Suncoast Solutions
The ability for Suncoast Solutions clients to compare key metrics and quality data with other hospices across the nation at no associated cost is an immense, and unexpected, bonus.
Clearwater, FL (PRWEB) December 29, 2014
CHOICE (Coalition of Hospices Organized to Investigate Comparative Effectiveness), a quality improvement benchmarking network, is building the largest patient-level, multi-hospice dataset to date. The first look at the new data will be unveiled at the Suncoast Solutions Users’ Conference (February 16-20, 2015), in Clearwater, Florida.
CHOICE is known for their comparative effectiveness research contributions to examining outcomes for hospice patients and identifying best practices. For the past 5 years, CHOICE has worked with more than a dozen hospice organizations around the country documenting through Suncoast Solutions, a leading hospice and home care software vendor, to securely extract 160,000 patient medical records and turn their data into detailed, functional metrics. In the last few months, the Suncoast Solutions EMR system has been expanding the benchmarking network to all Solutions clients, at no additional cost.
“We are really excited about expanding our network to all Suncoast Solutions clients because this will provide a deeper understanding of our industry and help so many hospices further improve their business and quality operations,” says Dr. David Casarett, Director of Hospice and Palliative Care at the University of Pennsylvania and Principle Investigator of CHOICE.
Through the Solutions EMR, CHOICE participant hospices will have access to their own data and results. They will be able to generate reports that summarize their agency’s results, how they are performing relative to all hospices in the network, relative to a subset of similar programs and subsets of patient groups (i.e. nursing home residents). Benchmarking results can be adjusted for patient characteristics, such as diagnosis and site of care, to account for between-hospice differences in patient populations.
“This really has the potential to change some of our operational decisions,” says Eugenia Smither, VP of Compliance and Quality Improvement for Hospice of the Blue Grass. She has always used comparative effectiveness evaluation to identify best practices and is looking forward to increasing the data comparison pool; “The ability for Suncoast Solutions clients to compare key metrics and quality data with other hospices across the nation at no associated cost is an immense, and unexpected, bonus. We’re excited for all possibilities of this endeavor,” stated Mrs. Smither.
Dr. Casarett is focused on assessing variations, trends, and the impact processes of care have on outcomes, but he has even higher hopes for the future of CHOICE. “We hope that by expanding CHOICE we’ll become a true ‘learning healthcare system,’ providing clinical decision support directly through the Solutions software. This expansion is the first big step in that direction.”
About Suncoast Solutions
Hospice and home health care providers rely on the unrivaled Suncoast Solutions software to manage their care programs with integrated EMR, reporting, financial and business intelligence tools. Based in Clearwater, Florida, Suncoast Solutions professionals have been dedicated to partnering with hospice and home care agencies exclusively since 1999. http://www.sncoast.com