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Tag Archives/ IMPACT Act

Apr
12
2016

Promoting Quality and Care Coordination: An Interview with Edgewood Place Skilled Nursing Facility

Promoting Quality and Coordination Across the Care Continuum: An Interview with Edgewood Place Skilled Nursing Facility on Technology in the Post-Acute Care Environment

In today’s increasingly connected world, it is becoming a standard industry practice for hospitals to interact with patients using technology. With CMS reimbursements now tied to patient satisfaction and quality measures, hospital leaders understand the importance of using technology to capitalize on payment reform. More recently, post-acute care (PAC) providers, including skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), home health agencies (HHAs), and inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) have turned to technology to comply with similar regulations.

To promote care coordination across the continuum, CMS will soon require PAC providers to standardize and report on quality, outcomes, and satisfaction. This increased transparency pushes PAC providers to improve the experiences of patients and residents, optimize care services, and reduce readmissions. Using hospitals as a model for success, it is clear that technology will be a key factor in this changing PAC landscape.

Recognizing this shift, Edgewood Place at the Village at Brookwood, a skilled nursing facility part of the Cone Health System in central North Carolina, has turned to innovative technology to improve residents’ experiences and outcomes. Edgewood recently partnered with CipherHealth to implement Voice, a post-discharge follow-up calling platform, and Echo, a digital tool to record personalized discharge instructions. This collaboration demonstrates Edgewood’s mission to keep residents healthy and happy long after they leave the facility.

Steve Swanson and Teresa Pennington, Administrator and Administrative Office Manager at Edgewood Place, spoke with CipherHealth about how they are strategically implementing technology to improve the care experience and prepare for payment reform.

Interview with Steve Swanson and Teresa Pennington

CH:  As you were making the decision to implement Voice for your follow-up calling program, what were the primary challenges that you were trying to address? What specific goals did your organization have when partnering with CipherHealth?  

Edgewood:  Our goal when implementing Voice was to receive feedback from residents about our care services and quality in a direct way. We partnered with CipherHealth not only to receive this important feedback, but also to have a better, more streamlined way to address any issues that residents may have related to their care. This program quickly became an essential component in providing high-quality care services.

CH:  What have been the residents’ reactions to the automated calls?

Edgewood:  The residents have been extremely responsive to the follow-up program. Through the reports we receive from CipherHealth, we see that the majority of our residents complete the entire Voice call, and when callback is required, tend to be very honest with our staff. This allows us to address issues before they lead to adverse events, such as hospital readmissions. This proactive issue resolution also helps increase resident satisfaction and boost referrals.

CH:  Was implementation of the calling system difficult?

Edgewood:  From the beginning, the calling program was very user friendly and easy to implement. Should we experience any difficulties, the Cipher team is always available and eager to lend support to ensure that we are comfortable with the technology.

CH:  What have you learned about your residents through the Voice and Echo programs?

Edgewood:  We have learned that many residents do not fully understand their discharge instructions at the point of discharge, but may not speak up at that time. Despite this initial apprehension, residents tend to acknowledge that they need help on the Voice calls. Our staff is automatically notified of these issues or questions, and we can intervene prior to the residents making a medication mistake, improperly managing their care, or returning to the hospital.

CH:  What are some of the successes that you’ve seen since implementing Voice and Echo?

Edgewood:  By spotting trends in residents’ behavior and issues reported, we have been able to address several challenges that are typical of SNF residents post-discharge, for example, helping them obtain DME, Medications, and O2. Voice and Echo have also allowed us to promptly answer medication and therapy questions to prevent mistakes that could lead to hospitalizations.

CH:  Can you speak to the value that you see in Echo, the digital discharge instruction recording tool, specifically?

Edgewood:  With the Echo program, residents have the option to go back and listen to discharge instructions as many times as they would like at their convenience. This helps ensure that residents understand their care plans and comply properly with instructions. We’ve seen that the residents who listen to their Echoes have required fewer manual callbacks or interventions from staff.

CH:  What is the role of innovative technology in SNFs, as players in the industry work to position themselves as a value-base partners to their referral sources?

Edgewood:  Innovative technology is the most effective way to consistently receive meaningful feedback and drive improvements. We see the direction that medicine is moving in, and we believe that care does not end when a patient or resident walks out your door. We aim to offer high-quality care from the beginning of a resident’s experience to the end. Care must be coordinated at all levels, from hospital – to SNF- to Home Health – to outpatient – to independence, and on. We must work to prevent readmissions and additional expenditures to the referral sources, insurances, and the patients.

Key Takeaway

As highlighted by leaders at Edgewood Place, care extends far beyond the point of SNF discharge. Arguably, the window immediately after a patient or resident returns home or transitions to a lower acuity care setting is the most important time for providers to reach out. Having a robust discharge process including patient or resident follow up helps to prevent avoidable complications and hospitalizations, and creates a positive, lasting impression of the care experience. For Edgewood, incorporating Voice and Echo has allowed the organization to better understand its residents and make informed changes to improve quality of care and outcomes.

To learn how your organization can use Voice and Echo to improve quality of care and outcomes, and prepare for payment reform, contact us today.

