Improved Connectivity Enhances Patient Care and Your Bottom Line

Chronic illnesses challenge community hospitals to better manage care transitions.

Rural communities have more than their share of patients with chronic illnesses, such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiac heart failure (CHF). In fact, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, rural areas report that more than 22 percent of the population suffer from two to three chronic conditions. Community hospitals need tools to help manage complex transitions of care successfully and improve the long-term health of those patients. Scheduling tools that give providers and patients more control over their appointments can be part of the solution.

Chronic illness and a whole host of comorbid conditions, including depression, make a patient’s journey through a system—often challenging in itself—even more difficult. Because transitions of care often happen among different providers and across different types of facilities, healthcare organizations also need to address order integration, outbound referral management, transfers, and long-term scheduling.

Community hospitals are in the best position to deliver the highest possible quality of care when they have a view of all the relevant information about their patients. A complete patient record is part and parcel of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) platform, such as MEDHOST’s Enterprise EHR. There are three primary benefits of a complete patient record:

• Improved quality of care and patient safety
• Increased efficiency by eliminating paperwork
• Improved health outcomes

The convergence of EHR data and two-way patient information flow can not only enhance patient care, but it can also drive revenue to other facility programs that address chronic illnesses and comorbid conditions, such as diabetes prevention programs, behavioral health services, or a cardiac rehabilitation center.

Scheduling also improves care continuity along a patient’s journey, making it more likely that specialist referral appointments or diagnostic testing appointments are made and kept. Additionally, patients and caregivers alike can easily access visible information needed to keep them well.

Scheduling platforms give hospital and clinic schedulers increased control over how and when to set appointments. Designed to work around the unique needs of patients, scheduling platforms increase the likelihood that the patient complies with their doctor’s order and stays within the hospital system.

The MEDHOST Community Scheduling solution will allow the flexibility to view, book, change, or cancel appointments online. Other benefits include:

• Increased physician and patient satisfaction. Patients want their healthcare to seamlessly fit into their lives. With constant availability and 24/7 access, this service can help drive patient satisfaction and ensure more kept appointments.
• Decreased phone and fax traffic. Registration desks at community hospitals are notoriously busy places. Being able to schedule appointments from anywhere on an easy-to-use platform means less frustration and waiting time for staff and patients.
• Higher outpatient volumes from provider offices. Better scheduling can translate to the ability to see more patients in a day, a solution that’s good for patients and their healthcare providers.

Scheduling platforms like MEDHOST’s Community Integration platform makes care coordination simpler, help minimize time and effort, and can increase revenue by keeping patients within a single system.

Read on for a deeper dive into how MEDHOST’s Community Integration platform can increase satisfaction for patients and providers.