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The Home Care Association of Florida
FEATURE
Health Information Exchange (HIE) – The
concept of one universal, accessible health record
has been around for decades. However, due to a
variety of factors in the care continuum (different
vendors for different providers within the same
circle of care, etc.), it has not been feasible. The
HIE concept was born from the ACA to solve
this puzzle. An HIE securely bridges the gap
between groups and organizations taking part
in the care of the patient; including hospitals,
labs, outpatient facilities, etc. Each one of these
providers use their own software vendors which
do NOT communicate with each other – and the
HIE serves as the middleman in a secure fashion.
An HIE is designed to feed as much information
as possible about that patient to the providers
of care. These include but are not limited to:
lab results and orders, advance care directives,
medication lists, admission/discharge/transfer
notifications, transcribed documents, and much
more. How many times have you experienced a
clinician knocking on the patients’ front door
Monday morning only to realize they had been
admitted to the hospital Saturday afternoon?
When part of an HIE, this information is
sent in real-time and notified to all providers
securely across the continuum – not via fax two
days later. Still a relatively “fresh” idea to home
care, take a look at
to
learn more about these programs and how they
could help your agency.
Electronic Medical Records (EMR) –
Communication and data analysis are two keys
that lie behind an agency’s success in the newstate
of health care reform. Whether part of an ACO
or not, not having a secure and timely means of
communication (from clinical documentation
to secure messaging between disciplines) will be
a load to bear by agencies into the future. Initial
cost, implementation, training, and process
changes are all “fear factors” to those who
have not already gone through the transition
from paper to electronic documentation – and
understandably so. However, in the long run,
the types of data analysis which the majority of
EMR vendors can supply will be valuable tools
in possibly gaining admittance to an ACO and/
or improving your value based reimbursement.
In closing, home health has come out of the
ACA in one piece with a global understanding
that value-based payments are the future.
Being in an ACO isn’t a requirement to survive,
but as many experts will state; “thinking like
one should be.” Any one of these trends in
technology listed above will only help you
improve your quality of care – but remember,
technology is merely a tool and not solely a
solution. When placed in the right hands,
technology can be part of the answer.
HCAF
Elek Hutchinson is the Client Liaison - East Coast
Operations for HealthCare Synergy Inc. HealthCare
Synergy Inc., offers an intuitive web format application.
Thank you to HealthCare Synergy for consistently
participating and supporting HCAF educational
events. To thank them or receive more info please visit
