Care Plan Management and Visit Verification Using ecare21 Mobile App.

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1 Care Plan Management and Visit Verification Using ecare21 Mobile App. By Dr. Vadim Cherdak, PhD Anybody who had a chance to manage Homecare agency knows that the visit verification is a constant nightmare of owners and managers in this industry. Imagine for a second that you have a 200 employees and you do not know where they are at this particular time of the day. Moreover, every week you submit invoices to different payers such as families, state programs, Medicare/Medicaid, etc. where you guaranty that this is exact billing for the time and effort your employees provided to their patients. Any mistake in billing (willingly or unwillingly) constitutes a fraud and can lead to serious consequences including loss of income, fines and even criminal charges. This situation can be summarized as following: absence of patient visit verification creates a big and unmitigated risk for any business in homecare industry. The current article demonstrates how ecare21 mobile apps were used by home health care agency to control its personnel (home health aides and nurses) in real time. Mobile technology provides possibility to improve clients and families relations with the agency, provides additional ways of communication, improve quality of service and customer retention in addition to visit verification and real-time care plan management. Personal care plan preparation and maintenance. Personal care plan is the document that outlines particular activities of daily living (ADLs) caregiver should perform, estimated time and duration of the visit, duration of services ( if patient is approved by third-party payer for a certain amount of service hours) and supportive services. The care plans usually prepared by a registered nurse or case manager and approved by the director of nursing or nurse supervisor. ecare21 mobile platform provides unique capabilities to create and manage care plans for all patients of the agency and deliver unique opportunity to get instant visit verification for any member of the field personnel of the agency. The patient s care plan has been created using ecare21 web portal.

2 Pic 1. Care plan editing. ADL and supportive activities are selected from drop-down list. Additional activities can be added. Care plan always have the start day and end-day. Duration can be extended using time menu in the upper right corner. In regular homecare agency care plans repeat weekly. Pic 2. Finalized Care plan Users and care managers can change or update the care plans at any time using the ecare21 portal. All changes are available to caregivers and/or clients instantly.

3 Visit verification for aides and nurses As we mentioned at the beginning of the article, the visit verification continues to be the biggest risk and problem for the homecare industry. There are many different solutions offered right now (Telephonica using landlines, voice calls, etc.) but all of them costly and have certain limitations in us. The ecare21 solution is combined with the care plan management and provides real-time reporting and GPS based verification of the visit. The case manager or family member can get information about visit instantly or subscribe for alert to receive information when actual visit happens or missed. For the caregiver the ecare21 app provides one simple screen that combined verification of time-in, time-out, daily care plan with check-marks and short notes. Care plan fulfillment and actual billable hours The information about care plan fulfillment available in real time in the mobile app and on the web portal. Anybody who has rights to care for the patient can check on it and get report what and when was done. Weekly care plan report provides information for billable hours, in and out time of the caregiver and ADL items implementation.

4 Clients Vital signs monitoring, Alerts and communication As additional features available for homecare company s owners/operators, healthcare professionals, caregivers, family members and seniors themselves, ecare21 platform provides possibility to monitor vital signs, send and receive Alerts and provide communication in groups and between people who cares about each other.

5 Conclusion. New technologies are changing face of one of the oldest occupations of humans taking care of sick and elderly. This technology is already here and companies that will adopt new way of operations quicker will have new competitive advantages and will prevail in this industry. New methods of the visit verification and care management using mobile applications and smartphones (tablets) can seriously reduce and mitigate business risks traditionally associated with Homecare. ecare21 s Mobile Platform for Homecare ecare21 has built a robust health monitoring and remote caregiving platform that introduces the first connected Social Care Network for seniors, their families and caregivers. The platform enables the secure sharing of digital health data within patient-controlled Circles of Care and proactively engages the efforts of families, doctors, nurses, volunteers, businesses and seniors in the pursuit of better outcomes. ecare21's platform uses smartphones, sensors and over 200 wearable and in-home devices to monitor and securely share key digital health parameters such as Glucose, Blood Pressure, Sleep Efficiency, Heart Rate, Physical Activity, Medication Adherence, Weight, and Calories. Care Plan and Medication management are also available. We do not want to spend too much time here on explaining ecare21 Mobile Platform. Anybody interested in learning about ecare21 App can visit our website ecare21.com and request a Demo. About the Author.

6 Dr. Vadim Cherdak, PhD is an award winning mathematician and a serial entrepreneur with significant business experience addressing the challenges of delivering quality Healthcare IT services within a regulated environment. Vadim founded and managed a licensed, accredited home care company in NJ, built it to over 200 employees and successfully sold to a group of investors. Prior to that he built and managed a dual-shore software outsourcing company and ran a successful practice as a consultant and system architect for Lucent (Bell Labs), Motorola, and Citigroup. Vadim is constantly searching for new technologies and products that will improve the lives of seniors and their families. Contact Info All questions and comments please address to Dr. Cherdak by vcherdak@ecare21.com