An ever increasing number of healthcare teams are transitioning from fee-for-service models to value-based care. And the population-level innovations of value-based care are paying dividends for patients and providers alike.
Each individual positive outcome has a cascading effect that helps support and improve the health of all patients under a network’s care. That’s the good news.
The bad news: caring for patients creates an overwhelming amount of information. To provide the most valuable care possible, teams need an efficient means of not only managing data, but communicating about the treatment plans it powers.
And if the data teams have is incomplete? Well, then that data is no good to anyone at all.
Electronic Health Records (EHR) help networks level-set the amount of data they collect. But fully taking advantage of that data requires recognizing whether it’s complete in the context of each patient and care plan, translating it into protocols, then communicating with all stakeholders about the most effective treatments.
And that complex work requires efficient, technology-driven workflows. Trying to manage data without them is like sifting through sand. In this piece, we’ll look at the benefits of adopting RxLive’s pharmacy technology to help streamline EHR workflows.
#1: Increase adherence to prevent adverse health outcomes
Accurate EHRs aren’t just records of a patient’s diagnoses and a summary of their care plans. Comprehensive, well-maintained EHRs are living documents that care teams can leverage to prevent adverse outcomes before they happen.
Say, for example, a patient is prescribed Lisinopril for high blood pressure. A year passes, and they return for their follow-up appointment. As it turns out, their blood pressure is still high.
One possible reason for this outcome: the patient stopped taking their medication. Another: they never began their prescribed therapy at all. And another still: though adhering to their regimen, the patient has yet to experience a corresponding, positive change to their health.
With RxLive’s tools integrated into your health system’s EMR, your pharmacy team can be proactive to recognize the signs of possible nonadherence in advance of a patient’s follow-up appointment. The result? The patient receives the care they need, when they need it.
Pharmacists and care coordinators, for example, can sort a patient’s profile by diagnostic determinants, including unfilled prescriptions.
With this list automation functionality, care team members mitigate time wasted on data management and determining who and when they should reach out.Patient’s profiles can be flagged for a follow-up phone call or scheduled consult, during which their care team can determine the reason the prescription hasn’t been filled – whether financial or circumstantial – and work with the patient and their care team to implement the best solution.
#2: Scale personnel through telehealth
The cost structure that governs a health system’s pharmacy program is materially different than any other department. Put plainly: there’s little room in budgets for hiring the personnel needed to power more efficient pharmacist-led interventions and comprehensive EMR management.
That’s because the drugs at the focus of pharmacy programs cost 75 percent of their budgets. Still, the demand for expectations of pharmacy services continue to expand. Networks that incorporate a fractional network of pharmacists, however, can offer an on-the-ground pharmacy team significant support.
Let’s move beyond the example we began with above – the patient is now adherent to their medication. But now that they’re regularly taking Lisinopril, some unexpected side effects have popped up: some days the patient feels weak, and like their heartbeat is fluttering.
Under-resourced teams won’t have the bandwidth to proactively reach out to the patient and check in on their current health and experiences with their medication. But RxLive’s fractional network of pharmacists helps scale your team’s bandwidth no matter your current needs.
RxLive’s pharmacists can supplement your on-the-ground care team. Combined with access to the patient’s EHR, a pharmacist can reach out to check on their progress adjusting to their prescription. Then, as medication experts, they can recognize the side effects as indicative of Hyperkalemia, a common interaction between Lisinopril and elevated potassium levels.
The result? The patient can receive the care they need quickly. And in this case, eliminate potassium supplements from their routine and, perhaps, not eat so many bananas.
#3: Power effective patient education at discharge
Transitions of care require well-considered coordination no matter which environments patients must move between. Incorporating pharmacy technology into your EHR workflows, however, can make complex processes like discharge educational, rather than stressful, for patients.
With My.Rxlive integrated into your network’s existing system, pharmacists can help…
- Ensure patients have all necessary prescriptions submitted and filled.
- Coordinate delivery of prescriptions prior to discharge through meds to beds programs.
- Check in with patients after discharge to follow-up on any medication related concerns.
Powered by the right technology, pharmacists can help patients understand how their medications fit into what can be an overwhelming amount of information. And empowered with this information, patients are more likely to stay on the path to avoiding rehospitalization.
Build a stronger foundation for ambulatory pharmacy
For the first edition of our monthly newsletter, The Collaborative Practice, we interviewed Nilesh Desai, Chief Pharmacy Officer at Baptist Health and strategic advisor with RxLive.
His thoughts about the power of pharmacy are fascinating. But one anecdote continues to stick with us. Years ago, Nilesh was supervising a medication management study. According to his results, four out of 10 medications in high-tough med profiles are inaccurate.
That led Nilesh and his team to dive deep into efficient ways to manage medication profiles. We think it’s clear: data-driven EHRs supplemented by clear, efficient workflows help build the foundation for ambulatory care.
