Is Your Technology a Strategic Advantage?

All trends indicate the home is the hospital of the future. Tim Rowan, editor of Home Care Automation Report and respected industry consultant, says trends suggest home care and hospice will soon be caring for twice as many patients with the same number of staff. He also notes that effective technology is the only means to achieve this overwhelming goal. Could your current technology enable you to care for twice as many patients without hiring?

The Issue
Executives at Sussex Visiting Nurse Association of Saint Clare's realized their technology platform was a liability - not a strategic advantage. The automated system was so ineffective they continued to use paper charts. Paper charts that were time consuming to maintain and file. Paper charts that were often incomplete because there was not a safety check to ensure all required information was charted.

The system also lacked e-signature functionality. Clinicians frequently visited the office to review patient information and "sign off" on patient charts. This reduced field time and disrupted the office staff's productivity as co-workers engaged in social conversations.

There were inefficiencies throughout the agency. Clinicians lacked the ability to review medications while on a visit and often lacked key information to provide appropriate teaching. Reports were compiled manually and only through the billing module. The system also lacked the ability to compile reports through the clinical module.

The Solution
The agency needed technology to increase productivity, ease of use, staff morale and patient outcomes. They installed NDoc from Thornberry Ltd.

Today, everyone with a need to access charts can do so easily. Filing has been dramatically reduced - almost eliminated. Since clinicians no longer visit the office as frequently, the productivity of field clinicians and office staff has increased.

With a few clicks, managers and executives can easily review real-time information to make decisions. The team has a much better understanding of their referral sources. Nursing supervisors have a clear picture of productivity and can quickly identify potential training issues. QI staff identifies frequent coding errors and trains staff using the NDoc PPS Evaluator. Today, OASIS questions are consistently answered appropriately with more accurate diagnosis codes.

While it still takes the same amount of time to assess or visit a patient, clinicians have more time in the field since they seldom visit the office. NDoc ensures charting is complete, keeping a visit on the responsible clinicians' dashboard until all required information has been charted. Clinicians can review the interdisciplinary patient chart, as well as a complete patient summary on a single screen. This enables coordination of care without the clinician reviewing multiple screens scattered throughout the system. Clinicians provide appropriate patient education consistently because they have a better understanding of the patient's situation.

Sussex VNA has found NDoc user friendly. "NDoc is an advantage with new employees because it is so easy to learn and use," said Debra Poloniak, director of home care for Sussex VNA. "Clinicians and office staff alike become productive very quickly because NDoc requires a short learning curve."

Sussex Visiting Nurse Association of Saint Clare's implemented a technology platform that enables success - both today and in the future.

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