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“Our goal is to expand from mobile patient reminders into medication adherence and provide a place for the patient’s care team to communicate to optimize the patient’s quality of care, care experience at the same time lowering health costs.
Wellesley, MA (PRWEB) October 14, 2014
Digital Collaboration Solutions (DCS), a leading consulting and services firm for healthcare provider and patient engagement and care management, today announced completion of a successful pilot program with Hahnemann University Hospital in conjunction with the Center for Advanced Heart Failure Care. The pilot included a readmissions assessment, industry benchmarking, clinical workflow reengineering, and the implementation of a cloud-based, mobile technology appointment reminder solution. Over a period of ten months, the pilot has reduced readmissions by over 15 percent with a projected return on investment of over 100%.
The pilot is part of an initiative to increase patient engagement to decrease 30-day readmissions through effective appointment rules-based mobile reminders. Reminders are sent according to the patient’s method of choice – phone, text, or email - to their device of choice, and in their language of choice. Reminders allow patient responses for appointment confirmations or how to reschedule. Additionally, unlike a traditional phone call to the home, reminders can go out to family and friends alike on their device & language of choice to help coordinate care in the post discharge setting.
“The successful pilot program has had an impact on reducing readmissions in the patient population studies in the pilot and improving care quality among our cardiac patients, said Thompson H. Boyd, III, M.D., Physician Liaison at Hahnemann. “DCS provided us with the care management best practices and healthcare technology savvy we sought for this project including the importance of risk stratification and understanding of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) readmissions penalty processes. As a result, we were able to significantly reduce readmissions and related CMS penalties.”
“Today’s automatic phone call to a patient’s home was a good start,” said Timothy Perkins, vice president at DCS and project partner for the Hahnemann pilot. “This new approach not only expands reminders to text, email and phone calls in a language of their choice, it also engages the patient’s care team of family, friends, clinicians and community care resources to securely coordinate quality care. In short we have an accessible, HIPPA cloud-based secure platform that can be used to link all the participants together on the patient’s behalf that complement and bridge existing pockets of clinical information.”
The broad vision is to provide a common place patients and their care teams can securely share clinical and related information to optimize patient care after they leave the hospital, Appointment reminders can be effectively deployed as well as medication reminder initiatives.
“The pilot was successful, but we see how we can do so much more through this patient engagement and care coordination approach across the entire continuum of care” states Boyd. “Our goal is to expand from mobile patient reminders into medication adherence and provide a place for the patient’s care team across the community to communicate to optimize the patient’s quality of care, care experience at the same time lowering health care costs.”
About Digital Collaboration Solutions, LLC
Digital Collaboration Solutions (DCS) is a consulting and services company that helps healthcare organizations improve care coordination and patient and provider engagement through innovative communications, collaboration, and technology. The DCS team combines healthcare, health IT, and communications experience with the latest in digital collaboration technologies to deliver measurable results and improved outcomes. For more information, visit thinkdcs.com and follow us @thinkDCS.
About Hahnemann University Hospital
Hahnemann University Hospital is a 496-bed academic medical center at Broad and Vine Streets in Philadelphia, Pa. The hospital is a tertiary care institution that specializes in cardiac services, heart failure, OB/GYN, orthopedics, medical, surgical and radiation oncology, bone marrow transplantation, renal dialysis and kidney/pancreas/liver transplantation. In 2009, Hahnemann earned Magnet® designation by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program®. Hahnemann is recognized by the American Heart Association as a leader in stroke and heart failure treatments. U.S. News and World Report’s 2014-15 “Best Hospital’s” report named Hahnemann among the top 50 Best Hospitals in the nation for nephrology, and ranked eleven medical specialties as “high performing.” The hospital performed one of the city’s first kidney transplants in 1963 and one of the first bone marrow transplants in 1976. Hahnemann became Philadelphia’s first Level I Regional Resource Trauma Center for adults in 1986, and since then has been served by MidAtlantic MedEvac, an aeromedical transport program for critically ill patients. Hahnemann is proud to be the first hospital in Philadelphia to join with The Wellness Community of Philadelphia to offer onsite support and education services to cancer patients and their families. Hahnemann is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency. An affiliate of Drexel University College of Medicine, Hahnemann University Hospital is part of Tenet Pennsylvania, which also includes St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.
To learn more about Hahnemann, visit http://www.hahnemannhospital.com