The interesting thing about care coordination is that if it’s done well, you probably don’t even notice it. Patients and their caregivers move smoothly from provider to provider, facility to clinic, and progress to a state of wellness without great awareness of the process itself. However, it’s a completely different story (and unfortunately far more common) for patients and caregivers to find themselves thoroughly overwhelmed and confused by their care journey, unsure of where to turn when, and to whom. Given the staggering numbers of complex care conditions that plague many adults these days, the healthcare experience often leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the very people who need to engage with it the most. This is where improving healthcare communication and unifying the care team – the whole care team – can significantly impact not only the patient experience, but also contribute toward better outcomes in health conditions. And we can’t help but champion Home Health providers as strategic players in bringing this vision to reality given their unique and vital position in their patients’ lives.
Let’s consider how improving healthcare communication with Home Health providers can bring home (pun intended) the promise of a unified care plan from a unified care team.
Patients Caught in the Crossfire of Care Coordination
If you’ve been around for a minute, you know how strongly we at Kno2 feel that busy care providers should not have to worry about interoperability or the IT change management that comes with it. We are also of the mindset that patients – and caregivers, who don’t get enough attention or consideration in the care experience – shouldn’t have to bear the burden of clunky care coordination hand-offs. Despite technology abounding to manage referrals and patient records, many patients still find their eyes crossing when trying to wrestle all the various portals and passwords needed to simply manage their conditions.
Home Health Delivers More Than Just Medicine
One of the beautiful aspects of post-acute care providers is that they often step into more than just a medical role in the patient’s care by also helping to navigate the process (…including the portals and passwords). Leveraging the perspective of Home Health providers, who are face-to-face with their patients on a regular basis, is incredibly valuable for monitoring not only the health condition, but also all those other factors that contribute to health outcomes, including care plan adherence and appointment attendance.
By enabling Home Health providers to tap into the unified care team via electronic communications and records exchange, the whole care team is in a better position to see their respective areas of focus improve and stay on track, as well as stay abreast of patient concerns before they result in an ED visit.
We’ve shared before how improved connectivity for Home Health Services impacts cost and morale for providers, but it’s also massively impactful to the patient experience to know their caretakers are actually synced and working from a shared playbook.
