Agency Management System for Fractional Home Care

Admin

by Tim Rowan | Mar 7, 2025 | Admin, Clinical, Product Review, Vendor Watch

by Tim Rowan, Editor Emeritus

Agency Management System for Fractional Home Care

There is a growing service sector within Home Care to provide in-home care to seniors living in Independent Living and Assisted Living facilities. We described the basics of the way it works in last week’s interview with Jessica Nobles. She pointed out that there was no software available for the kind of scheduling required by this type of home care. She wound up creating her own software to schedule on-site caregivers performing visits that can be anywhere from five-minutes to full, four-hour shifts.

Right after building the customized scheduling tool, Ms. Nobles met Tim and Gina Murray, who had been through an identical experience with their own agency, Aware Home Care. The difference between their stories was that both the Nobles’ and the Murray’s, after selling their respective agencies, embarked on different paths. Jessica and Clint went the consulting route and Tim and Gina formed a software company, CinchCCM, Community Care Made Easy. We spoke to them this week to hear the rest of the story.

Agency Management System Win-Win-Win

At no cost to the residential facility itself, a home care agency places one or more caregivers on the premises. IL or AL residents join a kind of co-op to be eligible to request in-home services. Some agencies who offer this service accept requests for traditional shifts, five-minute check-ins, and pretty much everything in between.

Many request regular morning breakfast help, others tuck-in services. Most agencies in this sector allow registered members to request unscheduled, as-needed help. To accommodate the needs of all members, an agency will add caregivers as the number of participants grows. The Murray’s outlined the benefits to all involved.

Caregivers like predictable income. They are paid for their entire time on-site, whether they are in a member home or on call between visits.
IL and AL owners find that the level of care keeps residents in their facilities longer by delaying the need to move to a nursing facility.
Families gain peace of mind, knowing their older loved ones have a caregiver nearby and on call all day, sometimes overnight.
Home Care agencies report enhanced caregiver satisfaction and retention, along with a steady, predictable payroll.

Clearly, agency management software was not intended to automate this type of arrangement.

Not Your Parents' Agency Management System

The Murray’s designed a system that displays schedules on a color-coded, calendar grid, with a column for each day and row for each 15-minute unit. Then they began to add features.

caregivers can tweak scheduled visits by drag and drop
remote family members can see scheduled and completed visits as well as caregiver notes
on the system’s mobile app, each caregiver can see the schedule of all other on-site colleagues. If a client unexpectedly needs more time and a caregiver has another visit coming up, that caregiver can find an available colleague and ask, through a secure message on the app, for someone to fill in.

on the system’s mobile app, each caregiver can see the schedule of all other on-site colleagues. If a client unexpectedly needs more time and a caregiver has another visit coming up, that caregiver can find an available colleague and ask, through a secure message on the app, for someone to fill in.
a management dashboard displays real time charts of caregiver utilization and gross profit. Agencies with multiple sites can report each site’s data separately and roll all sites up into one combined report.

Tim Murray explained that version 5.0 is nearly finished and ready to be released later this year. “It has been a long, slow development process,” he said, “and the first version was functional but simple. Adding the mobile app was a big step forward and very popular with the field staff. Management reports and real-time charts brought CinchCCM from a scheduling application to a full agency management system.”

Pricing, Growth, Evolution

CinchCCM is priced per client, based on average daily census at the end of each month. The Murray’s found this policy to be both manageable and fair. Their customers have a predictable revenue stream if most residents choose the monthly retainer option, and they have a predictable software cost for budgeting.

As word spread and software sales grew, Tim and Gina Murray sold Aware Home Care, formed a corporation, and turned their efforts to feature development, customer support, and sales. Those efforts have led to growth to 60 clients across the country. “As the so-called fractional home care concept grows,” Gina Murray concluded, “we want to be there to make it a smooth experience for those who give it a try.”

# # #

Tim Rowan is a 30-year home care technology consultant who co-founded and served as Editor and principal writer of this publication for 25 years. He continues to occasionally contribute news and analysis articles under The Rowan Report’s new ownership. He also continues to work part-time as a Home Care recruiting and retention consultant. More information: RowanResources.com
Tim@RowanResources.com

©2025 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Vendor Watch: VitalCaring Cognitive Care Pilot

Partner News

by Rowan Report | Oct 18, 2024 | Partner News, Vendor Watch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Nancy Lecroy
VP, Marketing & Communications
VitalCaring
O 469.839.3777
Nancy.lecroy@vitalcaring.com

Kelly Faville
FourSeventeen Communications
On behalf of Constant Therapy Health
M 978-621-6667
kelly@constanttherapy.com

VitalCaring’s AI-driven Cognitive Care Pilot Shows Promising Results

National leader in home health and hospice care to extend AI-enabled speech, language, and cognitive therapy initiative across its network

DALLAS and LEXINGTON, Mass., September 12, 2024 – VitalCaring, a leading national home health and hospice care provider, has unveiled the results of a seven-month AI-driven cognitive care pilot program that delivered enhanced personalized therapy to patients living with cognitive disorders. Through the pilot, VitalCaring deployed Constant Therapy’s digital speech, language, and cognitive therapy platform as part of its home-based services for select patients.

Significant Cognitive Gains

Patients in the program showed statistically significant cognitive improvements, including:

• A 35% increase in Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)* (average score)
• A 33% increase in Saint Louis University Mental Status (SLUMS)*(average score)
• Improvement by at least one cognitive level (55% of patients)
• Achievement of normal cognitive functional score by discharge (35% of patients)

“This pilot program was tailored to fast-track our patients’ journey to regaining independence safely in their homes. Adding innovative tools like the Constant Therapy platform to our existing care plans for cognitive issues and neurological disorders extends the exceptional work of our therapists.”

Janice Riggins

Chief Clinical Officer, VitalCaring

A valuable complement to clinician-supervised therapy

Patients’ ability to independently access Constant Therapy’s therapeutic exercises at home has proven to be a valuable and meaningful complement to clinician-supervised therapy. The aim of the VitalCaring Cognitive Care pilot program was to determine how additional therapy tools could accelerate recovery and maximize cognitive functioning for VitalCaring patients with dementia-related diseases or those recovering from stroke or other brain injuries. On average, each patient in the pilot program was able to access an additional 11 hours of digital therapy on their own. Due to the success of this pilot, VitalCaring will explore opportunities to extend the initiative across its network.

