Dec
07
2017

Driving Good Health Care: A Report on How Healthcare Executives Approach Patient Outreach Post-Discharge

Modern Healthcare recently published a report after nearly 250 healthcare leaders were surveyed on the methods used to engage patients and their outcomes expectations. The results showed trends in provider expectations around the percentage and types of patients they would like to engage. Additionally, the survey results highlighted the types of technology they hope to leverage in their outreach and engagement efforts.

Patient engagement is a hot topic among healthcare executives amidst the rise in consumerism and payment incentives that focus on providing value-based care. As leaders focus on finding patient engagement solutions, the report highlights the need for technology to be cost-effective and clinically proven to improve patient satisfaction scores and reduce readmission rates.

Software such as CipherHealth’s Voice patient outreach platform helps providers streamline manual processes and create a cost-effective patient engagement strategy. From meeting population health goals to reducing 30-day readmissions, effective multi-modal engagement will prove to be key. As modern healthcare’s report showcases, there are many initiatives that would benefit from efficient patient outreach and engagement programs.

Learn more about the future of patient engagement and how technology is helping providers meet short and long-term goals and download Modern Healthcare’s executive brief.

Tags: Patient Engagement, patient engagement software, Patient Engagement Solutions, Patient Outreach, Population Health Software, Post Discharge Follow Up, post-discharge follow-up solution, readmission reduction, Reduce 30 Day Readmissions, reducing readmissions

Oct
17
2017

What are the Best Patient Engagement Solutions to Drive Results?

Patient engagement is a buzzword throughout the healthcare industry. It is used to describe many forms of activities patients may take inside and outside of the provider setting. There are many studies that have been done to understand what some of the most effective patient engagement solutions; however, it is still highly debated as to what are the best methods to engage patients in their care to improve outcomes and experiences.

Patient engagement can be broken down into many different categories; however, there are three stages providers should consider when looking for the best patient engagement solution for their patient population; pre-arrival, during the visit, post-visit.

Pre-Arrival

Some patients may prefer text messages, phone calls, emails, or smartphone applications. Others may not want any engagement at all prior to their arrival. For those patients who are willing to engage in their care, pre-arrival education and surveys can offer a myriad of benefits to both the provider and patient. Ensuring patients understand where they need to go, what to expect, or asking about their care status can help reduce stress, improve communication, and give information to the provider to help anticipate patient needs.

During the Visit
When the patient is in your facility, this is one of the best places to engage them in their care. Understanding their preferences, closing the loop on issues, and providing personalized education are all great strategies for patient engagement.

When the patient is within the facility, the best types of patient engagement solutions will often vary. While some solutions utilize tablets or televisions to disseminate information, other patient engagement strategies include provider-focused education and surveys to keep up-to-date on patient needs and address any gaps in knowledge or care prior to their return home.

Post-Visit
With resource constraints, high patient volumes, and changing patient preferences, it may seem challenging to find cost-effective patient engagement solutions that work for your patient community. Offering multiple modalities for engagement that meet patient preferences such as call, text, or email outreach, can help your team understand what patients’ needs are and ensure they follow care instructions.

When it comes to finding the best patient engagement solution, it is critical for your team to evaluate when you are looking to engage patients. Once that is established, understanding what your goals are, such as better outcomes, increased CAHPS scores, or meeting quality metrics, will help identify which type of solution is best for your workflows and patients.

Tags: Orchid, Orchid Kiosk, Patient Engagement, patient engagement solution, Patient Engagement Solutions, Post Discharge Follow Up, post-discharge follow-up solution, Voice

Sep
15
2017

A CipherHealth Community Forum: Utilizing Voice Post-Discharge Follow Up Best Practices

As a member of the CipherHealth community, there are many benefits, one of which is learning from other members across the country. One regular aspect of this is our user forum webinar series. During these webinars, providers learn from each other by sharing learnings and best practices on implementing technology.

Recently, two organizations shared their outstanding work in implementing and leveraging Voice, CipherHealths patient outreach platform. During the webinar, Alicia Yang, Senior Account Strategist at CipherHealth provided an overview of how Voice works for post-discharge follow up and identified our best practices that can help organizations succeed when implementing Voice.

The webinar then focused on two clients and their learnings from using Voice, Sentara Williamsburg Regional Medical Center and Baptist Healthcare in Montgomery, AL.

Sentara’s Centralized Escalation Process

Unique to the Sentara program is the centralized call back system that has a tiered escalation process. The nurses in the centralized call system resolve about 80% of all issues after talking with the patient and reviewing the medical record. If they are unable to resolve the issue, it is escalated to the site contact who quickly reaches out to the patient. The third escalation tier is to the Integrated Care Management program which marshals resources such as pharmacy, care manager, and the patient advocate.

Through the use of scripts customized for specific patient populations, Sentara Williamsburg has seen a statistically significant reduction in its readmissions, demonstrating the impact of the Voice touch point and the follow-up from a clinical nurse.

Baptist’s Data-Based Action Plans

After implementing Voice, the team reviewed the data and found that 80% of all the identified issues are social concerns. As a result, the Center for Wellbeing utilizes the skills of a social worker as the first responder for those patients needing additional outreach.

