Overcoming the Complexity of Interoperability

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For years, clinic practices, hospitals, surgery centers, urgent care, assisted living, nursing homes, etc., have operated in silos.

You’re probably thinking, “Tell me something I don’t know!”

Here we are in the era of technology, where there is an app for everything, and we still cannot track patients as they flow throughout our community healthcare systems.

This didn’t just happen. There’s a reason we are where we are today. This disconnection is decades in the making.

As specialty groups emerged and providers set up shop – they chose software, EMRs/EHRs, and technology available at the time that likely most closely matched their needs. So, what we had was everyone choosing different solutions, and along the way, the multitude of solutions and the disparities made it an ongoing challenge to communicate effectively.

The biggest problem, I believe, is that the entire healthcare system doesn’t have a good handle on where patients are, where they have been, the medications they are taking, or the procedures or tests they have had.  In other words, not one single part of the system has a complete picture of the patient.  Only snapshots are available. This is poor patient care, which results in many, many problems.   Part of the poor care is due to lack of collaboration and to the work that continues to be done in silos.  HIPAA requires the healthcare environment to be secure to protect a patient’s privacy and PHI, so, traditional SMS messages, which lack encryption, are not compliant.  Effective care requires collaboration with secure messaging so the entire team can easily and efficiently communicate about patients.

Imagine this scenario:

At noon, a patient goes to urgent care and is seen by a provider and is then advised to go to the emergency room.  The emergency room physician sees the patient and decides this patient should be admitted and refers to the hospitalist to make the admit. The hospitalist admits the patient, but it’s 4:30 pm. and he is off at night, so the nocturnist rounds and takes care of the patient until 7:00 AM.  At 7:00 AM, a new hospitalist is on and rounds on the patient.  The patient is hospitalized for 4 days and is seen by 3 additional rounding specialists during his stay.  The patient is then discharged to a rehabilitation center for OT/PT/ST and is now being followed by the rehab physician.  The patient stays in rehab for 5 days and then is discharged to a nursing home and will be followed up with by a geriatrician.  During this one example, in 10 days, the patient was seen by 10 different physicians.

It is likely that at least 5-10 different EMR/EHR systems were used.

Shockingly, none of them are likely integrated or talk to each other.

Many doctors will most likely tell you that they dislike their EMR practice management software and the EHR they are forced to use while rounding on their patients at the hospital.  They are likely to say the software is not easy to navigate, it is clunky, it takes too much time, and that it isn’t intuitive to their workflow.  Rounding becomes burdensome and inefficient with way too much time spent on clerical work and not 1:1 time with the patient.

According to a recent Penn Medicine and Johns Hopkins University study, first-year residents and new medical doctors reportedly spend nearly 80% of their work on in-direct care or time away from patients, half of which is spent interacting with electronic health records and documentation.  Don’t patients deserve more?  And, more importantly, what kind of quality care comes with such limited time with your provider?

What if there was a veneer—a software solution that sat over the top of all other software platforms and allowed for secure messaging and communication for all providers across the spectrum of care to track and collaborate on their patient? HybridChart can be that veneer!

Say no to silos! Call us today to learn how HybridChart’s robust secure messaging and collaboration features can help you communicate effectively and securely.

Meet EVOLVE by HybridChart – Our fourth generation software platform.

Take control of your entire workflow through a user-friendly solution created by a physician. Medical software too often fails to address the specific needs of providers. Rounding at one or more hospitals presents a unique challenge. There is the need for effective team collaboration and easy charge capture. Census management means true collaboration among provider and staff. Rounding at multiple facilities just got way easier. Covering on-call now has the luxury of essential information for clean hand-offs. Charge capture takes less than five seconds. Diagnoses are easy to find and follow the patient. Customized charge menus make it easy to enter the correct charge. Don’t let billing for your work slow you down. Charge in real-time and focus on caring for the patient.

HybridChart has numerous levels of safeguards against missed charges. The Charge Checker feature will scan every day of an admission and assure there are charges. Using the Charge Matrix you have visibility of all charges from multiple providers per day for any given patient.

Most practices see a revenue increase of 8-10% after using HybridChart – attributed to capturing every charge for every patient. Charges are complex enough with just the diagnosis codes and charge codes. To make your charges accurate HybridChart allows you to easily adjust the Date of Service and assign Secondary Billers such as nurse-practitioners and physician assistants. Modifiers can be built into specific Billing Modules or choose from a customized list managed by your practice. Seamlessly navigate our Charge Capture workflow and save time without losing accuracy.

An automated charge capture system may be the most profitable investment that you can make in your practice today.

You can instantly boost your revenue by 10% using our modern, high-tech and easy-to-implement charge capture system.


Smarter Rounding and Workflow Software for Doctors

At HybridChart, we provide technology that connects your healthcare team, increases efficiencies, AND improves your bottom line. HybridChart’s cloud-based software adapts to your practice’s unique workflow and will improve your profitability and patient outcomes by utilizing our 5 features: census management, charge capture, secure messaging, discharge management, and data analytics.

NEVER miss another charge and get PAID for the work you do!

If you are interested in taking your medical practice to the next level and want to employ the best hospital charge capture practice available in the industry, come visit our website at www.hybridchart.com, or call us at 1-877-684-0608 for a demo today!

Dr. Gregory Sanders is a Harvard-trained, practicing cardiologist and founder and CEO of HybridChart. He has been coding since the 1980s and has spent his medical career focusing on improving processes. His patient care skills earned him recognition as one of Phoenix Magazine’s TOP DOCs. He lives in Scottsdale with his family.

Overcoming the Complexity of Interoperability