“VitalCaring stands at the forefront of home healthcare innovation, transforming patient experiences and outcomes with advanced technological and analytical approaches,” said Veera Anantha, Founder and CEO of Constant Therapy Health. Our platform supports their practice of providing outstanding, individualized treatment to patients affected by neurological conditions or brain injuries.”

What Caregivers and Family are Saying

“Thanks to the AI therapy, my uncle regained his motor skills. He can now operate mobile phones and stay connected with loved ones.” The patient’s MoCA score improved from 14 to 26 – moderate cognitive impairment to normal cognitive ability.
“My mother’s ability to hold conversations with friends and family improved significantly after using the AI-driven tools.” The patient’s MoCA score rose from 16 to 27 – moderate cognitive impairment to normal cognitive ability.
“Our family noticed remarkable cognitive improvements in my grandfather. He’s better at following events and recalling important information.” The patient’s MoCA score jumped from 17 to 25 – moderate to mild cognitive impairment.

# # #

About the VitalCaring Cognitive Care Pilot Program

The pilot program ran from October 2023 through May 2024 and included 52 patients aged 54 to 92, with an average age of 77.45. Patients had various primary diagnoses, including cerebral infarction, brain tumors, dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease), Parkinson’s disease, encephalitis, encephalopathy, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients’ performance was measured by: the Montreal Cognitive Assessment/MoCA and the Saint Louis University Mental Status/SLUMS cognitive screening.

About Contant Therapy Health

Constant Therapy Health is a next-generation digital health company whose technology is clinically proven to improve the efficacy of cognitive, speech, and language therapy, as well as increase access to and reduce the cost of therapy. Constant Therapy, an award-winning mobile program, uses patented AI technology to deliver personalized exercises that rebuild cognitive and speech function for individuals recovering from stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI) or living with aphasia, dementia, and other neurological conditions. Built by a team of top neuroscientists at Boston University, Constant Therapy is used by tens of thousands of patients as prescribed by their clinicians, helping to create the world’s largest brain rehabilitation database, and providing insights that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of brain rehabilitation.

About VitalCaring

VitalCaring delivers compassionate, high-quality home-based healthcare to patients in the comfort of their own homes. By bringing together like-minded people who are called to care and supported by a positive organizational culture, VitalCaring is positioned to deliver an exceptional patient experience at every encounter. VitalCaring is a national leader in the home health and hospice industry, serving patients throughout the Southern United States, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. From its base in the South, VitalCaring is expanding to serve even more communities nationwide.

This press release was originally published by VitalCaring and is reprinted with permission. For more information or to request permission to reprint, please reach out to the media contacts listed above.

Not All Superheroes Wear Capes

Partner News

by Kristin Rowan | Oct 18, 2024 | Partner News, Vendor Watch

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Some Superheroes are Software Solutions Providers

In August, I had the pleasure of attending the Kantime Superheroes for Success user experience. In the year since I’ve taken over The Rowan Report, I’ve only attended two user events, but I have been an event producer since 2016. The Kantime team delivered a top-notch event that took great care of its attendees.

Education

Of course, there was a fair bit of education centered around the Kantime solution. This was not unexpected, nor unwelcome, as many of the attendees were agency owners actively seeking a new software solution. However, the educational sessions were balanced between Kantime and industry information.

Guest speakers addressed the Home Health Final Rule, the Hospice CAP, Red Flags to spot turnover risk, pediatric care, and more. These breakout sessions followed the opening day general session with Bill Dombi, NAHC President, who provided updates on regulatory issues and the merging of NAHC and NHPCO.

Table Talk and Learning Labs

A unique feature of the Kantime Experience were the open table talk sessions and learning labs. KanTime experts were available to sit with software shoppers to provide insight into each of the Kantime lines of business. For agency owners and executives who are shopping for the right EMR, talking to users rather than sales people is often a good way to get in-depth information in an honest forum.

Vendors

The general session room was lined on three sides with vendors of many kinds. There were AI solutions, educational companies, billing experts, and more. What was especially nice about this event was the amount of time provided to speak with the vendors throughout the day.

Closing in Style

The team at Kantime not only provided candid talk about software updates and integrations with partners, but also planned a top-notch Happy Hour and Game Night mid-way through the event. Attendees arrived in superhero costumes from Batman to Obi-Wan. Arcade games, carnival food, costume contest, and DJ rounded out the night. We even caught Bill Dombi and his wife in a spirited round of air hockey.

Final Thoughts

After attending this event, user experiences and user group meetings have a high bar set for them. I look forward to seeing what other software solutions providers have in store. From an agency perspective, I spoke with many of the attendees about the experience they had. All of them expressed how helpful the event had been in helping them in the decision-making process. Regardless of the software you are considering, attending a user group meeting or experience is a recommended route to gain valuable insight from other agencies who are already using the software you are considering.

A big thank you to the team at Kantime for their invitation and hospitality. I can’t wait to see what they come up with for 2025!

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Vendor Watch: An Interview with Stephen Vaccaro

M&A

by Kristin Rowan | Oct 18, 2024 | M&A, Vendor Watch

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

The Future of HHAeXchange

Earlier this month, we announced that HHAeXchange acquired Sandata. This announcement came not long after the announcements that they had acquired Cashé and Generations. Last week, The Rowan Report sat down with Stephen Vaccaro, President of HHAeXchange to talk about this latest acquisition and what it means for HHAeXchange going forward.

Stephen Vaccaro: On the Record

The Rowan Report:

Stephen, thank you for meeting with me today. I’m sure you are quite busy with this latest news. What can you tell us about the acquisition of Sandata?

Stephen Vaccaro:

We’re very excited about all of the changes we’ve made this year. We were excited about Cashé and Generations, and we’re excited about Sandata. Sandata is larger, in scale, than the other two. They operate at the state level, in managed care, and with providers.

RR:

How will this acquisition impact what HHAeXchange is doing?

