Home > All articles  Your advertisement here   From Essential but Not Sufficient: Information Technology in Long-Term Care as an Enabler of Consumer Independence and Quality Improvement From Essential but Not Sufficient: Information Technology in Long-Term Care as an Enabler of Consumer Independence and Quality Improvement - By BearingPoint, Inc. This report examines the role of information technology in long-term care and makes recommendations to The National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care (the Commission) on how long-term care can be transformed through the application of health information technology (HIT). To effectively address this issue of the role of HIT in longterm care, we must establish and maintain our focus on a clear goal: To optimize quality of life for all within the constraints of our available resources and our understanding of the human condition. Note that this goal is not exclusive to seniors or those involved in long-term care; this goal applies to the entire healthcare community. We cannot achieve this goal for long-term care without considering all of healthcare. Our central thesis is this: HIT can be an enabling force in all aspects of healthcare transformation; yet, while it is essential, HIT is not sufficient for achieving this transformation. To achieve our goal of optimizing quality of life within the constraints of our available resources, we must combine the adoption of HIT with the realignment of incentives for improving consumer-centric outcomes and efficiency as well as a strong business case for the adoption of HIT by the many diverse long-term care stakeholders. These incentives must be driven and the business case embraced by changing our healthcare culture by focusing on systems-level continuous process improvement that is driven by information transparency and flow. Long-term care can serve a special role in the transformation of healthcare because longterm care is just like the rest of healthcare, only more so. Long-term care tends to be more fragmented, deals with a wider spectrum of healthcare issues, provides a wider range of services for seniors of varying levels of cognitive and functional status, faces greater workforce and financing challenges, and, compared to the rest of the healthcare system, has been slower to adopt technology. Because these challenges within long-term care are so pronounced, long-term care is the ideal “poster child” for the cause of technology-enabled transformation in the entirety of the nation’s current healthcare discussion. Healthcare will benefit as the long-term care sector’s particular focus on functional status, wellness, and transition management is integrated into shared solutions. The six areas for change as outlined in the Commission’s vision for long-term care?culture transformation, empowering individuals and families, workforce, technology, regulation, and finance?are enabled by HIT: • Culture Transformation?HIT can enable information sharing through electronically enabled communities of practice and other forms of social networking, online educational programs, the raising of expectations through quality reporting and outcomes transparency. • Empowering Individuals and Families?HIT can help reduce isolation among seniors and caregivers through electronically enabled social networks, online training for caregivers, and personal health records (PHRs) that can be shared with caregivers and remote family members. • Workforce?HIT can enable streamlined, coordinated training through learning management systems and modular educational programs; efficient resource-to-need matching and optimization of workforce scheduling and distribution of effort through enterprise resource planning applications and related technologies. • Technology?Technology can enable the improved application of other technologies by supporting the HIT infrastructure such as the emerging Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN); the network effect of HIT results in greater utility of previous technology investments (for example, widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) make them more effective as information-sharing tools among healthcare providers and create new opportunities for implementing more advanced technology solutions). • Regulation?HIT can help reduce reporting burdens through data extraction and automatic report generation and can deliver greater consistency in reported data through the use of reporting requirements based upon unambiguous, computable queries; rapid-cycle refinement of reporting requirements, made possible through HIT, can result in reports that are more aligned with quality outcomes and process improvement. • Finance?HIT can support greater transparency of actions and outcomes that enable greater alignment of financial incentives and reimbursement models with quality outcomes. We offer the following recommendations for consideration by the Commission and all stakeholders in long-term care: 1. Make quality long-term care a national priority. 2. Accelerate industry-wide collaboration and leadership around the use of HIT in long-term care. 3. Explore legislative options to promote long-term care’s transformation through HIT. 4. Establish federal leadership entities and positions dedicated to long-term care technology. 5. Support the development of innovative technologies and the adaptation of existing technologies for use in the long-term care setting. 6. Reduce or remove barriers to innovation in and the adoption of technology in long-term care. 7. Pursue regulatory reform and professional licensure enhancements to enable the expanded use of remote care. 8. Develop a global market for long-term care technology through information exchange and market development. From Essential but Not Sufficient: Information Technology in Long-Term Care as an Enabler of Consumer Independence and Quality Improvement - By BearingPoint, Inc.       By BearingPoint Date 12-10-2007 Print this news| Send to a friend Your advertisement here