Melissa Kozak
Oct 22 2024
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Technology advances for better home infusion management
As of 2020, there were more than three million patients in the United States receiving home and specialty infusion services each year. As our population ages and lives longer, the demand for home infusion is expected to increase.
In addition, as acute care settings such as hospitals continue to experience capacity challenges, they’re recognizing the value home infusion providers offer in freeing-up beds. Both of these factors mean that home infusion providers will play a key role delivering life-saving medications while keeping patients safe.
Three challenges home infusion teams face
To work effectively, home infusion care teams need tools to help streamline workflows and reduce administrative tasks that can keep them from focusing on patients. Specifically, the biggest challenges these teams face include delayed communication, difficulty collaborating, and ensuring complete and accurate documentation.
“During our evaluation process, it became clear that the CitusHealth end-to-end digital solution suite would solve many of the care coordination and patient engagement challenges we face.”
-Erica Smith, Director of Nursing, Intramed Plus
1. Delayed communication
In the home setting, timely patient and family caregiver communication is vital to quickly address any challenges or complications that arise. Open lines of communication allow home infusion nurses, pharmacists and other team members to quickly respond to changes in the patient’s condition, adjust treatment plans as needed and provide guidance and support to patients and caregivers.
Research shows that many home infusion providers don’t have digital patient engagement systems in place. Outdated manual processes can make it difficult to effectively and efficiently communicate with the care team, patients and family caregivers. When tools like phone calls are the primary communication method, it’s harder to reach someone the first time, leading to voice mails and “phone tag” that can waste time and lead to delays sharing key information.
Having tools that support real-time communication, such as messaging and video chat, makes it easier to quickly respond to patients, share details with care team members, and ultimately improve outcomes and grow referrals for your organization.
2. Team collaboration
Collaboration among all members of the care team helps ensure that pertinent information such as medications, treatment plans and patient preferences are accurately conveyed. This helps reduce the risk of errors, complications and disruptions in care continuity.
A recent article pointed out that “home-infusion agencies would benefit from shared communication structures and streamlined processes for acquiring and sharing data among team members.” By sharing insights and expertise, members of the care team can more collaboratively assess patients, identify treatment goals and formulate individualized care plans that support better therapeutic outcomes and improve patient satisfaction.
3. Complete documentation
Missing or incomplete documentation can have a major impact on patient management and continuity of care. But it takes a considerable investment of time to make sure forms are completely and correctly filled out, that signatures are gathered and appropriate files and documents shared. Home infusion providers should look for technology that can streamline documentation tasks, to enhance efficiency and cost effectiveness.
“Charting is great, signatures from agencies are instant, and we’re not waiting on them having to categorize and invoice. That’s a big help.”
-Lia M., Project Manager, Nurse Manager, Team Lead, PromptCare
Technology can give you an edge
CitusHealth offers the only comprehensive mobile solution that supports real-time care team collaboration as well as patient and family caregiver engagement. Our secure platform, designed to be HIPAA-compliant, lets you respond to patient and family needs using secure messaging or video chat, increasing patient satisfaction while providing education and support.
Automating time-consuming manual processes helps your care team boost their productivity. Our platform helps you instantly coordinate with clinical and non-clinical team members, and expedite physician order signatures using digital document workflows and app-less electronic signatures. In addition, assessments and surveys can be managed digitally, and the documents and progress notes you need can be automatically integrated into your pharmacy management system.
The care delivered by home infusion providers is often more convenient for patients, resulting in better patient outcomes by empowering patients to take an active role in their own care. Using the CitusHealth platform gives you an end-to-end solution that enhances team collaboration and communication while increasing patient engagement and referral partner satisfaction.