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Vendor Watch: HealthRev Partners and Trella Health Announce Partnership

Admin

by Rowan Report | Oct 18, 2024 | Admin, Vendor Watch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contacts:

HealthRev Partners: Hannah Vale
hvale@healthrevpartners.com

Trella Health: Lauren Corcoran
press@trellahealth.com

HealthRev Partners and Trella Health Announce Partnership to Empower Home Health and Hospice Agencies

Driving financial health and strategic growth with complementary solutions in revenue cycle management and market intelligence.

OZARK, Mo. and ATLANTA, Oct. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — HealthRev Partners, the leading revenue cycle management partner specializing in innovative, tech-driven solutions for home health and hospice agencies, and Trella Health, the leading provider of market intelligence and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions for the post-acute care industry, have announced a new partnership.

HealthRev Partners and Trella Health will collaborate to help agencies reach their full potential by cultivating stronger relationships with referral sources and optimizing their revenue cycle through complementary solutions.

This collaboration brings together HealthRev Partners’ financial expertise and revenue cycle management solutions — helping agencies maximize reimbursements, streamline operations, and drive predictable revenue — with Trella Health’s integrated market intelligence and CRM solutions, which enable agencies to enhance growth strategies, improve referral relationships, and gain valuable insights into their market and competitive landscape.

In Their Own Words

Together, we can equip agencies to achieve better financial health and improve their competitive positioning.

“Our collaboration with Trella Health represents a significant leap forward for home health and hospice agencies. By combining our financial expertise and revenue cycle management solutions with access to Trella’s market insights and CRM platform, we are providing agencies with a powerful toolkit to optimize their financial performance, drive growth, and ultimately deliver better patient care,” said Michael J. Greenlee, founder and CEO of HealthRev Partners.

Jess Chew, GM, PAC Provider Growth at Trella Health, added, “The partnership underscores both companies’ commitment to supporting providers by delivering industry expertise and advanced technology to address the unique challenges facing home health and hospice agencies today. By combining our strengths, we can equip agencies to achieve better financial health and improve their competitive positioning.”

By leveraging their combined expertise, this partnership will help home health and hospice agencies uncover financial opportunities and optimize efficiencies — from referral growth to revenue management.

# # #

About HealthRev Partners

HealthRev Partners is a leading provider of revenue cycle management solutions for home health and hospice agencies, dedicated to improving financial performance and operational efficiency in the post-acute care sector.

About Trella Health

Trella Health’s unmatched market intelligence and purpose-built CRM allow post-acute providers, HME, and Infusion organizations to drive more effective performance and growth. Trella’s solutions allow post-acute, HME, and Infusion organizations to identify the highest-potential referral targets, evaluate new market opportunities, and monitor performance metrics. Paired with CRM and EHR integrations, business development teams can better manage referral relationships to advance their organizations with certainty by improving their sales and marketing strategy.

This press release was originally printed by Trella Health and is reprinted with permission. For more information or to reprint this content, please contact one of the media contacts listed above.

BREAKING NEWS – HHAeXchange Acquires Sandata

Breaking News

by Rowan Report | Oct 3, 2024 | Breaking News, Vendor Watch

HHAeXchange Acquires Sandata

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Michelle Rand
Alloy on behalf of HHAeXchange
855-300-8209
hhaexchange@alloycrew.com

HHAeXchange Acquires Sandata Technologies, Enhancing Ability to Serve Homecare Providers, Payers, and Caregivers Nationwide

Best positioned to deliver transformative technology that accelerates the industry’s evolution and its ability to improve health outcomes

NEW YORK and PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., Oct. 03, 2024 — HHAeXchange, a leader in homecare management solutions for providers, caregivers, managed care organizations (MCOs), and state Medicaid programs, today announced that it has acquired Sandata Technologies. With four decades of experience, Sandata provides solutions that serve the homecare industry. Together, HHAeXchange and Sandata are well-positioned to meet the growing need for home and community-based services (HCBS), with demand for personal care aides expected to rise by 43% between 2020 and 2035.

From HHAeXchange

“We are excited to join forces with Sandata, who shares our commitment to enabling homecare stakeholders to deliver the highest quality of care to their members,” said Paul Joiner, Chief Executive Officer of HHAeXchange. “This acquisition further demonstrates our commitment to investing in and raising the bar for our customers, while leading the transformation of an industry that deserves best-in-class technology and a superior experience. We will leverage our expanded platform by innovating with states and health plans to enable providers and better health outcomes. By doing so, we will further empower the devoted caregivers who are at the heart of our industry.”

“Now is the time to harness the power of advanced technology to truly support providers and payers with their billing needs and compliance requirements – and ultimately, deliver on the promise of our industry.”

Paul Joiner

Chief Executive Officer, HHAeXchange

From Sandata

“For decades, Sandata has been dedicated to ensuring providers and payers can seamlessly work together to increase compliance, improve efficiency, and deliver high-quality care,” said Sandata’s Chief Executive Officer, Emmet O’Gara. “Joining HHAeXchange strengthens our commitment and represents an exciting new chapter for Sandata, positioning the new combined company for continued growth and innovation by enhancing the value we can deliver to our customers.”

HHAeXchange’s transaction with Sandata builds on the company’s recent strategic acquisitions of Cashé and Generations. These investments collectively support HHAeXchange’s ongoing advancement of its mission to enable caregivers, families, providers, and payers to deliver the best care in the home. Paul Joiner, HHAeXchange’s CEO, will lead the combined business moving forward.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

# # #

About Sandata

Sandata, now part of HHAeXchange, is the pioneering force in home and community-based care, consistently leading the way with innovative technology solutions. As a trusted leader, Sandata is deeply committed to addressing critical challenges in the sector by expertly connecting the homecare ecosystem. This commitment creates a positive and lasting impact on payers, providers, caregivers, and those who receive care.

Sandata’s industry-leading software, systems, and services optimize billing and claims processing for payers, streamline administrative processes for providers, and facilitate better experiences for caregivers and those who receive care. Sandata’s vision and commitment to transforming the industry continue to shape the future of care at home and in our communities, ensuring better outcomes for all involved.

