WHY Practice Automation Improves Patient Care and Safety

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With all the changes in healthcare, imagine what these disruptions do to physicians and ultimately the care they provide to patients.

Most medical students dream of healing the sick and providing preventative care and recommendations to improve patient outcomes.  When reality hits and providing care is lost in a massive sea of clerical work, an even larger sea of disenchanted medical staff emerges.  We’ve asked, or rather, mandated physicians to modify almost every aspect of providing medical care.  From the Electronic Medical/Health Record, to the demand for prior authorizations, to regulatory agencies requiring comprehensive written notes for eligibility, and countless other distractions, these obstacles make it increasingly difficult to actually spend time with the patient.  Physicians are forced to treat disease instead of being able to focus on preventing it.  Not to mention the difficulty in addressing patients’ humanity in 10-15 minutes while consistently running behind schedule much of the day.  Many physicians often spend part of the appointment defending their recommendations in light of the patient’s own quest to self-diagnose utilizing the internet.  Seemingly, patients come in demanding antibiotics, diet pills or gimmicks, or lab work based on things they have read or seen on tv.

Despite all this, there are a lot of positive things going on in medicine and healthcare to provide more immediate, reasonable, and efficient patient care.   We know our system is broken and agree that disruption—shaking things up with innovative ideas and technology—is necessary to enable change. If we’re going to fix one of the biggest problems—physicians not having enough time with patients—we’re going to have to get automated.

The need for ‘DISRUPTIVE’ solutions is broadly and boldly sought

by most in the medical field.

Specialists who leave their home base—usually an out-patient clinic—and head to provide services elsewhere need solutions that enable heightened efficiencies.  Physicians often round at many locations now, including hospitals, surgery centers, nursing homes, assisted living, hospice, and even the patient’s home.  Census management becomes highly important, and keeping track of patients on paper is no longer safe, efficient, or logical.  Schedulers can enter patient information to enable the rounding list to be automated and consistent for patient hand-offs from one physician to another. An ADT feed with the hospital allows for automation to occur.

HybridChart recently added two new features to their software:  Active Census Placement and Active Census Management.  These two features make the rounding experience much more fluid and easy for the physician.

When patients are admitted to the hospital, the hospital ADT feed sends a message, and they are available in the HybridChart database. Active Census Placement may be turned on in addition to the standard ADT feed, and if the admitting or consulting physician matches a HybridChart user, the patient will auto-populate on the census list in HybridChart. If the admitting or consulting physician does not match a HybridChart user, the patient is still available in the HybridChart database.

With Active Census Management, 3 things occur:

  1. Patient Location Updates Instantly:

When patients are transferred within the facility, the ADT feed sends a message. This updates the patient floor and room number in HybridChart.

  1. Demographics Stay Accurate:

When patient demographic information is updated (name spelling, date of birth correction, etc.), the ADT feed sends another message. This updates the patient demographic information in HybridChart.

  1. Patients are Marked for Discharge:

When a patient is discharged from the facility, the ADT feed sends a message. This marks the patient for discharge in HybridChart, letting the users clearly see that the patient is no longer in the facility. It does not remove the patient from HybridChart to allow the Providers to complete charge capture and enter follow up instructions.

 

These kinds of automation features add up to time savings, which can go translate directly back into more time for physicians to get back to spending time with patients.

 

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 managementcharge capturesecure messagingdischarge 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.

WHY Practice Automation Improves Patient Care and Safety