New Video: Improving Transitions of Care With Health Information Exchange

Date: May 8th, 2013Category: CORHIO e-NewsletterTopics: SNF, Hospital Readmissions, Long-Term Care, Home Health

A new video from CORHIO explores how health information exchange (HIE) improves communication between hospitals and long-term care providers.

 

 

Long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers face challenges when coordinating patient care, especially when transitioning patients from a hospital. The patient and their family members are often struggling to understand a new diagnosis and could be confused by new medical terminology and medications. And patients are at their most vulnerable, physically and mentally, during this time. It’s vital for providers to have accurate information on discharged or transferred patients to avoid medication errors, adverse events, duplicate medical tests, and unnecessary readmissions.

CORHIO’s new video addresses these issues and features LTPAC providers who are using the health information exchange to gather information on patients before admitting them or taking over their care. Included are interviews with a home health agency – Professional Home Health Care, a retirement community – Frasier Meadows, a hospice – Tru Community Care, and a patient of Professional Home Health Care. 

Before and After HIE
The providers and administrators in the video explain how their workflow was before they implemented CORHIO’s HIE. For example, Alexis Bellinger, RN at Professional Home Health, says: “Before CORHIO’s HIE, we spent 1-2 hours on a readmission and 2-4 hours on a new admission. It takes time to gather medication lists, reconcile them, and contact multiple doctors.”

The video also includes comments on how the HIE has improved transitions of care and saved the organizations time. Georgia Berger, Health Information Administrator at Frasier Meadows, comments: “Everything happens faster, everything’s smoother, meds get ordered more quickly. The pain gets relieved faster.”

Participating Providers
There are currently 50 LTPAC providers and 28 hospitals connected to CORHIO’s HIE. The HIE includes data on more than 2,110,000 unique patients, including lab and pathology results and hospital admit, discharge, and transfer information. To view a list of participating providers, visit Participating Providers

If you are interested in connecting your organization with CORHIO’s HIE, please contact us at 720-285-3200 or info@corhio.org.