About HHAeXchange

Founded in 2008, HHAeXchange is the leading technology platform for homecare and self-direction program management. Developed specifically for Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS), HHAeXchange connects state agencies, managed care organizations, providers, and caregivers through its intuitive web-based platform, enabling unparalleled communication, transparency, efficiency, and compliance. For more information, visit hhaexchange.com or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

This information originally appeared on the HHAeXchange website and it reprinted with permission.

Patient Relationships Drive Satisfaction

Caring for the Caregiver

by Kristin Rowan | Aug 9, 2024 | Caring for the Caregiver, Clinical, Vendor Watch

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Caregiver Motivation

HHAeXchange recently conducted a survey of more than 3,900 caregivers. The company set out to understand caregiver motivation and to use this information to increase caregiver satisfaction and improve outcomes.

Highlights

This data highlights the motivations of caregivers to improving health and wellness for their patients

From HHAeXchange

While the challenges and demands of being a caregiver still remain – low compensation, feelings of stress and exhaustion, and risk of catching infectious diseases – this survey shows that caregivers remain committed to their work to improve the lives of their patients. As more individuals seek homecare options, the homecare industry must continue to evolve to ensure caregivers are given the resources and recognition they need to remain motivated and focused on patient care.

Stephen Vaccaro, President, HHAeXchange

For more details and information about the study, see the HHAeXchange press release.

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

HHAeXchange: An Interview with Paul Joiner

Caring for the Caregiver

by Kristin Rowan | Jul 26, 2024 | Caring for the Caregiver, Clinical, M&A, Vendor Watch

What does future growth look like for HHAeXchange?

Joiner:

We will probably continue to acquire companies. Maybe not multiple companies in a matter of weeks, but we will continue when the opportunity arises. The spirit behind our strategy is to focus on what our customers need. We are in a position in the market to have a big responsibility to be good stewards, help our customers, caregivers, and agencies, and improve the quality of life for patients.

HHAeXchange is focused on getting the right technology into the hands of caregivers. We’ve already done EVV and point-of-care well. Can we make a difference now in how they are onboarded and scheduled? Can we make a difference in billing and how they’re getting paid? That requires acquisitions and investing organically.

RR:

Any final remarks on what the future holds for HHAeXchange?

Joiner:

Part of our vision board is building a community of caregivers through technology. The good agencies are trying to figure out how to think as much about the caregiver as they do for the people receiving care. Turnover and training is so hard, so we need to invest in our caregivers.

We also need to be a better supplier of data to arm agencies and health plans with the data they need so they can have useful discussion around the date and how they’re supporting caregivers. I’m sad sometimes because agencies don’t get enough financial support for their effort. The industry can be doing more for their caregivers.

We take our responsibility to do the right thing seriously. Because of this, we are investing in the space and we want more options so we can be better for the industry. Our intention is to make a difference.

RR:

Thank you, Paul for talking with us today.

About HHAeXchange

Founded in 2008, HHAeXchange is the leading technology platform for homecare and self-direction program management. Developed specifically for Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS), HHAeXchange connects state agencies, managed care organizations, providers, and caregivers through its intuitive web-based platform, enabling unparalleled communication, transparency, efficiency, and compliance. For more information, visit hhaexchange.com or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

A New Path for Recruitment and Retention

Admin

by Kristin Rowan | Jun 27, 2024 | Admin, Caring for the Caregiver, Clinical, Recruitment & Retention, Vendor Watch

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Recruitment and Retention amidst the national workforce shortage is not a new topic for The Rowan Report. We have feature articles dating back months, even years, talking about how you can recruit the top talent in the industry and keep the best employees you have. A lot of companies look at wages as the driving force for retention of great employees. While there is some merit to that idea, wages are not always the strongest indicator of employee satisfaction. In fact, happy employees say it would take a substantial (more than 30%) raise to get them to leave a great workplace.

The reality for many home health agencies (HHAs) is that higher wages are not always possible with the rising costs of everything else and the lower reimbursement rates from CMS. HHAs have to be creative in their recruitment and retention strategies and find new ways to engage their staff. Incentivizing staff outside of wage increases is becoming a standard part of recruitment and retention strategies and we’ve seen several of these companies popping up recently. And we’re not the only ones who have noticed.

The Rowan Report met with the team at Ava and will have a product review for you next week. In the meantime, you can read the press release from Wellsky here.

About Wellsky

Wellsky, a leading home health technology company, has been focusing on patient-centered coordinated care. The software for home health includes intake, scheduling, care delivery, claims management, analytics, and more. Recently, Wellsky has included caregiver retention as part of their platform, in a partnership with Ava.

About Ava

Ava is a home-care-focused employee management solution that personalizes your employee incentives and sends automated reminders to your staff. Together, Wellsky and Ava created “TeamEngage”, using Ava’s platform connected directly to your workflows. WellSky Team Engage promises to improve retention, incentivize productivity, capture engagement insights, and allow you to hire more efficiently.

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Generative AI Comes to AlayaCare

Artificial Intelligence

by Kristin Rowan | Jun 27, 2024 | Artificial Intelligence, Caring for the Caregiver, Product Review, Vendor Watch

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Generative AI and Artificial Intelligence are taking the world, and the care at home industry, by storm. Not surprisingly, there are only a few companies that are doing AI well. We’ve started reviewing the best of of them. So far, each company doing AI well has a unique solution to a pain point in home care. No two companies are approaching or using AI the same way. This week, we’d like to re-introduce you to a company we’ve reviewed before that has a new Generative AI app launching soon.

History

Practically a household name in home care, AlayaCare is a 10-year-old software company that started as a mobile workforce platform. Like many of us, once Adrian Schauer, Co-Founder and CEO, spend some time in the care at home world, he was hooked. He shifted the focus of AlayaCare to the care at home space. With parents in their 80s, Adrian found a lack of inspiring software in the industry in Canada and he felt like that was an important problem to solve.

“Care workers are doing God’s work, and they are not getting the support they deserve,” says Schauer. In Canada, where AlayaCare started, agencies combine home health and supportive care. Because of this, the largest patient base on the AlayaCare platform is on the supportive care at home side, but they now operate within home health as well. Since 2021, AlayaCare has added hospice to their network with the acquisition of Delta Health.