The results demonstrate a reduction in readmissions for both the general inpatient and patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). This is due to timely problem resolution aimed at helping the patient obtain prescriptions and helping patients navigate the healthcare system.

The user forum webinars are a great resource for our clients who want to learn about and adopt best practices. As outlined by Smith and Benson, Voice can be tailored to meet the goals of your organization and provides immense benefits through issue resolution and actionable insight. Contact us today for more information on our user forum webinars or how to implement a successful post-discharge follow-up program.

Tags: Patient Engagement Solutions, Post Discharge Follow Up, post-discharge follow-up solution, Reduce Readmissions, Voice

Jun
06
2017

Using Technology for Tailored Patient Engagement

Effectively engaging patients and their families in care is a proven method of increasing compliance, outcomes, and satisfaction. The challenge for healthcare providers is engaging patients in ways that create meaningful interactions capable of delivering positive results. When it comes to effectively engaging patients, most often it comes down to communicating with in the right way, at the right time.

Additionally, as value-based care models continue to change, patient engagement will play an increasingly important role. In order to improve the quality and quantity of patient touchpoints both inside and outside of a care facility, providers need to implement proven methods of engagement that drive improvements and consistently meet KPIs. With the majority of resources focused on in-facility patient interactions, providers must find ways of effectively engaging patients post-discharge without adding additional FTEs. They will need solutions and programs that engage patients in the following ways:

Communicate with patients in their preferred language
Use the right modality of engagement
Personalize communication to the patient’s DRG and care program

Achieving success is challenging because the process for this type of engagement is resource-consuming. By using technology such as CipherHealth’s Voice follow-up or population health outreach solution, tailored outreach can be streamlined to help close the loop on patient issues and achieve positive results.

By customizing outreach by language, modality, and DRG, it is easier to send tailored messages to patients that monitor status, encourages compliance, and alerts providers to potential issues. By asking tailored DRG-specific or care program-related questions, providers can gather relevant information and prevent adverse events before they occur.

Providing outreach via the appropriate modality (call, texts or emails) and the right language will increase patient’s likelihood of engagement, driving further results. With a higher-volume of engaged patients and a streamlined approach to follow up, your organization will be able to meet KPIs such as lowered readmission rates or increased preventive screenings.

Visit our website to learn more about how Voice’s features help drive improvements for your organization cost-effectively and efficiently

Tags: post-discharge follow-up solution, Quality Patient Care, reducing 30 day readmissions, Voice

Dec
15
2016

The New Helping Hand: Preventing HIV Readmissions with Technology

HIV can be a terrifying and isolating disease in the modern age of medicine despite major advances in research. Patients that are HIV positive still suffer from depression and stigma, as the disease is one without a cure. The virus can easily mutate, and patient populations struggle with medication compliance. In addition, HIV-positive patients’ condition greatly weakens their immune systems, leaving them susceptible to other illnesses. Readmissions for this patient population are costly, frequent, and disproportionate.

Despite these challenges, a 360-bed Academic Medical Center in San Diego took on the seemingly behemoth task of reducing readmissions within the HIV-infected population. According to a 2015 study, the average readmission rate in the United States for HIV-positive patients is between 19-25%. Although the San Diego hospital’s HIV readmission rate was already significantly lower than the national average, at 12.4%, hospital leaders felt this was something they could further improve.

Meeting the Follow-up Needs of HIV Patients

In order to maximize the potential for success, the medical center partnered with CipherHealth to launch Voice, a leading follow-up solution. The hospital implemented Voice to automatically call all HIV patients post-discharge to check in on their conditions, identify any questions or concerns, and gather feedback on their hospital stays.

If a patient reports a question or potential issue, an alert is triggered to a designated clinician, who will manually call the patient to resolve the concern. This process ensures that patient issues are resolved promptly and effectively, helping to prevent avoidable readmissions. After nine months of using the follow-up platform, the readmission rate for HIV-positive patients discharged dropped from around 12.4% to a readmission rate of 5%.

“These results illustrate the importance of early intervention in preventing readmissions within high-risk patient groups,” said Alex Hejnosz, CipherHealth co-founder. True to this statement, the hospital has found that over 65% of HIV patients called with Voice engage with the call. Of those who engage with a call, 42% require manual intervention from a clinician. This high issue rate shows the importance of reaching out to this high-risk population.

With Voice reports, the hospital has in-depth insight into how long it takes for staff members to reach out to patients indicating an issue. As a result, clinicians were able to understand the impact of rapid issue resolution and decrease their median intervention time to 20 minutes.

Hospital-Wide Success with Effective Follow Up

Similar success with the Voice program has been seen for Orthopedic and Cardiovascular patients. Readmission rates for these patients have respectively dropped by 74% and 67% since the launch of Voice at the hospital. Aside from being able to efficiently triage patient issues, Voice provides hospital leaders with a large volume of in-depth data, which helps inform and drive improvements to patient care.

