology in less than three months – and managed to extend out a sharing network of 300 different locations over the next six, said Mike Hibbard, Mercy Health's vice president of IT, applications and service delivery. Mercy Health's IT team now taps Nucleus.io as a backup PACS when the main enterprise system is undergoing updates or maintenance, but may expand its use for other applications, he noted. NucleusHealth will still operate as an independent company, but will work in tandem with Mercy Health to create new features and workflows for system-wide deployment of its browser radiology workstation, Azure-based cloud storage and other image management tools, officials said. "We are very pleased to have this unique opportunity to partner with Microsoft and one of the nation’s best health systems,” said Vishal Verma, MD, NucleusHealth CEO. “This combined team has the unique ability to optimize our platform to create a true transformation of the medical imaging market." Mercy Health, which operates hospitals across Ohio and into Kentucky, is not to be confused with Mercy, the large St. Louis-based health system that spans Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. But both have made big cloud-hosted PACS news in the past two weeks. Earlier this month, Mercy Technology Services, the IT division of St. Louis-based Mercy, announced it would commercialize its own cloud-based PACS system for other hospitals to deploy. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com