AI Comes to AlayaCare

Through many iterations of the software, AlayaCare has advanced with new technological capabilities. Now, AlayaCare is embracing artificial intelligence; more specifically, Generative AI. Schauer explains that the purpose of their new AI technology is “to enable the type of care we want our loved ones to receive at home.”

The new GenAI app was demoed in September of 2023 and is still in Beta testing. AlayaCare is anticipating an end-of-summer launch of the product.

Introducing...Layla

Layla is an in-app digital assistant, built on top of GenAI. It’s large language model allows the user to conversationally interact with the data in the system. It also includes a constrained internet search component. From the conversation, it can determine whether the user is seeking internal or external information.

Layla’s data exploration does more than just extracting data. The GenAi platform allows Layla to provide operational support around key metrics for employee retention.

Agency Support

AlayaCare has determined some key factors in employee retention:

Utilization
Quality shifts
Qualified Hours
Recurrent shifts
Average weekly clients
Weekday hours vs weekend hours

Focusing on these factors, Layla provides improvements in onboarding, scripting information, data migration, and scheduler use of time.

Features

Visit Optimizer

AI generated, automated scheduler that takes into account route management, skill matching, daily hours, and schedule optimization to optimize care and reduce time from referral to first appointment.

The scheduling automation includes push notification capabilities to send schedule updates to clinicians in real time. As each week’s schedule is created, Layla can send a push notification to each clinician. It asks them to verify their availability and confirm the next week’s schedule.

Additionally, Layla considers environmental factors such as pets, neighborhoods, and other family members in the home. According to AlayaCare users, the Visit Optimizer offers up to a 98% decrease in time required to fill visits, 35% improvement in visit fulfillment, and 35% improvement in data quality.

Notable

Notable transforms notes from patient visits, forms, and client records. Then, it uses AI to review, compile, categorize, and tag all the notes.

From this information, Notable compiles an activity of daily living (ADL) for each client, including whether and why a task was completed. This information is also moved to the risk dashboard. The risk dashboard shows the whole population, the risk of that population, identifiable trends, risk level, and whether the risk has remained stable over time. All of this information is compiled into a single risk dashboard with customizable reports.

Additional security measures for Notable include a grounded model to reduce the risk of AI hallucination and ensuring no PHI leaves the dashboard.

Employee Retention Dashboard

Several factors impact employee retention. Among the top reasons for employee dissatisfaction are pay and benefits, inconsistent hours, and safety concerns. The current workforce shortage means keeping your best employees is more important than ever. With a quick snapshot of your employee satisfaction and engagement, you can address concerns earlier and improve turnover rates.

The employee retention dashboard highlights satisfaction scores, client capacity, scheduled hours, number of unique clients, overall turnover rates, turnovers by location, and more.

“Having a tool to predict employees who may be disengaged or dissatisfied prior to this happening is invaluable,” said Lee Grunberg, President & CEO, Integracare. “With the dashboard and algorithm behind it, we can see a caregivers’ satisfaction or engagement trend over time, and deploy preventative measures to reduce the likelihood that they’ll resign. It has empowered our coordinators to be much more retention-driven.”

On Deck for Layla

I spoke with Adrian Schauer, Co-founder and CEO of AlayaCare, during the online demo. “My passion project is…Layla. The people in your agency should be building relationships and making decisions. Anything else should be done by automation.”

AlayaCare is currently in a high growth mode to build marketshare across the personal care and skilled sides of the marketing. Schauer’s goal is to elevate a level above their existing capabilities with home based care providers. This includes how payers are set up, how EVV is operating, lobbying, and advocacy.

For Layla, AlayaCare is working on the GenAI capacity for chart completion by voice. Layla would use the conversational language model it already has to recognize and understand the conversation during a home visit and transcribe the conversation into notes, visit documentation, care plans, and codes.

Final Thoughts

As AI becomes more commonplace across care at home, we are scrutinizing AI platforms for safety, identity protection, accuracy, and ethical use. If you are looking for an AI solution for your business operations, we caution you to use discretion in your use of AI and thorougly vet the AI platform prior to adoption. We will continue to provide updates when Layla launches later this year. But, for now, it looks like we’ve found one more technology platform that is using AI the right way.

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

HHAeXchange Acquires Cashé Software

M&A

by Rowan Report | Jun 21, 2024 | M&A, Partner News, Vendor Watch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Michelle Rand, Alloy
855-300-8209
michelle.rand@alloycrew.com

HHAeXchange Acquires Cashé Software, Strengthening Homecare Operations for Thousands of Agencies and Individuals

Acquisition secures expanded access to solutions that enable caregivers, families, providers, and payers to deliver the best care in the home

NEW YORK, June 18, 2024 – HHAeXchange, a leader in homecare management solutions for providers, managed care organizations (MCOs), state Medicaid agencies, and fiscal intermediaries, today announced its acquisition of Cashé Software, a leading Minnesota-based solution for homecare operations and billing. The strategic transaction brings together two premier, complementary providers of end-to-end homecare software platforms, significantly expanding the combined company’s ability to help thousands of homecare providers and payers across the U.S. ensure compliance, streamline billing, and optimize workforce management.

The homecare industry continues to experience rapid growth, and is expected to increase from $100 billion in 2024 to $176 billion by 2032. Software that streamlines operations and enables agencies to achieve better health outcomes will play a key role in this projected growth, as home and community-based services (HCBS) providers increasingly turn to such tools to manage all aspects of their agency operations.

“Today marks an exciting milestone as we join forces with Cashé. In addition to its robust product set, the company shares HHAeXchange’s passion for homecare, technology, and innovative software,” said Paul Joiner, HHAeXchange’s Chief Executive Officer. “Homecare agencies need purpose-built technology to support them in delivering quality care. We are thrilled to partner with the Cashé team to collaborate on our vision of delivering the most comprehensive solution that drives operational efficiency, increases compliance, and improves health outcomes.”

Since 2004, Cashé has provided advanced technology and services to simplify and streamline mission critical processes, benefiting more than 400 homecare agencies in Minnesota. With its recent launch of the Pavillio platform, Cashé continues to demonstrate its commitment to helping agencies get paid faster, increase team capacity, eliminate error-prone manual processes, and automate revenue cycle management.

