With a significant portion of U.S. healthcare spending going towards chronic condition care, health providers are facing new challenges to improve the outcomes of patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. For hospitals, there are two significant business concerns that are impacted by chronic condition patients:
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has linked readmissions rates and Medicare reimbursement, thus making the issue an important risk management and revenue protection action for providers
Managing the uninsured and underinsured populations with a chronic condition can make a positive difference in avoiding costly acute episodes
Implementing management systems that facilitate patient and caregiver collaboration around follow-up care appointments, in-home testing, medication adherence, diet and exercise protocols, and educational outreach all contribute to increased self-reliance and improved knowledge of chronic conditions, which in turn lead to healthier patients with fewer acute episodes.
Many hospitals use patient outreach programs as their primary method to manage patients post-discharge, however patient outreach programs may present challenges for care providers, especially if:
Programs lack sufficient funding, staffing, or both
Few systems are in place to efficiently collaborate and collect data about patients after they leave provider facilities
Existing computer systems have few capabilities for data-driven workflows based on real-time self-reported patient information or feedback
Chronic condition management solutions can help you streamline patient outreach programs. Caregivers can react more quickly to patients’ changing conditions by interpreting clinical data, such as readings that are outside of clinical tolerances, or they can follow up immediately with patients who have stopped reporting. Patients can learn how to maintain stable conditions at home to help them reduce risk and acute care episodes, which in turn helps providers better manage costs and resources.
With a Microsoft chronic condition management solution, you can:
Use integrated data collected by program clinicians and staff, line-of-business applications, and self-reported by patients to determine when to offer proactive care to decrease the likelihood that patient conditions will escalate to high-risk health problems
Increase productivity by reducing the amount of time and staff it takes to administer patient outreach programs
Provide better service, strengthen communications, and improve responsiveness by sharing patient information, from both the hospital and home settings, between healthcare organizations’ systems and personnel
Create patient programs that can supplement and strengthen your readmission rates reduction plans, while engaging the patient to actively participate in their own wellness
Patient-focused technologies can help you enhance communication, collaboration, information flow, and education.
