About Black Hills Post-Acute Care
Black Hills Post Acute Care (BHPAC) is a physician-led provider group based in and serving South Dakota and surrounding states. The organization specializes in post-acute and geriatric care managed in a holistic way, providing medical director services and physician support for post-acute care facilities and assisted living communities in the region. BHPAC emphasizes specialized treatment for elderly patients, covering a range of services to support both short- and long-term recovery needs, and includes a team of 3 MDs, 4 APPs, 1 Social Worker, and other staff focused on patient-centered care across geriatric and family medicine disciplines.
Situation at a Glance
As the organization began to grow its business by serving more patients at more facilities, it soon realized that its reliance on conventional means of communication such as Google Chat, fax, email, phone, and the EHR was becoming increasingly challenging. The group Practice Manager and staff started to get overwhelmed with information about different patients at different locations. An increasing amount of time was being spent looking for and chasing information, often times leading to staff working over 16 hours per day – valuable time that staff could have spent caring for patients for better outcomes and increased reimbursements.
Challenges
1
Excessive Faxing: Delays in Care
BHPAC routinely received over 3,000 faxes per month some taking greater than 40 minutes to put into action, and document. Furthermore, delays in identifying priority faxes for specific patients amidst the hundred or more arriving daily delayed care.
2
Compliance and Documentation
Often the time required to find messages or information led to failure to document activity in the EHR in a timely manner, leading to regulatory & billing challenges, as well as compliance concerns.
3
Staff Burnout
Working beyond 8 hours per day is normal in a growing business. But staff at BHPAC were accustomed to working beyond a sustainable number of hours each day simply to keep-up. This was contributing to their health & wellness, as well as impeding growth in the business.
4
Supporting Growth
Staffing is a challenge for all healthcare providers. With BHPAC’s unique approach to care they had a growing level of demand for their services. Supporting that demand was dependent on strategically finding efficiencies while balancing each team member’s workload.
Solution: Hucu’s Patient-Centered Communication
BHPAC’s implementation of Hucu allowed all staff and contracted Network Partner facilities to communicate in 1 place, replacing the multitude of tools and methods of communication such as Google Chat, faxing, email, and phone calls to name a few.
Faster Responses
Hucu’s unique patient-centered channels enable all members of the patient’s specific care team to exchange information including documents, orders, notes, and forms in one place, dramatically reducing the need to share documents via fax or email. As a result, BHPAC is able to respond in less than 15 minutes as compared to taking hours in chasing and locating information in other modes of communication such as faxes, voicemails, emails, etc.
More Complete & Compliant Documentation
Hucu’s flagging of specific messages, and the ability to specifically alert users based on specific flags reduced the ‘noise’ for some users while simultaneously preventing missed messages, and speeding responsiveness. This led to faster documentation and greater transparency.
Improved Staff Satisfaction | Reduced Burnout
The ability for each individual user to adjust their notifications and alerts based on specific patients allowed them to get specific notifications in one place without having to search for faxes, emails, texts, voicemails or even multiple channels in Hucu to know what was needed for each patient. This increased signal-to-noise saved up to 3 hours per staff per day. Resulting in reduced burnout and increased satisfaction.
Improved Data Collection
Leveraging Hucu’s ability to embed forms into the patient’s channel streamlines the collection of structured data in consistent formats. This further saves everyone time everyday and reduces friction between all stakeholders working together for the same patients’ wellbeing.
Hucu has not only personally given me back a sense of work-life balance, but helped our entire practice to expand while delivering the best service in the market; something our clients value greatly.
Conclusion
The efficiencies Hucu enabled at BHPAC has led to significant improvements in the organization’s performance and growth, as well as advances for their contracted client / Network Partners. Faster responses leading to reduction in hospitalizations not only enable to BHPAC to be more competitive, but also help their clients improve their financial performance and patient & family satisfaction.
Key Outcomes
EFFICIENCY
- Saved 3 hrs / staff / day
- Decreased faxes by 97%
GROWTH
- Increased patient volume by 2.6 times
- 50% increase in facilities contracted
- Only 25% increase in staff
- Expansion ⇒ 3 states; 1 year ahead of plan
Improved Patient Outcomes
- Improved responses from 24 hours to less than 15-60 mins
- Reduced Hospitalizations
Success Videos
Reduced Staff Burnout &
Turnover
Faye O`Bryan – Practice Manager
Reducing Faxes & Improving Outcomes
Faye O`Bryan – Practice Manager
Improved Efficiency & Outcomes with Hucu
Faye O`Bryan – Practice Manager
Reducing Missed Orders & Messages with Hucu
Faye O`Bryan – Practice Manager