“For 20 years, Cashé has been focused on ensuring our customers can rely on our software to help them deliver the best care in the home,” said former Cashé President Praba Manivasager, who now leads the Cashé business unit at HHAeXchange. “This commitment is strengthened by our partnership with HHAeXchange, and we look forward to working together as a team to accelerate our vision of building the software platform that sets the standard for efficient workflows and insightful data.”

For more information about HHAeXchange, its solutions, or the Cashé acquisition, visit www.hhaexchange.com.

# # #

About Cashé Software

Cashé Software is a leading technology partner for Home and Community-Based Service (HCBS) providers serving the Medicaid aging and disability population. Dedicated to helping agencies implement top operational practices and achieve the highest standards of care, Cashé Software offers end-to-end solutions that have enabled hundreds of agencies automate operations, implement EVV, ensure compliance, and achieve an impressive 99% first-time payment rate on billing. Driven by their mission to positively impact 2 million lives, all of Cashé’s solutions are designed with a person-centered focus to empower the entire care team.

Axxess SimiTree Partnership

Partner News

by Rowan Report | Jun 21, 2024 | Partner News, Vendor Watch

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Christine Stein
(214) 435-6731
cstein@axxess.com

Axxess and SimiTree Partner to Launch Platforms
to Empower Home Health and Hospice Growth

Key Market, Referral and Utilization Data Available for Streamlined Decision-Making

DALLAS, June 20, 2024 – Axxess, the leading global technology innovator for healthcare at home, and SimiTree, a revenue cycle, coding, professional services, and talent management resource for post-acute and behavioral health organizations, today announced the launch of two new products designed to provide Axxess’ home health and hospice clients with even more valuable insights to strategically plan and drive growth.

With SimiTree’s Market Analysis Platform (MAP) home health and hospice providers can easily quantify their market position, including market share and trends, referral partner strength and competitor analysis. The platform offers key insights into service areas, changes in revenue, referral patterns, quality scores, and more.

“This partnership between SimiTree and Axxess is an incredible opportunity to bring together two organizations that equally strive for excellence, innovation, and making a positive impact on home healthcare,” said William Simione III, CEO . “Pairing our tools together will create an even more powerful technology suite that improves operating efficiency and contributes to better outcomes. It will also allow organizations in this space to take advantage of real-time data that will help them identify the best opportunities for growth. Together, we will continue to empower providers and create the best value possible.”

Axxess clients can now also leverage the new SimiTree Compass tool to help optimize home health visit utilization and resource management. This visit utilization guidance tool provides crucial data to help agencies make informed decisions, ensure consistent care and maintain appropriate documentation. SimiTree Compass includes information on standard visit ranges, LUPA likelihood, and visit discipline mix that is all presented in a user-friendly format tailored to clinicians and managers. Accessible early in the patient’s care episode, the system allows for quick lookups and adjustments to fit specific clinical profiles and agency needs without requiring changes to existing processes.

“We’re excited to partner with SimiTree to bring both of these cutting-edge solutions to our clients to further enhance their capabilities with Axxess,” said Chris Taylor, Senior Vice President of Channel Partnerships at Axxess. “The Market Analysis Platform aligns perfectly with our mission to empower home health and hospice providers with the tools they need to succeed. And by leveraging data and analytics from the SimiTree Compass tool, our clients can make informed decisions to optimize their operations and drive growth.”

SimiTree’s Compass tool is available to Axxess Home Health clients. The MAP tool is available to Axxess Home Health and Axxess Hospice clients.

# # #

About Axxess

Axxess is the leading technology innovator for healthcare at home, focused on solving the most complex industry challenges. Trusted by more than 9,000 organizations that serve more than 3 million patients worldwide, Axxess offers a complete suite of easy-to-use software solutions that empower home health, home care, hospice, and palliative providers to make healthcare in the home human again. The company’s collaborative culture focused on innovation and excellence is recognized nationally as a “Best Place to Work.”

About SimiTree

SimiTree, a company that provides industry-leading, tech-enabled specialty revenue cycle management (RCM), coding, professional services, and talent management resources for post-acute and behavioral health organizations, was created by the merger of Simione Healthcare Consultants and BlackTree Healthcare Consulting in 2021. In 2022, SimiTree further expanded its RCM capabilities with its Imark Billing acquisition, and its behavioral health footprint with a strategic alignment with Infinity, a SimiTree company.

In addition to clinical, financial, and operational consulting, SimiTree offers a robust suite of outsourced services, including billing, coding, OASIS, Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) and Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement (QAPI), and revenue cycle management; executive placement, interim management, retention consulting and other talent solutions; mergers and acquisitions support; compliance assessments and risk mitigation plans; sales and growth training; and benchmarking and data analytics. For more information, visit www.SimiTreeHC.com.

Curantis Solutions Partners with Amazon HealthLake

Admin

by Kristin Rowan | May 30, 2024 | Admin, Artificial Intelligence, Vendor Watch

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Having a lot of data can help grow your business, streamline processes, improve efficiencies, and make your agency more profitable. But, if you don’t know how to use the data, or simply don’t have the time and man-power to analyze the data, then those hidden treasures waiting in all that data remain hidden. Understanding the value of that data, Curantis Solutions partners with Amazon HealthLake to help you harness it.

Curantis Solutions is a Texas based company delivering value to hospice and palliative care agencies. Their cloud-based management solutions help you increase operational and financial efficiencies while still offering well-coordinated and high quality patient care. The platform works to address two common pain points in our industry: siloed data and software systems that operate separate from each other. Curantis Solutions re-imagines workflows to reduce hours spent on tasks outside of direct patient care.

The Impetus for Change

New CMS regulations and the HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) create standards that providers and health care plans must meet. This could help home health and hospice agencies with clinical data issues. FHIR imagines a unified EMR system for greater interoperability. Facing FHIR compliance, Curantis Solutions turned to AWS to help centralize their data. Using Amazon HealthLake, a fully managed FHIR service, Curantis was able to make their client data interoperable.

