Transitions Between Acute Care and Post-Acute Care Providers Still Manual, Survey Finds

Aug. 14, 2019
Just 2 percent of acute care and LTPAC providers are only using IT-driven strategies to coordinate patient care and transfer data, the data showed

Patient transitions between acute care providers and post-acute care providers are largely still bogged down my manual processes, according to new research from PointClickCare and Definitive Healthcare.

Respondents to the 2019 Patient Transition Study included more than 100 C-suite executives from acute and post-acute care facilities who provided input on data sharing, concerns about interoperability, and other pressing pain points in care delivery and coordination in a blinded, voice-of-customer quantitative study. The survey results were announced by PointClickCare, a software vendor for the long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) and senior living markets.

Driven by acute-care providers, patient coordination between acute-care and long-term post-acute care facilities largely remains manual, the research revealed. “Manual methods are inefficient and are prone to mistakes, mismatched details, and omissions. Results suggest many challenges for the acute care industry and potentially dangerous scenarios for patients when transitioning care,” they concluded.

“Sending a patient to a facility that doesn't have a good intake process is a reflection on us,” said one hospital CIO. And, when patients have to be readmitted, the paperwork problem happens in reverse, with emergency department personnel relying on paper instead of complete information about care provided at the post-acute care facility and the reasons for the transfer, the researchers noted.

As such, noteworthy findings from the research include:

  • 36 percent of acute care providers use manual-only strategies to coordinate patient transitions with the LTPAC community, compared with only 7 percent of LTPACs with acute care providers
  • Approximately 62 percent of post-acute care facilities rely on phone calls between case-workers to transfer patient information and other clinical details
  •  Only 11 percent of acute care providers use an integrated EHR
  • More than one-third (36 percent) of acute care providers do not track patients after they are transferred to a post-acute care provider
  •  Only two percent of acute care and LTPAC providers are using IT-driven strategies only to coordinate patient care and transfer data

“We live in a siloed healthcare system where communication among hospitals and their skilled nursing partners is neither standardized nor coordinated,” B.J. Boyle, vice president and general manager of post-acute insights at PointClickCare, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it’s common for patients to be transferred from one setting without the necessary infrastructure in place to ensure that these transitions will result in positive outcomes for patients. The goal of our research is to better understand the types of technology used during transitions of care, as well as the challenges and opportunities that said technology presents for providers to improve processes and patient care.”

The data showed that 46 of acute care providers rely on manual processes to share data with post-acute care providers, compared to just 18 percent when it’s the other way around. And, almost half of acute care providers use email/fax to share data, compared to 31 percent of post-acute care providers.

As noted by the researchers, as more value-based reimbursement reforms affect both the acute-care and long-term post-acute care markets, patient data-sharing between the two is increasingly important for improving outcomes and reducing readmission rates. The data revealed that 61 percent of acute care providers agree interoperability challenges present above-average financial challenges, compared with 50 percent of post-acute care providers agreeing.

One local hospital reported using “faxes to accommodate HIPAA and be confidential,” according to one LTPAC CEO in the survey, forcing a manual method that stymies coordination. “Almost everything we touch is obtuse. You have to search it out, figure it out, and confirm it by phone,” adding that the absence of standardized forms and data-entry fields makes faxes especially inefficient.

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