We caught up with the Care Management team at Harbor Health Plan in Michigan to learn more about how the team uses Pings in their daily workflows. Harbor Health (formerly ProCare Health Plan) is owned by Trusted Health Plan. Harbor Health was certified as a Clinic Plan in 1996, a Qualified Health Plan in 1998, and a licensed HMO in December 2000. Harbor Health has dedicated, experienced, and well-trained staff who have been involved in healthcare delivery for many years. Harbor Health ensures that its member’s medical needs are met, and recognize that its providers are key to achieving this goal.

Continue reading “Use Case Spotlight: How Harbor Health Plan Utilizes Pings to Improve Member Outcomes”

This month’s blog with Dr. John Glaser, Senior Vice President, Population Health at Cerner, touches on the importance of knowing when to make the shift to value-based care. Providers are straddling the line between volume and value and their timing for moving toward the value-end of the spectrum is ripe for risk, but also for reward.

Continue reading “Four Questions Series: Dr. John Glaser, Senior Vice President, Population Health, Cerner”

Kevin Hutchinson, current founder & CEO of MyTaskit shares his insights in the next edition of our Four Questions blog. With an extensive background in healthcare–from being the Former Founding President & CEO at SureScripts to advising multiple growth-stage companies, Kevin’s insights and knowledge are invaluable to Bamboo Health.

Continue reading “Four Questions Series: Kevin Hutchinson, Founder & CEO of MyTaskit”

Welcome to another edition of the Four Questions blog series. This time, we’re sitting down with Sean Cavanaugh, former Head of Medicare to talk care coordination, payment reform, and challenges facing healthcare providers today.

Continue reading “Four Questions Series: Sean Cavanaugh, Former Head of Medicare”

How does Pings help you accomplish your goals?

PatientPing (Pings) helps us in a way that claims data cannot, by providing real-time event notifications across the continuum of care. For our Medicare population, being able to see the movement among post-acute providers was always a missing link. Since partnering with PatientPing (Bamboo Health), we have been able to track admissions and discharges within skilled nursing facilities, home health and hospice settings, and conduct outreach to patients and providers in a much more timely manner.  Our goals involve providing care coordination as an extension of the primary care provider, so PatientPing (Pings) helps us extend those services because we can identify the patient movement.

What do you like most about Pings?

We really love the format and simplicity of how the notification is delivered. Our team is more efficient because they are able to filter by type of provider, point of care, admit or discharge status, etc. It does not require analytical skills to search for information. One of the best features is the ability to connect the assigned care coordinator to the matching provider with enough contact information and/or customized message, so that providers are reminded to communicate with us. That feature has supported increased awareness of our services.

Can you give us a specific example of a time that Pings helped you help a patient?

A patient was admitted to a SNF with an anticipated length of stay of three weeks. About four days after admission to the SNF, the Nurse Care Coordinator observed a PatientPing (Pings) notification of discharge. The nurse contacted the facility and learned that the patient had signed out early—against medical advice—and stated that he was going home. Knowing this to be a high-risk patient, the nurse was able to work with social services to follow up with the patient at his home.  He was open to home health, which was then arranged.

With PatientPing (Pings), we were able to confirm that home health services had been implemented and could make sure they remained ‘active.’ Although there were other care coordination activities, we watched for discharge from home health so that other services could be offered. Had we not seen the early unanticipated discharge from the SNF, this patient would have likely ended up back in the emergency department facing a readmission. Because of this notification, we were able to act and offer other options.

What other technologies do you use (in addition to Pings) to help you accomplish your goals?

We have a population health platform from Wellcentive, which is also where many of our ambulatory care coordinators document or track caseloads. Additional supportive technology includes the John Hopkins ACG for risk stratification and MCG to help with condition specific assessments and care planning.  As a large ACO we also have technology to drive analytics and financial reports.

Thanks so much, Ann! For more information about how Bamboo Health can enhance your care coordination efforts, contact us.

How does Pings help you accomplish your goals?

PatientPing (Pings) provides a central, timely repository for patient ADT information at organizational, practice unit, and provider levels. We use this information to help with transitions of care, as well as to identify trends and opportunities for patient education on subjects such as practice after-hours and same-day appointments.

What do you like most about Pings?

We particularly like the volume of entities contributing to ADT feeds, as well as the support from PatientPing (Bamboo Health) staff.

Can you give us a specific example of a time that Pings helped you help a patient?

The admit and discharge data obtained through the PatientPing (Pings) interface allowed one of our physicians to easily identify a patient who was presenting at the emergency department of a local hospital multiple times in a short time window. Specifically, this patient presented to the ED three times in the span of 15 days.

Using this information, the patient’s primary care provider and staff made it a priority to not only schedule a follow-up with this patient after the first ED visit, but also for education that stressed the availability of same day appointments, after-hours services, and options for additional consultation without a regular scheduled office visit. Since these events, the patient’s condition has been effectively managed and he has not presented to the ED.

What other technologies do you use (in addition to Pings) to help you accomplish your goals?

In addition to PatientPing (Pings), we use the following to help us with our care coordination and engagement initiatives:

•  Patient Registry (Wellcentive)
• Patient Surveys (NRC CAHPS)
• Various cost and quality reporting (payer specific)
• Claims data (payer specific)

Thanks so much, Shay! For more information about Bamboo Health how to optimize your care coordination efforts, click here.