Misys Homecare “Revolutionizes”
the Way California-based Home Health Agency Does Business
Homecare and hospice agencies are constantly faced
with the need to provide accurate, up-to-the-minute
patient information while perfecting efficient working
processes. The more efficient the processes, the better
the care is, the happier staff are, and the more profitable
the organization becomes. For agencies still reliant
on older, manual ways of keeping track of patient
records, this is often very challenging; paperwork
tends to get misplaced, notes are often inaccurate,
and accessing critical data at opportune times becomes
difficult. San Diego Hospice and Palliative Care,
however, decided long ago to take their organization
to the next level, embracing a technology that would
enable them to not only enhance patient care, but
the effectiveness and overall satisfaction of their
staff. Because of Misys Homecare, the results have
been tremendous.
“When we first started looking at homecare
technology products, our main goal was to eliminate
manual processes, and improve access to information”
Jeanine Hoffman, (Director of Organizational Systems),
San Diego Hospice and Palliative Care, said. “Ostensibly,
we wanted to make our work more efficient and our
communication between ourselves and our customers
more effective. Misys Homecare fit the bill.”
A product of Misys Healthcare Systems – a leader
in healthcare information technology – Misys
Homecare provides home health, hospice, and private
duty organizations with a highly intuitive technology
that improves the performance and increases the efficiency
and effectiveness of an organization’s staff.
Misys Homecare enables employees at companies like
San Diego Hospice and Palliative Care to maintain
patient records – including clinical and billing
information – in a central, electronic database,
effectively eliminating the need for manual data entry.
With Misys Homecare, field and administrative staff
can access a patient’s information anywhere,
at any time, thereby greatly increasing a staff member’s
ability to respond to questions regarding patient
data.
This instant access has led to a rejuvenated attitude
among workers at San Diego Hospice and Palliative
Care. “Employee satisfaction has improved 20%.
In fact, in most of our back office positions, staff
members’ jobs have changed for the better. Many
of these people once worked on manual processes. With
Misys Homecare everything is automated, which has
allowed us to re-task these individuals to more valuable
activities.”
Misys Homecare has also had a direct effect on San
Diego Hospice and Palliative Care’s ability
to treat patients. Field staff may now input and retrieve
information more effectively. Field nurses are now
able to record and access all manner of patient data,
including scheduling and past visit data, from the
field or anywhere in the county. These nurses no longer
need to submit paper charts to the home office; all
information is automatically added to the central
database.
“Our clinical field staff use laptop computers,”
Hoffman explained. “They synchronize via phone
or, in some instances, wireless modems. Our Nurses,
Chaplains, and Social Workers document their clinical
visits using Misys Homecare. This is, essentially,
a patient’s chart. Since 90% of our patient
care is delivered in patients’ homes, this implementation
has drastically changed the way we operate. Prior
to this, staff had to rely on paper documentation
that resided at the home office, and they had to maintain
copies of records. As with such manual systems, the
data moved slowly between staff. Communication was
difficult and redundant. Misys Homecare has revolutionized
the care (that we provide). Clinicians now have the
latest data at their fingertips and can enter data
or access plans of care. This has reduced the number
of times they ask the patient the same questions as
their peers.”
In fact, according to Hoffman, everyone’s ability
to address patient concerns has improved under Misys
Homecare. “As the information is now immediately
accessible, we have been able to implement a call
center to centralize business processes, such as referral
intake and patient call handling. This has improved
our responsiveness to our patients and their families.
Because of Misys Homecare, we are now able to answer
calls faster and actively reduce the number of abandoned
calls and hold times. We have also been able to increase
the load of our call handlers without increasing the
number of new employees, as our business grew by 15%
last year.”
In addition to seeing an increase in business, Hoffman
has also enjoyed a decrease in the number of employees
she works with – a savings that she directly
attributes to use of Misys Homecare. “We’ve
seen a decrease in required billing personnel by 25%,
even with a two-year census growth of 25%.”
This is due to the fact that San Diego Hospice and
Palliative Care’s billing processes are now
automated through the Misys Homecare system, requiring
less personnel time and resulting in faster invoicing.
Hoffman no longer needs to worry about downtime for
her employees and colleagues; why should she need
to worry about downtime for her IT system? “Misys
Homecare has increased our system uptime and availability
99%. We only need to take it down for system updates
no more than quarterly, and only for a few hours.
This is in contrast to our previous system, which
had required monthly planned downtime of four hours,
with several more hours of unplanned downtime per
month.”
Needless to say, Hoffman and her team are very happy
with their choice of homecare technology. “It’s
obvious that Misys Homecare was created for the business
needs of a home health and hospice company. It has
improved every aspect of our business and allowed
us to centralize and decentralize our business processes
for the best results.”
