We have long promoted the strategy of combining technologies rather than expecting a home healthcare or hospice EMR to fulfill a provider agency's every automation need. In recent weeks, we have found three supplemental systems that appear to us will save more than they cost. At least one of these three will be worth a closer look to every reader.
Medalogix has been accumulating patient data for seven years now. Their newly released product, Touch, uses that growing volume of information in a new way. By comparing every patient against a benchmark of every past patient, Touch can accurately predict an individual's risk. Risk of rehospitalization, risk of falling, risk of requiring another 60 days of in-home care. More often than not, CEO Dan Hogan told us, the nurse's professional judgment and gut instinct is confirmed by the system's analytics.
"Our products have always been designed to help make home health agencies more attractive to hospitals and ACOs seeking partnerships," Hogan said, "by improving their outcomes and reducing readmissions."
While we had him on the phone to talk about Touch, we asked Hogan about the first competitor to enter his data analytics category ( see "Kinnser Tackling Hospital Admissions with New Data Analytics Tool" (5/11/2016). "I'm happy to see Kinnser entering the data science arena," he told us. "It confirms that we are on the right track if someone else is doing it."
Medalogix.com
Hospice providers have been suffering under the new "Notice of Election" rule. Now there is finally a cure. MedTranDirect, which providers payer connection services and HIPAA-compatible 835/837 transmissions, has a software system just coming out of beta, NOETracker, that solves a problem create by CMS. We will explore the problem and the way MedTranDirect goes after it in detail soon but here is the brief version.
Hospices must submit an NOE for every new patient within five days of admission. Daily payments are denied until an error-free NOE is received by CMS, through a mid-20th Century era, green-screen, direct data entry system which does not validate entries. In this archaic system, patient names, physician names and NPIs must be typed in as many as five times. Opportunity for error is extremely high, as evidenced by the 50% rejection rate after the 5-day window, when penalties are imposed. However, hospices may not know they have submitted a NOE with a typo for ten to twenty days, the time CMS takes to review and respond.
Hospices are reporting annual losses of six figures and up.
NOETracker sits between the hospice and the green screen. Data fields are typed once. The system checks for errors and populates all the repetitive fields in the CMS system automatically. Beta testers report zero payment denials over the first two months of use and an 80% reduction in time spent managing NOEs. We will bring you our complete interview with MedTranDirect CEO Ellie Robison and one of the company's beta testers later this month.
MedTranDirect.com
One of the perennial problems with virtual video visits is that the patient and the physician are not often available at the same time. Still, healthcare at home nurses know the value of including images to help physicians and WOC nurse specialists better understand each patient's condition. Enter a startup company founded by a woman with an undergraduate degree in physiology and a graduate degree from the Paris Photography Institute.
Meghan Conroy, CEO of CaptureProof, has developed an asynchronous communication system that goes far beyond transmitting pictures from a cell phone to an office. Her Smart Medical Camera™ app is different from those you may have used. Text instructions are displayed on the screen with photos. Indicators on the photo alert the person evaluating a wound or other target when there are areas of overexposure or shadows that may interfere with clinical evaluation.
Most importantly, the system offers an overlay system. The initial photo, usually taken by a nurse, remains available in the app as a shadowy outline. The patient downloads the app for use on his or her own device so updated wound photos can be sent often, daily if necessary. The outline helps the patient line up each photo with the size and angle of the original, enabling accurate remote evaluations.
See the CBS News interview with Meghan Conroy here.
©2016 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan's Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com