A Tablet That Saves Lives and Reduces Hospital Re-admission Cost and Penalties.

A computer tablet “GIVEN” at the time of discharge to primary care patients would reduce re-admissions costs and penalties and save a life or two.  Why are we not doing this? The cost of tablets has fallen to such a low cost range – sub $100. - and the software is here and ready to facilitate doing it, such that a ‘discharge tablet’ will and needs to become a standard component to the primary care practice of discharge and transition care management.

Today, the hospital discharge experience remains a ‘blurred flurry’ of an experience for most patients. Once wheeled out the door, trying to recall and reflect as to what was said, what you are supposed to do or not do and the how and when and with what medications can be highly stressful for the patient and post discharge caregivers, family members or guardians. Discharge time is not the ideal time for a speedy lecture that contains and is jammed full of life critical information and terms and data that are terribly unfamiliar.

Of course there are many drivers to re-admissions. One set are those conditions that subsequently arise are medically driven chronic conditions. The other set are those that are manageable by patients and care givers. Some major examples are:

Failure to understand the post discharge care plan – originally delivered by someone who thinks you should understand or conveyed via a 19 page 8 pt. type set document that details all the horrific possibilities. What did he or she say I was supposed to do?

Failure to use prescribed medications correctly – if at all. Simply being confused on which pill to take first and when and or why.

Failure to monitor health vitals indicators – blood pressure, weight, oxygen levels etc.

Improper wound condition awareness and care – is this wound healing properly?

Failure to communicate condition changing issues in a timely manner such as medication effects, breathing, sleep, balance, hearing etc.

Providing a specialized discharge tablet with a guiding conditions checklist and a history of care activity events and trending conditions can significantly and positively impact these issues and more. A ‘one touch’ always ready connection to the exact information when a patient needs it and providing active monitoring to care givers via a specialized tablet will go a long way to reducing re-admissions. Less than $100. per patient even if given away and not charged for or returned seems like an ROI for everyone involved and worth securing….and saving a life or two along the way is not a bad outcome to strive for with today’s technology enabled health care.

If you would like to discuss deploying a discharge tablet contact me at www.chartacares.com or at mike@chartacloud.com. I’d be happy to discuss the potential and the possibilities of a discharge tablet for your patients and care organization.

 

 

 

 

STAT! The Othe Side of the Hopital Needs Oxygen

With so much news, advertising, promotion and discussion revolving around HIPAA IT, “meaningful use”, EMR, security breaches and a seemingly un-ending list of other related Health IT security and compliance subjects, it is easy to lose sight of the fact there is still a business to run. All this noise can easily impact and distract IT decisions or derail IT initiatives that can improve how a hospital or home care business can and should be operated in this day and age. What I call the ‘other side of the hospital’ is a back office that needs to run and that has significantly real business process automation needs.

It seems that everyone has become so HIPAA IT and EMR centric that sustaining attention on the business side has been relegated to a remote and distant second tier. Almost with a, “Oh yeah, there is that to get to too” attitude. There are clearly needs outside of EMR centric systems. A/P, H/R, workflow processing, business document management, contract management, project management are still central requirements of any well run health care business. As I also work with non-hospital or home care businesses I see firsthand the strides that those businesses are making in advancing their business processes into the digital age with forms automation, mobility and workflow processing, A/P and H/R on-boarding and fluent system integrations for example.

Driving a health care business solely from an EMR centric focus creates severe debilitations on efficiency and profitability. While an EMR initiatives are indeed critical and necessary in health care services, those systems and that as a strategy simply does not address enterprise wide business operational needs. There is a lot more that needs to go on in a health care business than automating patient records. I see real dangers ahead if health care IT doesn’t begin a re-focus attention and investments on the ‘other side of the hospital’.

There are a significant number of forms that surround health care business management that EMR systems do not address. There are a significant numbers of A/P invoices that need approval and processing. There is the ever constant on-boarding of staff in H/R. There are numerous sometimes hundreds of contracts and business associate agreements that need management. EMR systems do not address those areas yet, somehow, we are being led to think they might, can or will. That’s not happening.

Today’s advances in business process management technologies out classes what I have seen in EMR. Hospital IT leaders and home care business operators would do well to take a pause and revisit the IT agenda on the other side of the hospital or their home care business. If you haven’t looked recently, today’s business process technologies have exponentially advanced the ‘state-of-the-art’. Bringing the other side of the hospital into the digital age can provide a dramatic boost to profitability. What is available in business process automation today is fast to achieve, unbelievably easy to do and extremely cost efficient. Amazing, really.

While the subject of business process automation in health care may not have the ‘hair-on-fire’ glamour of EMR, it is like oxygen- you won’t miss it until it starts to deplete. There is still a business to run on the other side of the hospital.

