NVNA and Hospice delivers home health, palliative care, hospice care, wellness and other critical public health services across 27 Massachusetts communities. 2020 officially marked the 100th year they have been in existence—and what a year it was.
Due to their in-home care offering, the COVID-19 pandemic hit NVNA and Hospice especially hard. Thankfully, as they adapted to the changes, they also were beginning to benefit from their recent connection to the CommonWell Health Alliance nationwide clinical data sharing network.
Meaghan Groves, Director of Patient Access, has been with NVNA and Hospice for more than five years and is vividly aware that better access to patient health data translates into better care. It “helps us paint a better picture to determine the best course of action,” she explained of their new access to external patient information via the CommonWell network.
Picture this. NVNA and Hospice gets a new patient who needs a joint replacement—a seemingly straightforward referral. Before they had access to the CommonWell network, they had little to no past medical history in the patient’s chart. With CommonWell services embedded into their MatrixCare Home Health & Hospice electronic health record, staff now are able to pull additional data from that patient’s previous providers—such as clinical notes, allergies, medication history and more.
One of the first benefits they realized was a reduction in requests from the field staff for more information on their patients, freeing up time for all members of the team and improving the patient experience.
“At the end of the day, it’s about finding solutions that enable us to spend less time looking for information and more time focusing on the patients,” said Groves.