Through the data gathered on the automated calls, the organization was able to pinpoint the most common reasons patients required manual callback. They found that the most common reasons for callback were non-clinical: transportation help, scheduling a primary care physician appointment, and scheduling a follow-up appointment. This information has helped the hospital drive further improvements to discharge planning by working to ensure that all patients can easily travel home and have future appointments scheduled.

Conclusion
Overall, technology can help to mitigate the challenges presented by a high-risk patient’s care journey. Specifically with HIV-positive patients, care solutions like Voice offer yet another touchpoint for patients to express concern or misunderstanding, thereby improving outcomes and decreasing readmissions.

Tags: HIV, post-discharge follow-up solution, Readmission Rate, technology solution, Voice

Nov
30
2016

The Importance of Engaging Patients and Family Members in the Discharge Process

This is part 1 of 3 blog posts focusing on the journey of patient experience and outcome improvement at Lutheran Medical Center. These posts were written by Barb Davis, VP of Accounts at CipherHealth. Barb brings with her over 30 years of experience in healthcare quality and performance excellence.

How does your organization engage the patient and family members in the discharge process? Do you do a teach back to check for understanding? Do you use an assessment tool to measure the patient’s comfort with going home? Or do you tend to print off a bunch of papers, maybe hand them some photo copies, and then wish them luck? What do patients do if they have concerns?

These are the questions that I, alongside staff members at Lutheran Medical Center, addressed on a webinar sponsored by the Colorado Hospital Association on increasing patient and family engagement in the discharge process. This topic is especially relevant as consumerism rises in healthcare and regulations encourage providers to focus on higher quality of care, patient satisfaction, and the value they are providing.

During the webinar, I presented background information on three successful care transition models, highlighting the tools they encourage providers to utilize in engaging patients and families:

Care Transitions Initiative ®
Project Red
Project Boost®

The Care Transitions Initiative leverages a self-management model through a Transitions Coach. It also uses several assessment tools, including the Patient Activation Assessment, the Family Caregiver Activation Assessment, DECAF, and has a set of Care Transitions Measures (CTM-15). Eric Coleman at the University of Colorado is the lead researcher.

Project RED (Re-engineering Discharge) recommends 12 mutually reinforcing components, including patient call backs, teach backs and an easy to understand After Hospital Care Plan.

Project Boost (Better Outcomes by Optimizing Safe Transitions) was created as a quality improvement project by the Society of Hospital Medicine. It has a number of great tools to use to assess the patient’s readiness for discharge (General Assessment of Preparedness).

The key to these approaches is they have a strong patient/family engagement strategy with specific recommended tools for assessing the level of patient comprehension and engagement. These approaches are critical, because when patients are worried about finances or are scared, they may not fully understand the resources at their disposal to alleviate stress and properly care for themselves or loved ones. By implementing any of these initiatives, hospitals can empower patients by reducing miscommunication and uncertainty.

Although patient engagement strategies are essential to improving outcomes, they can be challenging to thoroughly implement without significantly disrupting nurse work flow or the efficiency of a team. However, technology solutions can help circumvent work flow hurdles. After learning about the benefits of using technology as a care team asset, Lutheran Medical Center decided to implement a post-discharge calling solution. By adding yet another patient-facing touchpoint, Lutheran proved their dedication to their patients’ well-being and the human element of care.

To learn more about Lutheran’s patient engagement journey, look for our second blog post in the series.

Tags: Lutheran Medical Center, Patient Engagement, Patient Experience, post-discharge follow-up solution, technology solution

Oct
19
2016

A Small Investment for A Better Future

VNSW recently launched a pilot of Voice, CipherHealth’s post-discharge patient outreach solution. The partnership is a result of VNSW’s long-standing desire to put improved patient satisfaction and outcomes at the forefront of their care goals.

“This is the goal of value-based care models,” stated Johnbanks Powell, vice-president of post-acute care at CipherHealth. “CMS has good intentions, but it’s hard to know where to begin and how to keep more people safe and healthy.” Follow-up calls are often a good place to start. However, the number of calls required to contact every discharged patient can be overwhelming to any nurse or post-discharge team.

This is where CipherHealth can help. Through real-time reporting and with a personalized yet automated follow-up call platform, the patient outreach technology provided VNSW with not only improved insights, but also helped them keep more patients out of the hospital. Overall, Voice helped VNSW successfully contact 73% of patients and provide follow-up calls to the 38% of patients that needed additional information or assistance.

To find out how CipherHealth can help your team prepare for the transition to value-based care, contact us today.

Tags: automated patient follow-up, home health technology, Patient Outreach, patient satisfaction, post-discharge follow-up solution, Voice

Tag Archives/ post-discharge follow-up solution

Driving Good Health Care: A Report on How Healthcare Executives Approach Patient Outreach Post-Discharge

What are the Best Patient Engagement Solutions to Drive Results?

A CipherHealth Community Forum: Utilizing Voice Post-Discharge Follow Up Best Practices

Using Technology for Tailored Patient Engagement

The New Helping Hand: Preventing HIV Readmissions with Technology

The Importance of Engaging Patients and Family Members in the Discharge Process

A Small Investment for A Better Future

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