The Solution for Curantis Solutions

Using Amazon’s Working Backwards process, Curantis found a customer-centric solution. AWS helped Curantis work through:

Business objectives
A free, introductory program, “Gain Insights”
Cloud set-up and solution design

Curantis also implemented Amazon Kinesis to help collect, process, and analyze real-time data. All of Curantis’s data is now easily accessible, opening the door for AI, analytics, and business intelligence.

Curantis Solutions and Amazon HealthLake Data Processing and Analytics

Using Amazon, Curantis Solutions can build visual dashboards and reports. The visual reports help agency administrators understand and apply the data at a glance without spending hours analyzing the data points. The integration allows data analysis in almost real time. The Amazon suite of services aids Curantis in growth and enhanced data processing for their clients. It also allows Curantis to highlight powerful industry and patient data trends. These key indicators will help with critical decision making for continued high quality patient care.

This new platform adds expanded abilities to meet customer needs:

Enhanced partner integrations
Diverse way to prensent a patient-focused view
The power to make predictions about a patient’s decline based upon chart data
The ability for customers and internal stakeholders to easily explore data

About Curantis Solutions

Curantis Solutions was born from a desire to put hospice and palliative care first. With a genuine culture of caring, our team is dedicated to creating a refreshingly simple software experience that utilizes emerging technology, smart design and a cloud-native/serverless architecture to create an experience that is congruent with the technology you utilize in your everyday life. It’s time for hospice and palliative care software to make life easier vs creating arduous workarounds and added frustration. It’s time you experience Curantis Solutions!

About Amazon HealthLake

AWS HealthLake is a HIPAA-eligible service offering healthcare companies a complete view of individual and patient population health data using FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resources) API based transactions to securely store and transform their data into a queryable format at petabyte scale, and further analyze this data using machine learning (ML) models. Using the HealthLake FHIR-based APIs, healthcare organizations can easily import large volumes of health data, including medical reports or patient notes, from on-premises systems to a secure, compliant, and pay-as-you-go service in the cloud. HealthLake offers built-in natural language processing (NLP) models to help customers understand and extract meaningful medical information from a single copy of raw health data, such as medications, procedures, and diagnoses.

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Constant Therapy and Elara Caring form Partnership

Artificial Intelligence

by Kristin Rowan | May 16, 2024 | Artificial Intelligence, Clinical, Vendor Watch

By Kristin Rowan, Editor

Care at home has expanded in the last twenty years to include care that was previously received in hospitals, SNFs, and therapy centers. As care at home is increasingly recognized as a more cost efficient way to provide care with better outcomes and lower rehospitalization rates, we can expect more services to be offered in the home. We recently received report of one such expansion with the announcement that Constant Therapy and Elara Caring have partnered to offer speech-language and cognitive therapy support in the home.

About Constant Therapy

Led by Founder & CEO Veera Anantha, PhD, Constant Therapy offers an AI-driven platform for speech-language and cognitive therapy. The recommended dose of these types of therapy is high. With fewer therapists available, most patients aren’t receiving the recommended frequency of patient care.

Constant Therapy decreases the number of needed in-home visits using a digital program with 500,000 customizable exercises. The app also provides insights into patient performance and improvements. The AI tracks accuracy and speed over time and naturally progresses the patient based on that performance.

Delivery of Care

Constant Therapy is a personal assistant for the therapist to provide more care to more patients. It also has a time saving component. Constant Therapy automates all of the documentation and home exercise programs a therapist has to keep up with, in addition to providing updates to physicians.

Mobile App

The patient app can include family members who can log in to track their loved one’s progress. The app also includes RPM to track whether the patient is adhering to the homework assignment. The app tracks how long the patient spends on a task, how many tasks are completed, and progress over time. Additionally, the therapist app can link multiple clinicians, caregivers, physicians, and hospitals to increase continuity of care.

Direct and Indirect Care Sessions

During a care session, Constant Therapy acts as a digital workbook. The workbook is used to standardize delivery of care and objectively measure progress. Outside of direct care appointments, the app acts as a homework tool for the patients. It provides assignments for continued progress when the therapist is not present.

About Elara Caring

Elara Caring is a home health agency that operates in 17 states and has 200 locations. They offer skilled home health, hospice, personal care services, behavioral health, and palliative care. Elara’s mission is to expand home care access by embracing the industry’s most innovative technologies and models. They strive to hire compassionate people who believe in taking care of their patients, clients, care providers, and each other.

From the Source

Mark Salley

VP of Innovation and Rehabilitation at Elara Caring said, “Since our inception, Elara Caring has utilized patient data insights – more than 120M data points annually, in fact – to drive our strategic decisions that improve quality care and patient outcomes. This has brought us to Constant Therapy. They have similar values and a shared goal to incorporate data into their evidenced-based, treatment platform. With Constant Therapy, our patients are seeing quicker recovery of speech, cognitive function, and language deficits following healthcare incidents including stroke, TBI, dementia, and more. We are excited to start this new chapter in close partnership with Constant Therapy. This will be a gamechanger for our patients and clinicians.”

Noah Poskanzer

Director of National Accounts at Constant Therapy said, “Part of being a home health clinician is to set the patient up to be as successful at home as possible. Not just in the U.S., but around the world, the number of people trained to provide therapy are [sic] going down but the number of people needing therapy is going up. Constant Therapy is providing patients with additional therapy when therapists are not present in the home with their patients.”

Constant Therapy Pilot Program

Prior to the full-scale partnership, Constant Therapy and Elara Caring launched a pilot program in June of 2023 with 115 patients across three markets. The results of that pilot program include:

Constant Therapy and Elara Caring Outcomes<br />

Increased Time Savings
- 10-15 minutes per patient session
- 60-90 minutes per day for a clinician with a six-patient caseload
Increase Patient Access
- 115 patients performed 92,000 additional exercises independently at home
Improved Patient Outcomes*
- 17% average increase in task accuracy
- 54% improvement in task processing speed (latency percentile)*

*Patient outcomes calculated using Constant Therapy task performance

As Constant Therapy expands to include more agencies and more patients, they expect to continue to see improved patient outcomes, better access to care, and the ability to serve more patients. We will continue monitoring their progress.

