Golden Living, a major U.S. long-term care provider, will soon connect all 20 of its skilled nursing and assisted living centers in Indiana to the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC), one of the largest health information exchanges in the country.
Linking to INPC will help it access the electronic records of patients as they move from acute care facilities, according to the Fort Smith, Ark.-based long-term care provider. It will also support a new patient medical record system that will enable its facilities to interact directly with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"We want to raise the bar in our patient care by leveraging technology, and joining the INPC is just one of the ways we can do that," said Julianne Williams, a division president for Golden Living, which operates more than 300 Golden Living Centers in 21 states and assisted living services in 40 other locations.
One of its key goals is to reduce the rate of re-hospitalizations. "We believe that the opportunity and ability to share medical information with the medical staff of hospitals will improve patient care and enable the best transition of care between us and any other medical provider," Williams said.
Linking to the INPC will provide physicians who care for a resident outside of the nursing home with immediate access to the patient's complete and up-to-date medical record, including medical history, current medications and recent laboratory results, Williams said.
The HIE will also allow the nursing home to receive the up-to-date medical record of a new or returning patient before they arrive. "In doing that, we'll be even more prepared to provide the right kind of care they need at the right time," Williams said.
The company will start with a pilot project involving three skilled nursing centers in the Indianapolis region. Williams said that the company will test the system for about 60 days before moving forward with any additional nursing homes.
The biggest challenge has been making sure that the lexicon and data points that sometimes vary between acute care and post-acute care are consistent, she said. For example, hospitals and nursing homes sometimes evaluate cognitive status differently.
"We have agreed upon and are working on a set of data points that we will share on any transition, so that whether it be a new patient or a returning patient, we will get a minimum amount of information electronically that we believe is in the best interest of our residents," Williams said.
"We feel like this is an opportunity for use to create a great model that works for us and for the acute care providers that we work with."
The INPC, which was created and is operated by the Regenstrief Institute, currently includes more than 60 hospitals, clinical laboratories and other medical facilities serving nearly six million patients.