 

I look forward to a discussion with those hospital leaders working to run the 'other side' of the business at mike@chartacloud.com

 

 

Predicting Re-admissions Moves from Fiction to Fact

Predicting Re-admission Moves from Fiction to Fact

Over the last 45 years I have watched ‘technology’ gain an increasingly stronger foothold on the data and information we contend with on a daily basis. Focusing technology on making ever better decisions is of course critical. Perhaps in no sector are the benefits of computer-aided decision making becoming more demonstrable than in healthcare. Lives depend on such tools.

The historic technology landscape has seen us traverse the disciplines of knowledge management, in the creation of the experienced-based organization and the emergence of the knowledge-driven organization all inspired by computer assisted tools. Most recently we have been drenched in the world of ‘big data’. First came the attention to wealth management, now comes healthcare.

The rising importance of reducing hospital re-admissions has many ‘motivators’. Government penalties against hospitals for poor re-admission rates are paying a huge role. Reputational damage to hospitals for poor re-admission rates are debilitating. The difference that I now see, is that ‘knowing’ is one thing but the ability to now also do something about has become the real difference. Like the weather, which remains outside of our control, knowing about it is important but what can you do about it? Well, re-admissions probability management has reached a state where you can not only know about it you can do ‘something’ about it. Actually, you can now do many things about it.

What has happened is that specific use case computer models can exert a proactive discipline on care giver decisions and staffing time allocation. The conventional model is that a designated number of nurses arrive to address the residents on the assigned patient floor. This may not always be the best approach. What if floor five has more critical patients at risk for re-admission than floor two? What tools are available to instantly reallocate nursing resources to the most critical re-admission probabilities? With today’s predictive analytics such actions can be taken in real time. And the cost of adopting this technology has plummeted. No longer is ‘big data’ the exclusive domain of a few data scientists. Health care professionals, nursing floor staff can do ‘big data’.

The transformation has been in creating a usable tool that links the ‘data’ to the ‘intervention’ choices at the care giver level and in real time. This is a very dramatic transformation.

Extending this on-going ‘knowledge link’ to the hone care or skilled nursing service provider only increases the likelihood that a re-admission can be avoided. With probability based successful identification rates exceeding 85% health care can now know exactly where to look and take action. Commercial businesses have been applying this model for years, out of necessity, and with years of success. If I operate a fleet of trucks or airplanes I need to have a pretty good idea of where the potential problems are and which vehicles or planes are likely to surface with a problem next. Taking this exact model into the health care sector means I can now know which patients are most likely headed back to the hospital if I don’t not take action becomes a manageable agenda. Now, I don’t mean to equate matters that pertain to people with machines but the case is hard one to argue. Both need maintenance. and I can now know which ones are going to break down.

With the oncoming onslaught of ‘boomer’s’ needing care, unless these new systems are put into place, emergency rooms will be over-run with avoidable re-admissions. Predictive analytics in healthcare has now made what was previously deemed fiction, fact.

Contact me at mike@chartacloud.com  if you would like to learn more. I'd be happy to share what I have learned about this technology with you or your team.

A Corporate Benefit for the New Era

A New Era Corporate Benefit Program That Will Save Employers Millions

There is no disputing the fact that the radically increasing numbers of ‘Boomers’ retiring is going to impact business and human resource management in ways yet unimagined. Today’s rate of ‘retiring Boomers’ is at 10,000 per day… and that daily number will continue to increase.

For employers this means that a steadily increasing number of workers will be ‘sandwiched’ between job demands and caring for aging parents. This trend will stress every organization. Already, absenteeism driven by ageing parental care is costing millions, as employees attend to the daily care demands of aging parents. Unexpected absences will not only stress employer productivity but the stress of giving this care will add additional health risks to an employee’s personal well-being, impacting the employee themselves, and thus adding to employer health costs as they attempt to balance and cope with the stress of aging parental care and their job demands.

“Presenteesism” will escalate – employees seemingly present and on the job - but not really - due to attending to unanticipated care demands and unanticipated care driven distractions will also escalate.

Providing employees with a ‘care connectivity’ service would provide a win-win-win for everyone. A system that provides real time monitoring, oversight of care events and care activities and immediate connectivity to professional medical care such as doctors and home care providers and local services like taxi’s and groceries and plumbers would mean that (1) the aging parents would remain in constant touch, (2) employees would know exactly what’s going on and (3) employers would reduce absenteeism and presenteeism.

Provided as a service offered by employers this “benefit” would not only significantly enhance the employer/employee relationship but it would also provide a very valuable opportunity for building a corporate dialogue as part of an enlightened corporation’s culture, one that understands and has empathy about the ‘real world’ that employees are facing every day.

Human Resource professionals like it or not will be increasingly drawn into this fray. The numbers alone will demand a strategy. We at ChartaCares support human resources executives seeking to proactively respond with a care management system provided as a benefit…. one that delivers daily tangible benefit. With our system employees can more positively attend to the demands of both work and care in the new era of technology enabled healthcare.

See http://www.chartacares.com| Menu: Quality of Care | MyHomeReach to learn more or contact me directly at mike@chartacloud.com