What is Care Coordination? 5 Important Features You Need To Know

Ashlesh Khadse
June 3, 2024
1:57 pm
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In the US, accounting for chronic disease centers, around 6 Americans out of 10 are fighting with at least one chronic condition, such as asthma, diabetes, depression, and hypertension. Those chronic conditions are life-threatening, expensive, and affecting around 75% of the nation’s expenditure on total healthcare. As we know, patients with chronic conditions require immediate attention and proper treatment to keep patients healthy and stable.

To manage patients with chronic conditions, patients need continuous care that can keep them engaged and compliant with the treatment plan created by the care providers. The purpose of continuing care is to keep patients away from any uncertain situation where the patient may have the risk of significant death or major harm, which will result in reducing emergency hospital readmissions and costs associated with it. To do this, the US government and CMS jointly provide a wide range of value-added programs and provide reimbursement for them. It includes but is not limited to chronic care management, remote patient monitoring, principal care management, annual wellness visits, transition care management, and more.

Those programs can be offered by a certified clinical professionals such as care managers, physicians, or a group of healthcare providers. In order to conduct the smooth care transition for those programs there must be proper care coordination which can enable quality and timely care delivery.

In current times, quality care can not be delivered with traditional healthcare services, which have a lot of limitations. Traditional care services lead to a delay in patient care with an inability to maintain patient information in the long run.

If you are a healthcare professional facing those challenges, then don’t worry!

This article is perfect for you, where we can discuss how to improve patient outcomes with proper care coordination.

Imagine a world where a patient’s medical history seamlessly follows them throughout their care journey, ensuring every doctor, nurse, and specialist has the information they need to deliver the best possible care. This is the power of care coordination.

And Yes, this can be achieved by adopting the best technology and practices to deliver patient care. The technology leverages you together as a healthcare group or professionals, including doctors, nurses, and specialists, to smoothen the engagement with patients, enabling the documenting of the electronic patient health record and making it easily accessible, creation of treatment plans, continuous remote monitoring and interventions tailored to patient needs.

For better care coordination ,Keeping patients health at center approach, healthcare team have to have a care coordination platform with a variety of latest technologies and features which we will discuss in this blog.

Improved Communication and Collaboration

In order to deliver quality care to patients and manage their chronic conditions, patient engagement is the key parameter that plays a crucial role in improving patient outcomes. This engagement can be done by communicating with patients through telehealth through secure audio or video calling, two-way messaging, and notifications. It also includes the sharing of educational material and timely health assessment to gather patient health updates.

The care coordination platform enables healthcare providers and teams to get involved in patient care by sharing secured health information and updates, which helps providers stay up to date with patient progress and treatment plans eliminating the need for faxing, emailing, or phoning around to track down information, saving valuable time and reducing the risk of errors, which results in better care delivery and improved patient outcome.

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Streamlined Care Transitions

Better care coordination plays an important role in transitioning the patient from a health facility to home care after critical health procedures and long hospitalization. For smooth transitions, the healthcare team and the patient must have regular communication to exchange their health updates. Providers need to be called patients every day, and getting their daily health updates is a complex process. But this can be done smartly by creating a trackable goal-based care plan including all associated care providers and sending them a regular assessment, providing the proper education, and, if possible, patients may have access to a healthcare portal where they can update their check-ins, and that can be reviewed by the provider regularly to ensure patients at no risk.

Streamlined care transition with clear care plan, regular interventions and patient medical record tracking ensure reduction of health risk of readmissions and improved patient outcome resulting in lower healthcare cost.

Enhanced Patient Engagement

Care coordination software can encourage patients to take a more active role in their own care. There are multiple options to get self-health access where the patient can get updated and involved in their healthcare journey. Patients can directly get in touch with providers, they can access their medical records, get notify for every activity related to their health.

Secure Patient portals allow patients to access their medical records, track their treatment plans and make instant or scheduled communication with the healthcare team assigned to them. This will make patients more comfortable and give them confidence that they are in a secure healthcare environment and not at any potential risk.

Patient education on a patient fingertip means a lot. Care coordination platforms have an ability to store a variety of patient education material and it can be shared with patients to provide more valuable insights which can help them to manage their life healthily.

