Over the last five years it has been suggested that the homecare & hospice industry has quickly adopted EMR technology in an effort to improve efficiency, patient outcomes and profits.

The push towards technology is also in preparation for the impending firestorm of a dwindling Medicare Trust Fund, reductions to state Medicaid programs and the Affordable Care Act. But, it isn't about just adopting technology. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) will demand quality documentation that's collected electronically at the point of care, so that patient data can be easily shared across care settings.

However, reports indicate that EMR enabled or not, paper-based charting is still rampant. It seems that 53% of homecare & hospice agencies are still using paper to chart at the point of care, even if they've invested in an EMR solution.

KLAS Enterprises' Homecare 2011: New Expectations, New Market Energy report, released in September 2011, identified the following weaknesses with paper documentation - outdated, inefficient, and provides unclear documentation. The paper method also received the lowest overall performance score for methods to capture clinical info at point of care.

Surprisingly, with all the evidence pointing towards inefficiency more than half of homecare & hospice agencies still depend on paper.

We spoke with St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho who was diligently attempting to maintain accurate charts, but their business processes, and lack of technology, made the task time consuming and frustrating - as well as nearly impossible. It was the picture of inefficiency, not to mention unsafe for the patients. Not surprisingly, the department was unprofitable.

In an effort to prepare for the future of homecare, St. Luke's decided to make a conscious effort to regain efficiency and eliminate waste by launching a technology strategy that helped them increase agency profits by 37%. Read more about how they broke the paper cycle.