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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Today’s healthcare providers face a myriad of challenges as they look to comply with regulatory and legislative changes within the industry. Healthcare reform is looming with significant changes, including reduced reimbursements and requirements to meet Meaningful Use criteria. Providers are specifically in need of assistance in producing and delivering electronic communications that help them meet stage one of Meaningful Use and begin the process of complying with stages two and three later down the road.
With an increased focus on patient outcomes, providers are finding that their current systems and processes fall short of effectively communicating with patients, physicians, insurance companies and Medicaid and Medicare agencies. In fact, many providers still rely on multiple point solutions and manual processes to produce communications, leaving room for human error and creating an inefficient, time-intensive process. At the same time, an increasingly technologically savvy population is demanding communication in a variety of instant delivery channels, such as email, the internet, and SMS text messages.
One of the most pressing concerns providers are dealing with is rising re-hospitalization rates. Research shows that an overwhelming majority of re-hospitalizations that occur within 30 days of patients’ initial visit are both unplanned and acute. Furthermore, 20 to 50 percent of these re-admissions are preventable and avoidable. This has a significant financial impact on providers as Medicare agencies are responding by paying reduced fees when a patient is readmitted for the same condition.
A major factor in re-hospitalization comes with the breakdown in communication that occurs when handing off patients from one caregiver to another—whether to the patient’s home, a nursing home, rehabilitation center, or other facility. Currently, many discharge processes lack clear, concise discharge directions, which often results in costly hospital re-admissions.
Hospitals need an easy-to-use software tool to generate custom discharge documents and provide them to patients in their preferred method of delivery. For example, HP’s customer communications management software, HP Exstream, is now offering a comprehensive patient communication management solution for providers. Using this workflow solution hospitals can turn a complicated discharge statement into a clear, graphically enhanced document that calls attention to the most critical information. Ensuring instructions are clear, understandable, and actionable is a necessary step to aid in a patient’s recovery.
With Exstream’s easy-to-use interface, hospital staff can quickly produce discharge documents that pull relevant content from existing systems and databases. This process automatically compiles vital information needed to ensure a positive transition from the hospital to the next treatment facility. These documents not only summarize the care patients have received, but also help patients and their families or caretakers continue the post-care regimen and healing process. Documents can be automatically populated with helpful information such as:
A list of medications with pictures—Provide instructions on which medications to take, in what dosages, and when to take them. You can even include images, which provide a simple yet effective way to help patients identify medications and properly follow their medication schedule.
What to expect—Educate patients on what their healing process might entail. When they know what complications to look out for, the pain duration and intensity to expect, and the drug side-effects they may experience, they’ll be more likely to spot warning signs themselves.
Who to contact—Patients are often disoriented when discharged and may not remember who treated them. Helping them contact the right people avoids confusion and ensures they’ll receive the best response. This personal touch can also positively impact the patient’s satisfaction and opinion of the hospital.
Detailed instructions for follow-up appointments—Making sure patients understand when they should follow up with which care providers—and what they should expect or provide at those appointments—helps them comply with their discharge instructions and after-hospital-care plan.
In addition to helping produce more effective discharge documents, HP Exstream’s patient communications solutions for healthcare providers offers one platform for all enterprise communications, whether it is a discharge summary, billing statement or a personalized wellness newsletter. Imagine that you can hand off any document generated by Exstream with complete confidence that the information included is easy to read, easy to understand and contains only the critical information necessary.
Furthermore, Exstream is designed to fit into any IT environment. Healthcare providers now have the ability to access content from health information systems, electronic health records, other sources of patient data, and patient education content. Communications can be created for high-volume, on-demand, or interactive fulfillment. All documents can be delivered to virtually any patient-preferred channel, including local print, print and mail, fax, web, email, and even SMS and voice messages.
Healthcare providers have an obligation to their patients to provide them with the right tools to succeed once they leave their care. This includes detailed instructions on post-hospitalization that can be delivered in the patients preferred form of communication. By understanding patients’ needs and tailoring discharge summaries to each individual, hospitals can see a decrease in re-hospitalization and an increase in patient satisfaction and quality of care. In choosing HP Exstream’s patient communications solutions for healthcare providers, companies can start to realize these numerous benefits for their organization and their patients. For further information, go to: www.hp.com/go/exstream
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