Tablets Improve Care Coordination For Home Care Nurses
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
A CHIME study shows tablet usage at home health facility increases productivity and improves patient care.
Sutter Care at Home recently provided tablets to its nurses providing in-home care to determine their impact on patient care. A case study, “When IT Matters: Improving Care Delivery and Patient Outcomes through Technology,” was performed by CHIME (College of Healthcare Information Management Executives) and has been released to the public.
Sutter Care At Home, a Sacramento, CA-based not-for-profit home care and hospice agency, is equipping its caregivers with tablet computers to improve access to information and care coordination among its mobile workforce. The affiliate of Sutter Health has more than 1,300 caregivers making home visits in 23 counties in the northern part of the state, serving more than 100,000 patients.
According to Sutter’s web page, this was not Sutter’s first foray into the mobile technology field. About 10 years ago, Sutter Care at Home attempted to bring computers into the care delivery process for home staff, said Phil Chuang, chief strategy officer and former director of information services. The adoption was not successful. The application was not optimized; training users was difficult; and the laptops themselves, as a form factor, were difficult for home care staff to use effectively, Chuang said.
Sutter Care at Home transitioned to tablets using the Android operating system in 2012, after first attempting to implement systems using smartphones, Chuang explained.
Clinicians were asked to assess the technology, and Sutter Care at Home eventually selected devices with 7-inch screens and 4G mobile broadband capabilities. These devices offer access to the Internet and also provide email communication with fellow mobile caregivers, which enable improved care coordination. Access to email also gives caregivers access to scanned documents, which previously had to be faxed and physically retrieved.
The tablets use a mobile version of the Epic Systems electronic health record that Sutter Health uses, providing read-only data from prior hospitalizations, office visits and laboratory results.
“Tablets have sped up the flow of the process,” said Jennifer Brecher, project manager for the mobile device project. “In the past, if one of the clinicians went to see the patient on Monday and the physical therapist would go on Tuesday, the therapist would not have the information about the Monday visit available. This is better from a productivity perspective and better for the patient.”
Prior to adoption of the tablets, clinicians were unable to access a new patient’s full records in the field; instead, they had to visit an office to pick up faxes that documented the referral, history and other records to prepare for accepting a home care patient. Productivity has enhanced by access to scanned documents sent directly to a clinician’s tablet, and home care providers also can access the mobile version of the Epic Systems software that Sutter uses to provide read-only data from prior hospitalizations, physician office visits, and laboratory results.