Organizing a client’s healthcare journey is an aspect of home care that is often overlooked when performed effectively, but much like poor service in a restaurant, messy care coordination can ruin an otherwise positive experience.
Adding to the challenge, care coordination in home care can be more difficult than in a hospital or other facilities, where groups of people involved with client care are physically in the same location. To support safe and effective care for clients, the right home care software can make a big improvement in care coordination efforts.
What Is Care Coordination?
Ushering a patient through their healthcare journey and navigating in the interests of the patient’s health is the overall goal of care coordination. Day-to-day, however, this effort involves dozens of tasks for each client that add up to support a positive health outcome.
Care coordination continues to be a weak spot in the care at home industry, despite its proven value, due to caregiver shortages and the effects of the global pandemic.
Some home care organizations delegate a job role to this work, creating the position to ease the strain. For those organizations that do not yet have the client volume to support this role, relying on a home care software will help.
How Can a Home Care Software Help Care Coordination?
There are common care coordination tasks that lead to improved care, better client outcomes and a holistic approach to care.
Conversations with the healthcare team: Care coordination revolves around bringing all parties involved in the client’s care to the same table. Conversations with all physicians, therapists and social workers, be it by phone or in person, is a crucial aspect of that holistic approach to care.
- Software feature that helps: Using care coordination notes that can be viewed and sent to the entire care team within the organization can quickly keep all involved clinicians or caregivers apprised of changes to the plan of care.
Orders that do not require a signature: Not all physician orders require a signature. A clinician might send a primary care physician’s order to the client’s cardiologist, making them aware of what is being ordered by others involved in the client’s care.
- Software feature that helps: Having a feature that enables the user to send an order to a physician and mark it as “No Signature Required” so it does not go to their “Pending Signature” list can be a quick way to document care coordination while not bogging down compliance processes.
Care coordination documentation: For private duty nurses, care coordination notes should be documented during any physician or therapy appointments for the client.
- Software feature that helps: Giving the clinician the ability to document these notes during the appointment within their daily documentation means the coordination is easier, quicker and more likely to be documented.
Communication with the family: Allowing family members who have been granted approval by the client or guardian to view a visit schedule, electronic visit verification (EVV) details from completed visits and visit documentation can keep them in the loop.
- Software feature that helps: This can safely be done through an online family portal, where there is a secure login and only specific family members are granted access to details regarding the client’s care.
Care coordination is a crucial aspect of healthcare, so any efforts to improve these tasks should be prioritized.
Axxess Home Care, a cloud-based home care software, offers mobile documentation capabilities for medical, non-medical and pediatric clients in real time, for complete and instant transparency.
