inHEALTH and Phytel announced today that Bon Secours Health System has selected a combination of population health management, patient engagement and care management technologies and services to help solve one of healthcare’s most pressing problems – how to ensure that discharged patients get the care and attention they need without being unnecessarily readmitted to the hospital.
Bon Secours Health System is a $3.4 billion not-for-profit Catholic health system sponsored by Bon Secours Ministries with 19 hospitals and numerous other facilities in Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, South Carolina and Virginia. Under its agreement with inHEALTH, BSHSI’s six local systems will be able to choose from a combination of inHEALTH and Phytel solutions to help coordinate the care of patients discharged from its hospitals and emergency departments.
“Patients who are recently discharged from the hospital or ED need careful attention to ensure they take medications as directed and report any health problems they may have,” said Michael Spine, senior vice president of business development & managed care for Bon Secours Health System. “This program with inHEALTH and Phytel gives our facilities the choice of tools they need to ensure discharged patients are not readmitted for the same problem unnecessarily. In the process, it will help Bon Secours transition from today’s fee-for-service reimbursement system to one that is better aligned with our goal of keeping our patients healthy after they return home.”
The new offering, called Compass™, couples Phytel Transition™ post-discharge patient engagement technology with inHEALTH’s centralized care management contact center. Phytel Transition’s automated communications will contact discharged patients within 72 hours of leaving the hospital or ED and ask them to complete a basic health assessment confirming their understanding of their discharge instructions and medications. Phytel then will automatically escalate those patients who have questions or health issues to inHEALTH nurses, social workers and care managers for one-on-one counseling.
The Compass program builds upon a 19-year partnership between the two that has generated millions of dollars in savings while helping to improve patients’ health and satisfaction with their care providers.
“We are thrilled that Bon Secours Health System has elected to deploy the Compass program in their multiple markets, allowing localized choices that are right for those facilities but with a common infrastructure to standardize the process of engaging discharged patients,” said Michael Matthews, CEO of inHEALTH. “Our partnerships with Bon Secours since 1995 and with Phytel since 2009 have driven improvements in patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes. Our post-discharge programs have also generated significant downstream revenue from follow-up visits that have likewise helped thousands of patients with chronic disease get the care they need to stay healthy.”
Steve Schelhammer, CEO of Phytel, added, “To improve patient care and prevent unnecessary admissions, it is essential for hospitals to engage with at-risk patients after discharge. The combination of Phytel patient engagement technology and inHEALTH’s outsourced care management support will enable Bon Secours’ local systems to scale their post-discharge communication efforts to the population level for the first time.”
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