Evidence shows that if patients seeking specific high-risk surgeries or treatments would chose high-volume hospitals for their care, this could save more than 4,000 lives annually. However, due to the lack of data currently available today and interoperability issues in EHRs, evidence based referrals are not widespread.

MedVoy’s evidence based referral workflow has the ability to incorporate any evidence based metrics into its referral process thus making sure that the patients are referred to the right facility with the better processes, and positive outcomes.

source http://www.academyhealth.org/Training/content.cfm?ItemNumber=1691

Some disturbing facts from this article:

• Three out of every 10 tests are reordered because results cannot be found.
• Patient charts cannot be found on 30% of visits.
• One-fifth of medical errors are due to the lack of immediate access to patient information.
• Thirty to forty percent of the money we spend on health care–more than half a trillion dollars a year–is spent on costs associated with “overuse, underuse, misuse, duplication, system failures, unnecessary repetition, poor communication and inefficiency.”

MedVoy was designed to address precisely these issues with transparency and collaboration.  By improving the referral workflow, doctors have immediate access to patient records – eliminating the duplication of procedures, improving efficiency and improving the continuum of care.

See MedVoy’s recent launch of their referral management software at the Health 2.0 Conference.  The Health 2.0 Conference selected MedVoy because of how it is transforming the current referral paradigm from an onerous paper shuffling process to an interactive patient portal that can integrate with existing EHR systems and that facilities continuum of care. 

Watch the video of the launch at the Health 2.0 Conference!

Using a referral system, such as MedVoy can integrate with your existing EHR to help fill these gaps

Enhances Provider Communication

Healthcare relies on effective communication amongst the providers, specialist and staff.  MedVoy enables the ability to track and manage referrals – even across disparate EHRs and patient management systems.  A specialist can understand their cases before they see the patients – allowing them to use their limited patient time most efficiently.

Improved Documentation

MedVoy’s secure, HIPPA compliant platform has a very lightweight workflow and then uses push/pulls to other EHRs to allow access to all documentation in one place and to help avoid the duplication in procedures – eliminating the onerous data entry and documentation concerns.

Feedback Loops Aids with Continuum of Care

A current constraint with referrals is that they often fall into a “black hole”, where the referring providers do not know what happened with the patient.  Using MedVoy, the referring providers can easily look at the referral status, follow up notes, appointments and ongoing patient care.

Referral Leakage is lost revenue or volumes from patients being referred outside of your provider network – causing you to lose the referral dollars that you were expecting. Only 35-45% of referrals  for adult inpatient care, measured by revenue, go to a partner hospital and this issue is expounding due to lack of preferred tracking mechanisms, lack of cross-EMR integrations,  use of inefficient technologies, such as paper and fax, along with overall industry trends.

Referral leakage is a growing issue because the competition for referrals is increasing.  In the past 15 years, the number of specialist has nearly doubled, and  the advent of urgent cares and pharmacies has further diluted patient referrals.  Hospitals are also buying up private practices in droves and refer within their own network, which hurts the remaining private practice specialist.  Lastly, traditional networking, such as conferences and rounding as hospitals are waning so physicians are seeking new ways of networking.  Compounding these overall trends is the reliance on antiquated and inefficient technologies, such as phone and fax which can stymie the referral management process and has no tracking and limited patient data.

MedVoy’s referral management software provides the solution to track referral leakage.

• Provides a lightweight patient portal to track and manages referrals and to schedule appointments online
• Refer directly to providers in disparate networks, including physician-to-physician referrals
• Provides a sophisticated business intelligence layer that tracks ROI and your best referral sources
• Offers a new way to network and assists the marketing department in physician outreach

Contact us today to be part of our limited launch!

Last week, MedVoy was one of a handful of companies selected to launch at the Health 2.0 Conference in the Silicon Valley.  The Health 2.0 Conference focuses on showcasing cutting-edge innovation that’s transforming health and health care, which is why MedVoy referral management platform was selected – as it transforms the referral process from being an onerous paper shuffling process to an interactive patient portal that can integrate with existing EHR systems.

