The modern healthcare system is besieged with unprecedented challenges. Data from the CDC says the average life expectancy for humans in the United States is 76.1 years, almost a decade more than in 1955. With longer life expectancy has come a higher prevalence of chronic disease. More people are living longer with chronic diseases, and they all need health care. People are also more mobile, often living and working simultaneously in two or three locations. Healthcare providers are still expected to know their medical history, collaborate with other providers, and deliver effective services. At the same time, virtual solutions like telemedicine are becoming more popular and are gradually being integrated into existing healthcare platforms. This can create another layer of patient health information to be managed, burdening already fragmented systems and widening the quality gap between the desired level of care and the actual.
Growing demand for patient-centered care coordination and value-based care
Never before has health care demanded the level of care coordination required today. Healthcare organizations have to employ targeted care coordination solutions to meet growing patient care needs. Healthcare organizations must prioritize care coordination, which involves deliberately organizing patient care activities between stakeholders to facilitate the appropriate delivery of healthcare services. Today, we have more complex care needs, including:
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More patients in post-acute care;
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Multiple providers to connect with; and
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More competing considerations.
Amid this increased need are limited resources, overworked staff, and patients with greater expectations for a seamless experience.
Historically, coordinating patient needs and data, while meeting the goals of the distinct stakeholders in the patient care continuum, has been fraught with challenges. Difficulties exist with commitment, communication, collaboration, data management, and having the right technology to support the process. Knowing where to start and how to measure progress is also difficult. Limited healthcare budgets haven't made these problems any easier.
Benefits of improving care coordination
Regardless of the issues, care coordination must be improved. First, improved care coordination optimizes workforce efforts and facilitates timely interventions. With proper care coordination, healthcare providers give the right patients the right care at the right time. This kind of coordinated care, with its targeted use of resources, results in better outcomes at lower costs—an ideal situation for everyone. Second, healthcare research has shown that effective care coordination increases the job satisfaction of all healthcare providers and ultimately creates better patient outcomes. Third, proper care coordination increases patient satisfaction. Happier patients, satisfied staff, better outcomes, and lower costs—there are gains for everyone when care coordination is optimal.
The benefits of proper care coordination and the drawbacks of an ineffective approach make the need for investments in care coordination glaring. Healthcare organizations must coordinate care effectively to avoid negative patient experiences, avoidable loss, and possible litigation. They must identify and tackle the root causes of poor care coordination for a better patient experience and improved health outcomes.
Coordinating patient care effectively
Effective care coordination depends on the interplay of several factors. Nevertheless, every care coordination model will need the cooperation of all health care providers, from the registered nurse and primary care physician to the specialists and even those in administration. Doing so involves the following:
Commitment
Like any lasting positive change, improving the health system and instituting successful care coordination begins with commitment. Commitment is essential for ineffective systems to give way to modern innovation and for effective systems to adopt quality improvement. Change is bound to meet resistance within and without. Without commitment, care coordination will continue to lag as avoidable losses pile up, achievable gains are lost, and patients' health suffers. Care coordinators must bring stakeholders to a shared vision, establishing accountability and support for healthcare quality improvement.
Communication
Communication between the multiple providers, administrators, and patients is the bedrock of care coordination success. Knowledge- and patient information-sharing have often been fragmented, limited, or absent. Improved patient care coordination will depend on the healthcare organizations' ability to strengthen communication among clinical teams, their patients, and other entities involved in the healthcare system while ensuring data security, patient privacy, and compliance with medical regulations.
Collaboration
Everyone involved in patient-centered care must collaborate and channel efforts toward achieving agreed-upon goals. More efforts must be made to synergize the contributions of different parties, streamlining efforts, and preventing burnout. Even the best care coordination programs and quality improvement strategies are doomed without a central guide ensuring they meet their mark. Good collaboration unifies care coordination efforts. Providers must have timely access to patient information, and physicians must be included in any care coordination improvement plans. Care coordinators must remove barriers to collaboration and encourage shared goals during patients' care within the health systems.
Patient engagement
Patient engagement is an oft-neglected aspect of care coordination improvement, but if organizations don't engage patients, care coordination simply doesn't work. A patient-centric approach to coordinating care that acknowledges patient perceptions will improve outcomes. When patients believe in a process, they will support and advocate for it. They will also cooperate with new requirements and procedure changes. Medical errors will likely decrease because patients can participate in decision-making and understand their role in care delivery. Improved care coordination might begin with providers' commitment, but its success and sustainability depend on the patient's engagement.
Data management
Care coordinators must address data management throughout the care coordination process. Inevitably, efforts to share knowledge and collaborate will yield data that needs to be managed. The needs of all care coordination community members must be considered. Community resources and guidelines must be developed and managed. The right systems, processes, and talent must be employed for the safety, security, and accessibility of the patient's health information. Healthcare providers also have to be trained to use the right technology. Problems with incompatible electronic health records have to be solved. Legacy systems might need to be audited, upgraded, or discarded. The data processing systems must serve care coordination goals. Achieving this will often result in higher adoption of the right patient information management technology.
A focused solution
Experts have likened care coordination to air traffic control or a central hub holding several spikes together to make a powerful wheel. No matter how care coordination is visualized, some things are evident: there are many high-stakes moving parts, and they need to be guided toward a common purpose. That's where having the right technology makes a difference.
The right technology supports all parts of improved care coordination in the care setting. It removes communication barriers for clinicians in the field, helps clinicians and other healthcare team members collaborate, and manages data in an efficient, secure way.
At Forcura, we support home-based care organizations in providing high-value healthcare by strengthening their care coordination efforts. We offer secure and efficient health information technology solutions tailored to promote and support superior care coordination, demystifying complex care and closing the quality gap in care delivery. We help care teams effectively coordinate care, reduce medical errors, gain timely access to patient information, and generate insights that can be used to improve staff performance.
The cloud-based workflow platform, which seamlessly integrates with leading electronic health records in the home-based care sector, enables efficient capture, tracking, and management of patient documentation such as orders, referrals, labs, and other data in one location.
One solution in particular that aids in effective care coordination is Forcura's Mobile Care Coordination app, which offers HIPAA-compliant features to support enhanced communication and collaboration including Document Capture, Wound Measurement, Secure Communication, Video Call, and Digital Forms Management. The mobile app interacts with our office-based platform components to allow safe storage and management of patient care images and documents. We also support care coordination with analytics that show you what's working and what needs to change without manual reporting or tedious data extracts.
Improving care coordination is essential for healthcare provider efficiency and ultimately for patients' health. With a holistic care coordination program, backed by the right technological solution, healthcare organizations can overcome these obstacles and every member of the care coordination community can reap the dividends of improved results. To assist with your care coordination needs, check out Forcura today!
