Optimizing Hospice Operations: A Focus on Specialized Software.
The Challenge
Hospice of Sweetwater is located in Rock Springs, WY. They have a dedicated and specially trained team of professionals and volunteers who provide exceptional care at the end of life. Their clinicians are often working in remote areas adding to the difficulties of electronic charting with a lack of cell service. As a result, clinicians would complete their charting in the evenings after they got home, the next day and even into the weekend. This impacted the work life balance of their clinicians in a significant way.
In addition, the system they were using forced a lot of manual processes including printing all of the charts prior to the IDG meeting, organizing the meeting on paper and then following the meeting, they would have to scan in the signed documents and upload them to each patient’s chart individually. This would draw out the process to be about three hours and presented even more concerns when thinking about how they would grow their census with so many manual processes. And when they would need any assistance from their EHR’s support team, they were empty handed. “We would call and submit tickets, but would never hear back from anyone. We didn’t even get an acknowledgement that we submitted anything. This was frustrating,” said Nicole Mandros, Executive Director. It was clear to the leadership team, there had to be a better way.
The Solution
The team at Hospice of Sweetwater made the decision to evaluate other hospice software solutions. According to Nicole Mandros, Executive Director, “This functionality has made a world of difference, especially during the pandemic. Everyone could log in from home and we could conduct the meeting remotely. This made it safer for everyone and more efficient. We’re so thankful! ” They saw that there was the ability to chart offline and it would restore the balance in the lives of their clinicians. They also saw an automated workflow for IDG meetings that would save them so much time. And the plan of care functionality would ensure that the patient’s chart is always up to date. They found a winner!
The Result
Implementing Curantis Solutions was fairly painless and was easy for the team at Hospice of Sweetwater to learn. Over the course of a month, everyone felt comfortable and they were starting to see immediate improvements. Because the IDG meeting feature truly automates the IDG workflow, they no longer have to print paper charts to prep for the meeting or scan and upload documents back into the system. The staff do all of their prep work in the system, and simply show up to the meeting. They can all electronically sign the documents within the IDG meeting feature and close the meeting. The notes are all appended to each patient’s chart and when the meeting is done, they’re done! Their IDG meeting time went from three hours to one hour with Curantis Solutions. And what makes it even better is they can do the meeting remote. “This functionality has made a world of difference during this pandemic. Everyone can log in from home and we can conduct the meeting remotely. We used to all get together in our conference room face to face. Doing it from home is safer for everyone and it’s even more efficient. We’re so thankful!” said Mandros. The clinicians have found the system to be more user friendly overall with how the chart is laid out making it easy to toggle between body systems. It’s easy to coordinate with other staff, organize their schedule and it has also saved them time in how they do billing. And the best part is, they feel supported. “The service we receive is 180 degrees different!” said Mandros. “We usually get a response the same day and if the support staff is unclear, they reach out to talk to us about it. If they don’t have a solution right away, they let us know that and they acknowledge the ticket. The support has been really great!”