Some emerging trends from the Health 2.0 Conference:

Technology empowers patients

Using patient self assessment tools, consumer can now utilize technology to take health care into their own hands, such Smartphone apps and devices to track such things as, exercise levels, monitor blood samples, medication adherence, biometric devices, and yes, even breathing.  These types of transformative technology can be utilized to bring about long term behavior changes to improve overall health

Healthcare Reform Guidelines

The Affordable Care Act has some crucial stipulations, such as the transformation to Electronic Health Records (EHR) and the convoluted “meaningful use guidelines.”  MedVoy helps with meaningful use by offering a lightweight patient portal that is using with the existing EHR.  Another topic was the paradigm shift from the existing reactionary patient-doctor model to a proactive model with improvements to preventive care and early detection of health problems which is helping to drive a cornucopia of consumer devices.

Big Data is bigger than ever!

Big Data continues to dominate the discussions at the conference, with the increased use of technology, consumer devices, EHR, biometrics, human genome mapping, information exchanges, pricing transparency, etc, – there is now, more than ever data that ever which is an exciting time for data scientists and analysts.  The key will be to integrate the data and leverage the right tools in order to bring about the transformative change that is possible with this data and to improve long term healthcare outcomes.   Talk to one of our experts today if you need help with making sense of your big data.

So, what does a surgical hotel offer?

How does a hotel providing services to a postoperative patients and their companions provide value and differentiate themselves?

A surgical hotel, part hospital-part hotel, would offer the following:

1. location convenient to healthcare facilities
2. transportation to facilities/airport/other
3. availability of emergency medical care
4. amenities
5. sensitivity to the needs of specific postop patients; connected rooms.
6. things to do for companions
7. information and communication technology links with providers
8. alternative/complementary services for postop patient
9. security
10. privacy/confidentiality in check in and exits
11. disability accommodations in architecture, transportation vehicles
12. medical concierge
13. accommodate in-room stay by nurse or companion
14. availability of equipment to take vital signs by medical professional
15. availability of wound management supplies
16. online medical education and postop care resources
17. nutrition counselor, special dietary restrictions
18. evacuation preferences
19. brand awareness and snob appeal
20. new design for bedding and furniture?
21. allergy free environment
22. medication reminder system (part of automatic wake-up call system?)
23. mini-kitchen facilities
24. real time patient feedback and request system
25. panic button
26. prevention of nosocomial (need a new word for hotel acquired) infections
27. modified housekeeping schedule
28. separate parking a minimal distance to room
29. wheelchair management
30. quiet
31. bathroom amenities (antibacterial soap, hand lotion, etc)
32. antibacterial surfaces on furniture
33. billing and collecting interface with medical insurance ?
34. disposable cell phones for companions
35. pet accommodations?

The global medical travel industry in rapidly growing and expected to reach $1B by 2012. Developers and the hospitality industry have an opportunity to participate and profit by offering differentiated, value added services to patients and their family members and companions that accompany them for care away from home.

Leaving home for care is nothing new. People have been traveling around the world for treatment since the beginning of time. Now we call it medical tourism, and it is growing quickly.

Patients seek care away from home because it is cheaper, unavailable in their home location, can be accessed without waiting for a long time, can be combined with a travel experience and can be kept secret. Despite the talk of healthcare reform, patients and employers are paying more for care with no forseeable decreases and they are looking for safe, affordable alternatives to care in the US.

There are several serious barriers to adoption and penetration of the notion of leaving home for care. In fact, we’re not even sure what to call it these days. “Medical tourism” has morphed into global healthcare referral or medical travel, underlying the fact that we are talking about healthcare in a different place, not sipping Margueritas by the pool. The growth of the industry is being fueled by mostly medical outsiders who see the commercial potential of opportunities that have resulted from medical cost inflation, globalization and cheap information and communications technologies.

There are lots of opportunties for physicians in the medical travel industry. Substantial challenges to the traditional notions of face-to-face care, continuity of care, itinerant surgery and global healthcare information exchange are but a few of the issues that the medical provider establishment will have to confront as medical travel continues to grow around the world.

1. The person sitting next to you on the plane is your surgeon-off-shore health communities are looking for US- based surgeons to participate in foreign offices to do surgery, and bring their patients, for less cost in the host country. Grumpy doctors in the US are interested.

2. The person you see on your computer is your doctor- information and communications technologies are providing a way to deliver follow up care at minimal cost

3. Click to see your record anywhere in the world- global healthcare information exchanges are growing as more doctors around the world adopt and connect electronic medical records.

BOTTOM LINE: Global healthcare referral coordination is more about moving information than moving people.