Physicians are the epitome of a non-desk employee. They are likely connected to corporate email but rarely are sitting at a desk nor have the time to check their email. They definitely are not checking email while seeing patients and making their rounds. Physicians are increasingly using mobile messaging for real-time communication between colleagues and care team members.
Quality Independent Physicians (QIP) use of Red e App is featured in an insurancenewsnet article, Trend: Mobile and Messaging Green Light on Clinician-to-Clinician Texting. QIP is a 1000-member ACO (accountable care organization) using Red e App as their secure and compliant communications platform for mobile messaging and file sharing.
QIP started a Medicare Shared Savings program accountable care organization (ACO), employing nurses to hospitals and nursing homes to follow those Medicare patients around who were attributed to the organization, says Tom Samuels, QIP’s CIO. “At the time, we were struggling with a way to communicate with our doctors in a quick and real-time fashion, and still be HIPAA compliant,” Samuels says, adding that QIP also needed a solution that would be easy enough for physicians to use.
QIP ended up choosing Louisville-based startup Red e App, a real-time private mobile messaging platform, to allow onsite clinical staff to communicate back to the in-office doctors. “It looks and feels like texting or like an email, and we can communicate directly to the doctors about patient information to get real-time feedback, get status on a patient, or let doctors know what is going on with a patient,” Samuels says.
One way QIP uses the app in the clinical setting is with care coordinators, who are in the hospital with patients, says Samuels. “The nurse might text a doctor, ‘Mrs. Jones is being discharged to a nursing home for rehab. Can she come to your office in 14 days? And the doctor might say yes, or might say he or she will visit the patient in the nursing home,” Samuels explains. “The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) wants us to see 70 percent of patients within 30 days of discharge, and we have moved that standard to 14 days. Now, we are looking for movement on those percentages because of the app-we’re able to notify office managers and doctors when patients are discharged from hospital. So in this respect, it fosters better transitions of care,” he says.
Read the complete article at insurancenewsnet.
Amee Kent
Red e App Marketing Director
