Cut the Risk, Cost, and Time Associated with Home Care Documentation

Nov 2, 2016 7:02:29 AM

In home care, paperwork is everywhere – between the field and the office and between your agency and all types of third parties. Admission forms, schedules, point-of-care documentation, payroll processing, and care documentation for third parties – paper is often king.

Peering-thru-medical-records-350.jpgBut, is communicating by paper the best way? The most cost-effective way? The safest, most secure way? Emphatically, the answer is “no.”

  • Paper-based processes and systems are inefficient and slow, and that means they cost your agency critical efficiency.
  • Quality of care can suffer with paper-based processes. Typically, field staff jot notes during a visit and complete their documentation at the end of a shift. Studies show that real-time documentation is more accurate than that recorded after-the-fact.
  • Employee satisfaction plummets staff must use time-consuming manual forms

Streamline home health documentation to save time and money

You can save your agency money by doing all you can to simplify and automate your home health documentation. Here is just a small sample of how paper-based systems milk your margins:

  • Time spent re-entering basic administrative information on forms into your systems
  • Time keying-in care documentation collected on paper into your systems
  • Time and hassle associated with reconciling errors
  • Cost of the paper itself
  • Cost and time of moving paper from place-to-place, whether it is faxed, mailed or hand delivered
  • Cost of storage and retrieval time

Top mobile solutions go far beyond replacing the paperwork associated with schedules. They get rid of the need for paperwork at the point-of-care and provide you with a better, more efficient way to operate.

Whether it’s providing pre-populated fields on insurance and admission forms, short and long assessments to complete care and service documentation, delivering timely surveys and other questions – a mobile solution gathers the necessary information quickly, securely and more accurately.

And since a good mobile solution automates and connects input from the field to your back office systems, all along the way you can save time and money, improve accuracy, cut rework, reduce overtime, and improve the quality of care.

Reduce the inherent risk of paper-based systems

The sensitivity of personal health data means your agency must be vigilant in safeguarding it, both out of respect for the clients’ privacy and the financial and reputational risks associated with data breaches.

But all too often, agencies underestimate the risk of their current paper-based approaches. When caregivers document information on paper and carry it in folders, they naturally and almost inadvertently invite security risks. Just think of all the places and ways sensitive data could be exposed:

  • In a car or retail establishment while a caregiver is running an errand
  • At a restaurant while a caregiver is having lunch
  • At home when a caregiver is catching up on documentation or other paperwork post-visit
  • In the client or patient’s home
  • On the desktop of an office employee
  • Faxed to the wrong number

When you consider deploying technology for managing health care data, you should carefully scrutinize how each vendor handles data security. Health care information breaches often occur at endpoints as opposed to central systems. And, judgments for breaches often range from $1,500 to $6,000 per name.

The best mobile solutions provide world-class data protection. They enable you to reduce the privacy risk associated with paper by securely putting client and care information on the device, and by enabling secure, electronic documentation at the point-of-care, starting with admissions forms. A top mobile solution will also give you the ability to locate lost or stolen phones and to wipe data from those devices if needed.

Look for a mobile solution that can provide you with the ability to locate lost or stolen phones and to wipe data from those devices if needed.

Learn more about how to improve your agency's efficiency in our new white paper, "5 Ways Agencies Can Increase Productivity and Improve Financial Outcomes."

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Topics: Cost Reduction, Communication, Productivity, Savings