# # #

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

Veera Anantha, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Constant Therapy. Veera is a hands-on technology executive and business leader with a passion to bring positive change through the power of data and AI. He created Constant Therapy, an award-winning mobile app that uses artificial intelligence to help tens of thousands of people living with neurological conditions regain essential life skills.Veera also successfully built a number of innovative products at other startups, including at a company acquired by Apple that developed the world’s fastest digital signal processor.

He began his career as a Lead Engineer at Motorola developing mobile software and hardware products, and later, as Vice President of Engineering at a startup acquired by Motorola, developed software products that are now used worldwide to manage wireless networks. Veera has six technology patents and recently won TiE Boston’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is an expert mentor at MassChallenge HealthTech and Insight Data Sciences, is a Charter Member of TiE Boston, and is a guest lecturer for Entrepreneurship at Questrom School of Business. Veera holds a PhD in electrical and computer engineering and a master of science degree in physics from Northwestern University, as well as a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay.

Mark Salley, Vice President of Innovation and Rehabilitation Solutions at Elara Caring, has been a Physical Therapist

since 1995 and has worked in the homecare sector since 2003. His journey has been marked by his commitment to integrating data into the decision-making processes, revolutionizing the approach to clinical and operational challenges at Elara Caring.

Throughout his 25-year career, Mark has focused on enhancing patient care. His early years as a Physical Therapist lend to his understanding of the intricacies of healthcare delivery, particularly within the homecare landscape. Transitioning into leadership roles, Mark recognized the transformative power of data in shaping the future of healthcare, and at Elara Caring, he is spearheading initiatives that leverage data-driven insights to drive meaningful change.

The Right Way to Use AI in Healthcare

Admin

by Tim Rowan | May 16, 2024 | Admin, Artificial Intelligence, Clinical, New Tech, Outcomes, Product Review, Vendor Watch

by Tim Rowan, Editor Emeritus

For better or worse, healthcare has begun the inevitable adoption of Artificial Intelligence. Before you consider adopting AI technology, know that there is a wrong way and a right way to use AI in healthcare. In a companion article this week, we describe the criticism insurance companies are getting for deploying AI in healthcare to harm patients. As a balance, here is a review of a product that we find to be using AI in healthcare to help both patients and Home Health Agencies.

The Problem

Home Health referral documents from physicians or hospitals can consist of more than 100 electronically transmitted pages. Some agencies report occasional packets exceeding 1,000 pages, often in a variety of data formats. Some are standard data formats, such as a face sheet, but most are unstructured, consisting of images or narrations, sometimes in paragraphs, sometimes in incomplete sentences. Worse, patient data interoperability can be limited by unstructured data. Too Much Paperwork

More often than not, most of these pages are never read. Thoroughly interpreting that much data is nearly impossible for a human. Consequently, nurses too often approach an admission evaluation visit with an incomplete picture of a patient. The result can be gaps in care or treatment, inaccurate OASIS assessments, incomplete or poorly sequenced diagnosis codes, and improper care plans. These obstacles can impact both patient outcomes and agency revenue.

One Newly Available Solution for the Right Way to use AI in Healthcare

We recently attended a product demonstration and followed it up with updated descriptions to learn details about new product developments. Over the next three months, Select Data, in full disclosure one of our sponsors, will be introducing an AI-powered suite of products that has been designed over many years of development to support clinical, data driven decision-making. One by one, it addresses the problems described above.

The new system, SmartCare, empowers clinicians to harness previously hidden insights while reducing bias and cognitive overload. It enables them to steer their decisions with enhanced precision while maintaining their pivotal role in patient care, eliminating one of the common reasons many Home Health administrators hesitate to invite AI into agency processes. It does, however, make the care team’s job easier and facilitates better decision-making.

AI can read those 100 to 1,000 page referral documents in minutes, where a human may require days.
SmartCare uses AI to synthesize relevant medical history to provide a care snapshot highlighting the key diagnosis, focus and considerations for care, and recommended OASIS clinical discipline. It highlights any areas for clarification needed from physician or admitting nurse.
Clinicians can search and index specific words in unstructured data, such as narratives, to instantly identify any detail of a patient’s condition in an easy-to-read interface. Nurses approach the initial OASIS visit armed with all of a referring clinician’s relevant care findings.
Recommendations for diagnostic codes strictly follow Medicare PDGM guidelines.

Suite of Tools

1 – RISE stand for Rapid Intake Summary & Evaluation. This component of the suite summarizes all clinical data from referral sources and your EHR. It compiles this data to provide clinically relevant diagnoses, focus of care, and recommendations for skilled disciplines. This is the part of the tool that reads referral documents and supports informed decision-making. The advantages we detected go a bit beyond the technical.

When clinicians, reviewers, coders, and office staff all have access to the same patient information, it would seem that communication among disciplines would improve and that care coordination would be enhanced. It also seems logical that continued experiences of advanced access to previously hard-to-find physician comments would gradually break through the AI fear barrier reported by so many clinicians and other professionals. Select Data will provide us with actual client experiences to verify our assumptions once they have been compiled.

2 – ACE, or Admission Clinical Evaluation is SmartCare’s clinical support summary tool. It deploys AI to understand accepted OASIS assessment criteria. It then uses this knowledge to extract assessment and narrative data from nursing and therapy evaluations. With streamlined, pertinent data at the point of care, the entire care team has the same patient data. Having the same patient data enables more informed decision-making.

ACE links all patient data back to its source assessment. Doubt about the AI’s credibility should gradually diminish, even among the most AI-resistant users. Every analysis and recommendation is explained in clear language so that clinicians are likely to understand the rationale behind them. The goal is to replace every “I’m not going to let a machine tell me what to do” with “I’ll take this information into consideration with my human insights.”

Pricing

We are honoring Select Data’s request to allow them to build personalized price quotes to every prospective client. They will be represented at several state and national conferences this year. Alternatively, interested HHA representatives can contact EVP Ted Schulte at Ted.Schulte@SelectData.com

Tim Rowan is a 30-year home care technology consultant who co-founded and served as Editor and principal writer of this publication for 25 years. He continues to occasionally contribute news and analysis articles under The Rowan Report’s new ownership. He also continues to work part-time as a Home Care recruiting and retention consultant. More information: RowanResources.com
Tim@RowanResources.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report.homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com