Hillary Clinton paraphrased an African
proverb when she wrote that it takes a village to raise a child, but that
observation can be applied to all kinds of human endeavours.
In
regards to health care, I've been sympathetic to caregivers who rebelled
against using electronic records because they felt they slowed them down, were
impossible to use and didn't provide any clinical benefits. I still have a bit
of sympathy for that group-though after reading our feature last month about
the sorry state of EHR user interfaces (February edition, page 54) my heart
goes out to clinicians who made the plunge and found out that first group had
it half-right.
But
writing this month's cover story on hospital readmissions really drove home how
interconnected the country's health system needs to be to deliver the care
quality U.S. citizens can and should reasonably expect for the money they're
shelling out. However, after you come out the other end of a physically and
emotionally draining hospital stay, you don't get much more than a wheelchair
ride to the curb. When I take my car into the shop, I get a follow-up call from
the mechanic. I just got a new pair of reading glasses, and I got a call asking
how satisfied I was with the service.
Now,
moving on to that care continuum: the Dartmouth Atlas Project estimated that
less than 43 percent of patients discharged from the hospital had a primary
care visit within two weeks of discharge. Let's be straight, those patients are
in large part responsible for that shocking gap because many throw away their
post-discharge care plans the minute they feel better.
But
many don't-they're in pain, they're confused, they don't know where to turn and
no one's reaching out to them. Granted, some of the hospitals profiled in the
cover story are using an array of technologies to make sure there's been a
clinical hand-off, or at least a plan to ensure those vulnerable patients have
not been cast adrift. But those facilities taking that extra step and then some
are still often stymied by paper in the post-discharge case continuum: as Jody
Cervenak from Aspen Advisors notes, those post-discharge instructions often go
from electronic to paper and back again to electronic format, meaning there's
limitless opportunities for confusion about who needs to do what for the
patient.
With
the population aging and incentives aligning for a wider variety of medical
professionals to provide direct patient care, it truly is going to take a village,
but if that village can't communicate effectively, someone-and that would
ultimately be the patient-is going to suffer the consequences. Segments of this
industry that are not automated need to make it known how they need help down
that path, paper-based practices need to explore the financial and
technological options available to them, and government and commercial payers
need to align incentives with the need to communicate. And, I.T. leaders need
to lead.
Greg
Gillespie
healthdatamanagement.com
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com
No comments:
Post a Comment