ROCKVILLE, Md. — DrFirst, a leading healthcare technology innovator, has launched a new service, “Connected Care Communities,” that helps provider organizations establish secure, real-time care collaboration networks that can include any or all healthcare providers in a given community, as well as patients.
The lead provider organizations for the initial connected care communities are: Oswego Health, an acute and ambulatory integrated delivery network in upstate New York; and St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital, located north of New York City in the Lower Hudson Valley region of the state. Working collaboratively with DrFirst, each community is bringing together doctors, nurses, medical staff, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers within their respective organizations and across independent facilities in their communities within a secure, real-time care collaboration network, without participants needing to use the same electronic health record software.
Underpinning the unique Connected Care Communities service is DrFirst’s Backline® secure collaboration software and iPrescribe® mobile medication management software. These interoperable tools for desktop and mobile devices enable community members to seamlessly reach each other using a secure texting architecture to conduct care communications, rapidly exchange clinical data, and support medication management activities. This same secure architecture also allows members of the healthcare communities to contact their patients directly and support them in their needs at any point in their healthcare journey.
Under agreement with each lead provider organization, the software is currently available at no cost to community-based healthcare providers surrounding the lead provider facilities, including primary care and specialty practices, long-term care facilities, clinics, and pharmacies.
“We are a true community hospital, in every sense of the word,” said Dr. Gina Del Savio, chief medical officer of St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital. “We actively collaborate with independent physicians and practices throughout our area on a daily basis, and our work with DrFirst will significantly advance our ability to do so. Moreover, these tools will directly impact and enhance our activities within the hospital, such as improving emergency department throughput and assisting triage to get high utilizers of the ED to the appropriate level of care inside or outside the hospital.”
“As a rural integrated delivery network, we participate in a variety of state and regional initiatives designed to improve information sharing in our region,” said Dr. Renato Mandanas, chief medical officer of Oswego Health. “This connected care initiative will help us collaborate much more deeply with providers across our county. All providers play an important role at different points in time in the care of our more than 100,000 county residents. We have to collaborate with various disciplines within our care team to provide the best care services to our shared patient population.”
Many common healthcare processes will be streamlined through the service, including: exchanging medication history data, lab results, and clinical content documents; routing admit, discharge, and other patient health event notifications; facilitating referrals and consults; assisting patient care transitions; and communicating about patient prescriptions, clarifications and adherence concerns. More complex clinical workflows will also be deployed, such as ensuring patients are at the right level of care and receiving appropriate follow-on care post-transition, as well as helping provider organizations meet value-based care program requirements, such as New York’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) initiative.
“New York state is pursuing a number of initiatives to improve patient safety, diminish prescription and opioid abuse, and convert to value-based care frameworks,” said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. “Having helped 30,000 New York providers meet I-STOP requirements, we are acutely aware of the data-flow challenges they face, the key role secure communications must play in effective care collaboration, and the flexibility providers and staff need to securely access patient information wherever and whenever they need it. We’re in a unique position to help, and we believe Connected Care Communities will fundamentally improve healthcare collaboration and patient outcomes.”
About DrFirst
DrFirst, the nation’s leading provider of e-prescribing and medication management solutions, enables stakeholders across the healthcare industry to use comprehensive real-time data and connectivity intelligently to increase their patient safety ratings, efficiency and profitability. Today, more than 170,000 healthcare professionals and more than 60% of electronic health record (EHR) vendors depend on DrFirst’s innovative software solutions to improve clinical workflows, expedite secure collaboration across a patient’s care team and drive better health outcomes. The company’s integrated technologies include its award-winning electronic prescribing platform, the most comprehensive medication history available, clinically specialized secure messaging, as well as patient medication adherence monitoring and benefits checking. In addition, DrFirst was the first to offer e-prescribing for controlled substances (EPCS) and is considered the industry standard for providers nationwide. For more information, please visit www.drfirst.com or connect with us @DrFirst.
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