Rocky Mountain Care, HealthSouth, Compass Health and Truman Medical Centers Lakewood will share more insight during the panel education session at Cerner's annual health care conference on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 12:30pm. Cerner Health Conference is scheduled for Nov. 14-17, in Kansas City, Missouri.
Evolving industry trends and regulatory requirements are motivating long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC), behavioral health providers and other organizations to expand interoperability connections for better alignment and connection with other venues of care.
Rocky Mountain Care is a Salt Lake City, Utah-based organization that provides home care, hospice and skilled nursing services in five states. Recently, Rocky Mountain Care invested in advanced health IT solutions to improve connections within its organization and beyond.
"Two years ago, we chose Cerner's LTC PowerChart electronic health record because we needed a new system that could talk with other solutions," said Johnathan Bangerter, vice president of Operations at Rocky Mountain Care. "As an operator of skilled nursing facilities, we care for patients that are often referred from other care providers. We needed the capability to receive patient care records in a digestible format, whereas we used to receive patient records that were hundreds of pages long. No organization can sift through that much information and begin providing effective care in a timely manner."
Cerner offers connectivity solutions that help health care organizations of all kinds collaborate with other care providers within the community, in the region and beyond to share various types of clinical data including orders, results, clinical documents, images, immunizations and prescriptions.
HealthSouth Corporation is one of the largest providers of post-acute services in the U.S. with a network of 103 inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and 280 home health agencies. With rehabilitation facilities spread throughout the nation, HealthSouth has invested in the capability for health data to follow a patient as they progress through the continuum of care, regardless of where the care journey begins, transitions or ends.
In addition to caring for a person's physical health, the industry is also beginning to focus on the importance of integrating care for a person's mental wellbeing. Compass Health Network is a certified mental health organization that focuses on treating the whole person through primary, behavioral and dental services.
Caring for behavioral health patients involves much more than simply solving for biological disorders. Compass Health's care teams address the mental needs for patients throughout Missouri and Louisiana and also work with external community organizations to support their patients' housing, financial and crisis needs. They rely on an integrated electronic health record to collect and electronically share as their patients' records.
Truman Medical Centers Lakewood is a 188-bed community/teaching hospital in the Kansas City-metro area that works with long-term and post-acute care providers throughout the region.
When health systems receive patients with complex medical histories, providers need to quickly gather as much of the patient's health record as possible. The more quickly care teams can understand all factors associated with a patient's condition, the faster they can identify and implement an effective treatment plan.
This is why LTPAC and behavioral health providers are seeking out ways to communicate health information bi-directionally with other care providers. Certain regulatory measures are requiring providers to meet measures associated with interoperable communication, but all efforts are ultimately focused on providing the best possible patient care. Cerner believes that an up-to-date and comprehensive patient record enables care teams at every venue to deliver the right care at the right time.
