Avoiding the danger of ‘loose cannons’

Back in the Age of Sail, the last thing a captain needed in the midst of battle was a loose cannon careening around the deck and causing trouble. Today’s medical practices face a similar challenge: Winning the Population Health battle requires making sure that the powerful tools they use every day remain in place. That way, well-trained personnel know exactly where those powerful healthcare IT weapons are at all times and can quickly bring them into play as needed.

Topics: Population Health, care plan oversight, CPO

There are few things as satisfying as placing the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle in the correct spot.

January 29, 2021, is National Puzzle Day and even though finishing a jigsaw puzzle may be satisfying, solving unique problems specific to healthcare is another area worth celebrating.

Topics: Patient Engagement, Population Health, Interoperability, Patient Portal, telehealth, TeleVisits, Chronic Care Management, CCM, Open Access®, telemedicine, HEDIS, transition care management, TCM, healthcare interoperability, healow CHECK-IN, contactless check-in, online appointment booking, care plan oversight, National Puzzle Day, Disease Explorer, PRISMA, FHIR, #NationalPuzzleDay

From rural health centers to urban clinics and everywhere in-between, eClinicalWorks^® and healow^® are helping practices reinvent themselves to face emerging challenges and provide quality care to patients.

Topics: healow, Patient Engagement, Population Health, telehealth, TeleVisits, eClinicalTouch, Chronic Care Management, CCM, eClinicalMobile, Open Access®, transition care management, TCM, healow CHECK-IN, contactless check-in

It’s been months since the COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way providers practice medicine. For many, the need for an almost overnight transformation became too much of a strain on their resources, and practices were forced to shut down permanently. Others like Little River Medical Center found the means to adapt and utilize comprehensive tools and strategies to find success in the wake of a global pandemic.

Topics: Population Health, telehealth, ebo, TeleVisits, Chronic Care Management, CCM, HEDIS

Remember, Project Kickstart is here to help

Once upon a time, you dreamed of medical school. You knew that would be hard to achieve. And it was. But you being you, there was always another dream — that of opening your own medical practice.

Topics: RCM, Population Health, Interoperability, support, TeleVisits, messenger, Open Access®, Scribe, Project Kickstart, healow CHECK-IN, contactless check-in, website, SEO, social media, marketing

You’re making changes — make the right ones

With COVID-19 forcing changes to medical practices, 2020 is a great time to go back to basics. As students return to school and families juggle their schedules, it’s the perfect time to do your healthcare IT homework to make sure you’re delivering the services and information they need.

Topics: Population Health, telehealth, TeleVisits, messenger, Scribe, healow CHECK-IN, contactless check-in, Back to the Basics

Understanding is the first step toward health

Since ancient times, the story of medicine has been one of ongoing discovery, pushing the frontiers of science forward to gain a deeper and more holistic understanding of what makes us ill and how we can restore health.

Topics: Population Health, CCM, HEDIS, TCM, Back to the Basics

Strong roots in the Midwest

Brown Clinic has been in business since 1935, providing comprehensive, quality medicine to the residents of Watertown, South Dakota — with a friendly and down-to-earth attitude that reflects the strong community spirit found throughout the American Midwest.

Topics: Population Health, Chronic Care Management, HEDIS

Early detection & common illnesses

While the coronavirus outbreak is garnering headlines worldwide and leading to travel restrictions and quarantines to limit its spread, the leading threats to Americans’ health remain what they have been for many years — heart disease, the many forms of cancer, and the garden-variety flu strains that occur each winter.

Topics: Population Health, healthcare IT, lung cancer

When you can’t kick a cold, who do you go to? Primary care physicians are there for you when something’s feeling off and are also often the first to notice underlying health issues. The Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) model is a means to help strengthen primary care, promote health, and lower healthcare costs.

What is CPC+?

CPC+ is a multi-payer initiative led by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) designed to improve primary care with two five-year rounds that are location specific. It provides practices with a comprehensive learning system and data feedback that can help guide a practice’s decision-making and deliver better care.

Topics: Population Health, Chronic Care Management, CMS, CPC

Many tools, but challenges persist

Each year brings new advances in medical technology and new understanding of challenges in healthcare. The progress of science is so visible that it’s easy for physicians, patients, and public-policy experts to believe all the tools necessary to build a healthier society are already in hand. 

In reality, many difficult and complex challenges remain. Conditions that have clear, adverse impacts on the quality of life — including diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and poor nutrition — remain widespread. 

Topics: Population Health, Electronic Health Records

Healthcare organizations have a significant opportunity to improve the outcomes with the advent of innovative delivery and payment models tapping into the advances in technology and its adoption. To do this, organizations need a solution.

Our enhanced Population Health solutions help practices understand disease patterns, better assess risk, and improve patients’ engagement and compliance. At eClinicalWorks, we are constantly driven to innovate and find ways to further benefit practices interested in Population Health.

Topics: Population Health, Blue Button 2.0, CMS, quality improvement

Matt Cady, Chief Innovation Officer at Florida’s Adult Medicine of Lake County, says that before his practice began using eClinicalWorks to track patients moving among care settings, they had a system in place: Post-It® Notes and spreadsheets.

In other words, in spite of having the cloud-based eClinicalWorks EHR, when it came to keeping track of patients moving from a hospital setting to home, they were still, in effect, using paper records. Each provider knew what was going on with their patients, but communicating that information to colleagues was cumbersome and time-consuming.

Topics: Patient Engagement, Population Health, health outcomes, CMS, transition care management, TCM

When Florida medical practices talk about snowbirds, they aren’t talking ornithology. They are referring to the large subset of patients who spend the winter in the Sunshine State and scoot back North in the spring. Such patients pose one of the thorniest problems in medicine because keeping track of their health — from the specialists they have seen to whatever medications they are taking — can be a real challenge.

Topics: Population Health, health outcomes, HEDIS

What kind of medical practices need an advanced tool for determining patient risk, projecting the likelihood of adverse health events, and processing each patient with the highest possible degree of specificity in coding for reimbursements?

Topics: Population Health, HCC, Hierarchical Conditional Category coding, health outcomes, risk-adjustment