Disjointed health IT infrastructure and data silos can be major obstacles to care coordination for hospitals.
Disjointed health IT infrastructure and data silos can be major obstacles to care coordination for hospitals.
And poor care coordination can lead to hospital readmissions for patients and financial penalties for organizations, explained Bill Wylie, senior vice president of business operations at the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA).
GHA is a nonprofit trade association made up of member health systems, hospitals, and individuals in administrative and decision-making positions within those institutions.
Dig Deeper
- Medical Technology Focuses on Patient Engagement, Care Coordination
- AI, Blockchain to Spur Growth in Care Coordination Software Market
- Care Coordination Key for Interoperability, Patient Care
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
“We were looking for a program that can allow hospitals to communicate more efficiently with post-acute providers, physicians, and other folks like that to help streamline care and make it more efficient outside of the hospital,” Wylie told HITInfrastructure.com.
To address these issues, GHA’s Georgia Hospital Health Services subsidiary decided to partner with CarePort in offering a care coordination management solution to its 173 acute care hospital members in Georgia.
CarePort’s platform and network of providers helps bridge the IT gaps between hospitals, post-acute providers, payers, and physician groups to coordinate and manage patient care.
HOSPITAL READMISSIONS ARE A SYMPTOM OF BIGGER ISSUES
“The readmissions were more like a symptom, but we had bigger issues around care coordination and care transition. So, that was the financial stick that went along with the carrot of providing better patient care for patients in Georgia,” Wylie said.
“If you can do those care transitions more efficiently, you’re going to get more engaged patients that are going to be more likely to follow through with their care plans,” he related.
As a result of the partnership, any GHA member, including those participating in value-based care arrangements, can use CarePort’s care coordination solutions to access relevant patient information and clinical context to improve patient care.
“Most of the way that we get our message out about our partners is through case studies that can demonstrate that value to the hospitals. We also have one-on-one meetings with the hospitals and talk through the solutions. When we understand what their issues are, then we can make recommendations for partners,” Wylie explained.
“No matter how strongly we recommend things, hospitals make their own decisions at their own time. They have their own processes that they use to vet vendors and services. We figure the more information that our members have, the more advanced their decision-making processes and understanding will be,” he added.
“Care coordination has been a real challenge in Georgia. We have provider silos. This solution can help break down some of those barriers. We have hospitals that work closely with post-acute providers and even in that situation, I think this could make those communications more efficient and provide more meaningful information so that the patient remains the focus in the whole transaction,” Wylie concluded.
Date: August 09, 2019
Source: HITInfrastructure