Nowadays, In healthcare ERA, care coordination software is the key requirement for any healthcare organization to ensure quality preventive healthcare services to be provided to their patients. But to implement and adopt care coordination software has a lot of challenges that can directly affect the patient care.
One of the most significant challenges for care coordination software is the lack of interoperability across the multiple EHR systems used by different healthcare organizations. This prevents patient medical records to exchange between systems that can cause delays in treatment and care resulting in increased patient risk of medical complexity.
The huge and every level of healthcare providers involved in a patient’s healthcare journey can be overwhelming, especially when there is a staffing shortage, lack of skill, and system handling difficulties that can cause burnout and directly affect patient communication and coordination.
Also security and privacy becomes a major challenge since there is a lot of dependency and acquisition of technology to store and exchange patient information electronically by aligning all the required healthcare compliances and regulations.
Along with all the above challenges, there is an associated challenge to transition and delivery of quality care to patients for better health outcomes. Also, most of the patients are struggling to obtain support from their healthcare team but they fail due the lack of proper patient engagement features.
To overcome these challenges and to adopt the right care coordination software, healthcare providers must focus on their problems and the best possible solutions to them. Right care coordination software should be a set of features that can exchange data securely with any EHR by keeping patient data private. Also, care coordination software must have efficient practice management, which can reduce staff burnout, allowing them to get engaged with patients seamlessly.
Are you struggling to find the most suitable care coordination software to overcome all the above challenges?
Then this article is for you! Continue reading to know the guidelines for how to choose the right care coordination software for better patient management and health outcomes.
To choose right care coordination software there are many key considerations that can be a decision making . So let’s discuss one by one.
Assessing Your Organization's Requirements
The very first step in choosing software is to determine your needs and the problem for which you are looking for software. Assessing any healthcare organization’s needs starts with their patient volume, staff, and facility availability. Capacity to accommodate the potential rise in the patient count required services across multiple locations. Also, it is essential to analyze users and integration requirements across all departments by interviewing each stakeholder of every department. Also, assessing the existing infrastructure and technology capability can be anticipated for better growth.
Once the organizations need has been identified then there is a time to identify the specific pain points which are making obstacles in delivering the quality healthcare services to patients. Those pain points should be the first priority when searching for care coordination software.
In addition to that, all required healthcare regulations and compliances should be tested and certified from an authenticated organization. These regulations and compliances ensure streamlined data management, keeping patient health information secure and private. These regulations are HIPAA, SOC2, GDPR, and every country-specific body.
Interoperability is an integral part of a healthcare software which allows to exchange patient information across the multiple healthcare systems for seamless patient care mamangament. To resolve interoperability challenges healthcare organizations must understand their integration requirements with EHR, multiple payment gateways and IOT devices for seamless data transmission.
Defining Key Features and Functionality
After assessing the organization’s needs and requirements, defining the key features that can fulfill the software requires defined requirements to manage, complete, and provide care coordination services. Project managers should consider features such as bidirectional communication, which includes secure messaging, calling, and real-time reminders and notifications. Also, for better collaboration, the project manager should check task management, care plan management, and care team coordination kind of features.
Also, you must check the requirement for interoperability and consider the features that are required to seamlessly exchange patient data with other healthcare systems. While looking for interoperability features, you should check the endpoint standards such as FHIR, HL7, and security concerns, which may have the risk of data breaches.
For better communication and collaboration, you should be in touch with patients and update about each health update of patients’ health. Patient portals and mobile applications help patients to stay up to date about their health and any activity that needs to be done for better health outcome.
Comprehensive reporting provides an exact insight about patient health as well as practice performance. Also it helps providers to easily understand the patient outcome using multiple reports as well analytics which has included charts and graphs. This reporting and analytics provides an better decision making ability to healthcare providers which will directly impact on patients health outcomes.
As explained, all features should be considered when defining the right care coordination software.
Security and Compliance
Every healthcare software contains sensible patient health records, and its security and privacy are the top priority while using healthcare software. By adhering to HIPAA regulations, healthcare providers ensure that patient data is kept confidential, secure, and accessible only to authorized personnel. This compliance ensures that there is no data breach or unauthorized access to patient data, which will identify and prevent theft, financial loss, and the breaking of patient trust. Furthermore, HIPAA compliance improves a culture of accountability, and patient information will be managed properly, which can enhance the quality of care.
To keep patient health data secure and private, you must consider effective security features such as data encryption to protect information during storage and transmission, role based authentication to restrict access to unauthorized users,audit trails to lose and store each activity performed by every user to ensure accountability and detect threat.
Since every Healthcare software vendor has patient data security and privacy as the top priority, they often obtain certifications to demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding sensitive information. These vendors typically include encryption protocols for data transmission and storage, stringent access controls to limit unauthorized entry, regular security audits and assessments to identify and prevent threats, and compliance with industry standards such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Additionally, reputable vendors may hold certifications like HITRUST (Health Information Trust Alliance) or SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls) to validate their adherence to industry best practices and regulatory requirements, providing assurance to healthcare organizations and patients alike regarding the protection of their data.
Exploring Vendor Reputation and Experience
Once the functional and non-functional requirements have been defined, then you must start to research a vendor for care coordination software. While searching for any vendor, you must check the vendor’s reputation in the healthcare industry. You also need to check their knowledge and experience in healthcare by taking multiple calls and demos. Check their experience and expertise in healthcare by checking customer reviews, case studies, and industry reports.