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Tags: Care Coordination, CJR, Discharge Instruction Adherence, High-Quality Care, IMPACT Act, Improve Outcomes, Improve Quality of Care, Post Discharge Follow Up, Post-Acute Care, Recording Discharge Instructions, Resident Satisfaction, SNF, SNF Follow Up, Value-Based Care, VBP
Feb
16
2016

Why Home Health Must Focus on Quality

Federal ratings of home health agencies posted last week revealed a significant discrepancy between patient experience ratings and quality measures. This means that while agencies might be performing well on domains related to patient satisfaction, such as the professionalism of their staff, they might not be actually improving patient outcomes or reducing hospital readmissions. These results reflect key challenges not just among home health agencies, but of all post-acute care (PAC) services.

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How CMS is Addressing the Issue:

While patients’ perspectives are certainly an important aspect of care, agencies must ensure that actual health outcomes and quality measures do not take a back seat to satisfaction. To encourage agencies to deliver high levels of both quality and satisfaction, CMS’ upcoming Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act will require home health agencies to standardize and report both patient assessment scores and quality and outcomes data. Those who fail to report by a set date will face reductions in reimbursement rates.

What is the IMPACT Act?

The IMPACT Act will address fundamental challenges associated with post-acute care. With standardized and interoperable assessment data, clinically relevant information will be more easily shared not only across PAC, but also between hospitals and PAC. This will enable the transfer of health information across the care continuum as well as more comprehensive discharge planning. Encouraging providers to work together is of growing importance as value-based payments replace fee-for-service.

In addition to the benefits of standardized data, public reporting will empower consumers to take greater control over their care. Patients and their caregivers will be able to evaluate and differentiate care settings based on satisfaction and quality, and choose the most appropriate setting of care.

How to Achieve Compliance:

With increased transparency of quality and patient assessment data, there is a greater need than ever for PAC providers to invest in patient engagement and care coordination solutions. The challenge will be to streamline and increase efficiency of organizational processes but still prioritize the needs and preferences of each patient. By implementing strategic solutions, however, home health agencies can successfully deliver on both fronts.

CipherHealth’s suite of patient engagement and care coordination solutions helps home health agencies meet the standards of the upcoming CMS legislation. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and personal touchpoints, our solutions effectively improve outcomes and increase patient satisfaction for organizations across the care continuum.

To see how CipherHealth can help your organization achieve higher levels of patient satisfaction and enhance the quality of care, contact us and download our IMPACT Act overview.

Download the Overview

Tags: Care Coordination, CMS, Discharge Planning, High-Quality Care, Home Health, IMPACT Act, patient satisfaction, Post Discharge Follow Up, Post-Acute Care, Quality of Care
Feb
10
2016

Countdown to the IMPACT Act – New Discharge Planning Requirements

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed a revision of the discharge planning requirements that healthcare organizations must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. This requirement would affect not only acute care hospitals, but also long-term care hospitals (LTCHs), inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), critical access hospitals (CAHs), and home health agencies (HHAs).

The proposed changes would implement the discharge planning requirements of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014, which aims to improve consumer transparency and beneficiary experience during the discharge planning process across post-acute care (PAC) settings.

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The New Requirements:

As called for in the IMPACT Act, affected organizations must:

Provide discharge instructions to patients who are discharged to their home

Have a medication reconciliation process to enhance medication management and improve patient safety

For patients who are transferred to another facility, send specific medical information to the receiving facility

Establish a post-discharge follow-up process

Under the new requirements, the care team must develop a discharge plan within 24 hours of admission or registration, and complete a discharge plan before the patient is sent home or to another facility. This applies to all inpatients and certain outpatients, including those receiving observation services, undergoing surgery or other same-day procedures, and emergency department patients who have been identified as needing a discharge plan.

Putting Patients at the Center of their Care

Under the IMPACT Act, hospitals, CAHs, and certain PAC providers will be required to collect and report data on both quality and resource use measures. Increased data collection will help improve care delivery in a number of ways, including the discharge planning process. With access to standardized and robust data, patients and caregivers will be able to more easily compare PAC providers on quality and outcomes. Patients can then select the provider that best meets their needs and preferences, making them active contributors to the discharge planning process.

In addition to assisting patients in making well-informed placement decisions, the new policy would give patients greater opportunities to voice their preferences. Before being placed in the next setting of care, patients will be asked what is most important to them regarding treatment and recovery. Their preferences will be a key factor in placement decisions. Policies like this put real meaning behind the words, “consumer-centered healthcare.”

By requiring providers to develop comprehensive discharge plans and by putting patients at the center of care delivery, CMS’ proposed rule aims to achieve better care, smarter spending, and healthier people.

To see how CipherHealth’s patient engagement and care coordination solutions can help you comply with the new discharge planning requirements, contact us today or download our IMPACT Act overview.

Learn More

Tags: Care Transitions, CMS, Discharge Planning, Home Health, IMPACT Act, Long-Term Care, Post Discharge Follow Up, Post-Acute Care, Quality Patient Care, Skilled Nursing Facility Care
Contact our team at info@cipherhealth.com to see how we can help improve your healthcare system.

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