Improved Care Quality and Outcomes

Care coordination platform bridges the barrier between health providers for better care delivery ensuring more unique care plans and getting them compliant to adhere to the care plan. Also it helps to avoid unnecessary interventions and treatment by providing real time health insights with an informed decision making ability.

It will help healthcare providers to improve patient health outcomes, such as the detection of patient health risks at early, which enables patient and provider to get connected before the situation gets worsened. It will result in reduction in hospital readmission rates and improving medication adherence.

Measure and Improve Performance

Care coordination software has been developed with very robust and comprehensive analytics and reporting, which allows healthcare providers to get patient health insights at their fingertips. This information plays a crucial role in making critical health decisions to keep patients away from upcoming health risks.

These reports and analytics provide information about patients’ medical history, vital trends, adherence to medications, care plans and achievements, patient-related tasks that need to be done by providers, and any health risk associated with patient health.

Conclusion

Care coordination software bridges the gap between care providers and patients to ensure smoother and improved patient health outcomes. Many factors help providers improve care coordination, such as technological advancements and functional workflows that ensure seamless care transitions.

In terms of technology, there are many features that improve patient engagement through telehealth, maintaining medical records, and getting analytics and reporting, which can help healthcare providers get into intervention mode and take any required actions to keep patients safe from any future risk associated with their health.

In terms of functional workflow care coordination software ensures that patients should get the proper and required care in time and quality. Care coordination software helps providers to set their SOP to treat patients and by following those they can achieve better patient outcome.

Hence By fostering a symphony of care, not a cacophony of services, care coordination software empowers providers to deliver the high-quality, patient-centered care we all strive for.

Frequently Asked Question’s

1. What are the benefits of implementing care coordination software?

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.

2. How does care coordination software enhance patient outcomes?

The care coordination platform provides a wide range of features that help providers access patient health information at their fingertips. Also, robust reporting and analytics give health insight that can be used for assessing patient health conditions and identifying any future complications and risks associated with patient health. To overcome those risks and complications, care coordination software has multiple engagement options through which they can connect with patients and ensure patients keep away from health risks by taking appropriate actions.

Additionally, creating fostered care plans, help patients to keep adhere to assigned care plans, timely review and intervene as and when required helps providers to achieve enhanced patient outcomes.

3. What factors should be considered when selecting a care coordination platform?

In order to deliver quality care, healthcare providers should have an appropriate care coordination platform which consists of all features, security measures and compliance with all regulatory requirements.

Below are some factors that should be considered while selecting a care coordination platform:

Care coordination Platform should have supporting features like care plan creation and secure messaging, integrating smoothly with EHR systems, and providing crucial analytics for tracking KPIs.
A platform’s usability and user-friendly interface boosts adoption among healthcare staff. Essential security features include HIPAA compliance to protect patient data. Additionally, scalability is crucial, allowing the platform to grow with your needs.
When assessing usability and security, it’s important to evaluate the software provider’s support for implementation and training. Additionally, compare pricing models to ensure affordability and research the vendor’s reputation and customer support history to gauge reliability.

4. How can healthcare providers overcome challenges in implementing care coordination initiatives?

Healthcare providers can effectively implement care coordination initiatives by adopting a comprehensive strategy that includes

Integrating advanced health information systems for real-time data sharing
Enhancing staff training on care coordination principles,
Fostering open communication across all team members.
Establishing clear protocols and continuous evaluation mechanisms,
Along with building collaborative partnerships across healthcare disciplines and community resources,

These are the main parameters for improving patient outcomes and increasing system efficiency.

5. What role does interoperability play in effective care coordination?

Interoperability plays an important role in enhanced care coordination by making seamless data exchange between multiple healthcare digital platforms and software. This integration enables healthcare providers to access and share patient health records in real time to make critical, informed health decisions by providing quality patient care.

Interoperability enhances the accuracy of diagnoses, streamlines treatment processes, and reduces the likelihood of errors, thereby improving overall patient outcomes and operational efficiency within healthcare organizations.

6. What are the security and privacy considerations of care coordination software?

While adopting the care coordination software, some required security and privacy measures need to be taken into account. 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 have compiled 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.