Also to ensure successful implementation of healthcare software you must ask for client references from the vendors to whom they have implemented the software for which you are looking for. Once you get the contacts then you can connect with them and ask about client experience during implementation of care coordination software.
Before finalizing the vendor, you must ask for trial access so that you will get a better idea about the platform’s stability, all features available, and if there are any gaps in your expectations of required features. You can ask for more features if you are required to fill those gaps to streamline your process. In addition to that, you must check the feature roadmap to ensure long-term support and innovation to get better feature outcomes.
For every healthcare software you need post implementation support and training. In order to get better support and training check for their support offerings and annual maintenance plans as per your requirement considering practice size and complexity of workflows. Also check for training mode options which can help all your stakeholders to acquire more understanding in less time and they can navigate platform with better efficiency.
Understanding Pricing Models and Total Cost of Ownership
After finalizing the multiple vendors, get the quote or pricing models from them. Check all pricing models with respective cost per user per month or one-time licensing fee among the features included in the plan. Compare the features and determine one of the pricing models that are worthy of pricing.
In addition to that cost, check if there is any additional cost associated with implementation, interoperability customization, training, and ongoing support. Check whether these costs are required or not, and based on that, finalize the appropriate one.
Based on selection, check for ROI based efficiency gain,reduced errors and how much patient outcome will improve. After finalizing the best suitable vendor and his pricing models start negotiating it and try to keep it to your budget and assess all contract terms before signing the contract.
Conclusion
While choosing the right care coordination software, providers must consider their current workflow and pain points, and stakeholders need to streamline the care coordination services. For better care coordination services, software must have good communication and collaboration features, which can improve patient engagement and outcomes. Also, care coordination software should comply with all security standards and be aligned with better stability in patient health information management.
Implementing a care coordination solution enhances patient care by ensuring seamless communication among healthcare providers, reducing errors, and promoting consistent care plans. It boosts organizational efficiency by streamlining workflows, improving task management, and facilitating real-time updates, leading to better resource utilization and increased patient satisfaction.
Include a call to action, encouraging readers to download a free trial or contact the vendor for a demo.
Frequently Asked Question’s
Care coordination software is a digital tool designed to make seamless communication and collaboration between healthcare providers involved in patient healthcare, as compared to Electronic health records (EHRs) or electronic medical records (EMRs), which are made to store and manage patients’ health record within a practices, care coordination software enables patient health information accessible to all associated healthcare providers and patients.
There are multiple benefits of implementing care coordination software at healthcare practices explained into three main categories below:
Improved care coordination
- Acts as a bridge for patient care- Acts as a center of care, allowing all providers to access patient health information and the ability to visualize and take any necessary actions by collaborating with other providers and patients.
- Better care plan and review- Streamlined communication leads to improved care plan adherence and addressing of patient needs inline with care plan goals and requirements.
- Enhanced task management- Micro Level task management is the key to care coordination software, which enables all healthcare professionals to schedule and complete the tasks that are associated with patient health, which ensures timely healthcare delivery.
Enhanced Efficiency and Cost Savings:
- Streamlined Workflows- Automating tasks like sending out referrals and accepting the outside referrals and appointment reminders through email and text frees up time for providers to focus on patient care.
- Reduced Readmissions- Improved care coordination by early detection of health risks and real-time interventions can lead to fewer complications and hospital readmissions, saving healthcare costs.
- Accurate Billing- Automated time tracking along with the services provided to patients, as well as care coordination software, can help ensure accurate and complete billing, maximizing reimbursement for practices.
Improved Patient Outcomes:
- Increased Engagement- Patient engagement is the major part of the care coordination platform, and it can be achieved with telehealth features such as secure text messaging and audio/video calling. Patients can access information and schedule appointments more easily, fostering better engagement in their care.
- Reduced Errors- Clear communication and centralized data minimize the risk of errors in medication or treatment plans.
- Improved Quality of Care- By ensuring everyone is on the same page, care coordination software contributes to a higher quality of care for patients.
While adopting care coordination software, some required security and privacy measures need to be taken into account to ensure that the software is compliant with regulatory requirements. Below are some example
- Data Encryption- While implementing care coordination software providers should ensure that all data transmitted and stored within the software should be encrypted and protected.
- Role-based access control- Implementing role-based access control ensures that only authorized personnel can access sensitive patient health data, which restricts the chances of data breaches.
- Audit Trails- Audit trails that log all access and actions taken by users, providing an accountability mechanism to monitor and review usage and potential security incidents.
- Compliance with Regulations- The software must comply with required healthcare regulations and standards such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the U.S.
- Data Integrity and Backup- Ensure mechanisms are in place for data integrity checks and regular backups to protect data from loss or corruption and to allow for recovery in case of an incident.
While comparing the vendor’s reputation for healthcare software, you must consider their expertise and knowledge about the domain, their experience in the healthcare industry, compliance with healthcare standards and regulatory requirements, their client references, testimonials, case studies, software features, and stability. Also, check their software roadmap for feature updates and innovations. These considerations give you a better understanding of software to make comparisons.
No, there are no hidden costs associated with software implementation but yes additional cost may be there.It includes implementation fees,additional software training and support cost, customization and additional features if required. It is totally up to you and what pricing model you are selecting.
Care coordination software costs vary depending on features, patient volume, and service level. Prices can range from as low as $0.99 per month to upwards of $30 per patient per month, with basic options ideal for smaller practices and full-service solutions catering to larger healthcare organizations.
