The number of hospice patients is on the rise. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) Facts and Figures 2020 report, patient volume admissions increased 23.9 percent between 2014 and 2018 and show no signs of slowing.1 This uptick makes sense. As noted by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), “hospice care focuses on the care, comfort, and quality of life of a person with a serious illness who is approaching the end of life.”2 Instead of trying to treat specific diseases or conditions, hospice care shifts the focus to patient quality of life during their remaining time.
For hospice providers, admissions volume increases combined with the need for high-quality, patient-centric care speaks to the need for technology solutions that help streamline key processes and empower staff to prioritize what matters most: patient comfort and care.
Here are three ways hospice mobile solutions can help optimize patient-quality care.
Improve Reporting With On-Demand Access to Medical Records
Electronic health records (EHRs) offer significant benefits for healthcare. According to recent survey data, 69 percent of healthcare professionals said that EHRs improved the quality of patient care, and 64 percent said the adoption of electronic records also improved satisfaction for staff.3
For hospice providers often required to attend patients in their homes or manage multiple care locations, robust hospice mobile solutions can improve the efficacy of EHRs. By providing staff access to patient medical records on-demand through the mobile device of their choice, mobile tools can streamline the process of EHR reference and reporting and give staff more time to prioritize patient-centered care.
Reduce Complexity With Point-of-Care Documentation
Complexity plays a key role in hospice care. As noted by a recent report published by the NCBI, “complexity in the context of palliative care can be inherent to the patient or perceived by health professionals.” Care needs related to specific conditions or requirements for multiple specialists or caregivers can make the delivery of care more complex, time-consuming and potentially less cost-effective.4
Meanwhile, mobile hospice solutions that provide point-of-care documentation wherever and whenever can help reduce inherent complexity in patient care by allowing staff to quickly find and fill out relevant forms. Plus, these mobile solutions also ensure that any updates to patient data are dynamically available to all other authorized users.
Enhance Agility With Customized App Functionality
Agility is now a priority for healthcare organizations looking to deliver patient-centric care. As noted by McKinsey & Company, “agility can enable healthcare companies to adapt quickly without requiring a full-scale redesign. Change becomes part of the norm and it evolved fluidly and naturally, often bottom-up, without intervention from the top. 5
For many hospices, however, legacy processes and priorities hinder efforts to optimize overall agility. By deploying mobile hospice solutions that allow agencies to fully customize their front-line functional experience, it’s possible for providers to future-proof many familiar processes by empowering operations to adapt as required — rather than requiring a complete redesign from the ground up.
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Resources:
1 NHPCO, “NHPCO Facts and Figures 2020 Edition,” August 20, 2020.
2 NIA, “What Are Palliative Care and Hospice Care?” May 14, 2021.
3 Philips, “Future Health Index 2019,” June 2019.
4 NCBI, “What Does ‘Complex’ Mean in Palliative Care? Triangulating Qualitative Findings From 3 Settings,” Jan 4, 2018.
5 McKinsey & Company, “Why Agility is Imperative for Healthcare Organizations,” May 2017.