VNS Health (formerly Visiting Nurse Service of New York) has been committed to helping their neighbors for 130 years. Like the communities they serve, change and growth are things that the nonprofit has experienced, too.
Today, VNS Health provides a full range of easy-to-access health care services, solutions and health plans that put patients, health plan members and clients in control of their health and help them live their best lives — at home and in their communities.
VNS Health needed to pivot from a time-consuming, manual process of managing new case placement. To match new cases with the caregiver who was the best fit for them, the VNS Health team had developed a multi-tiered system based on important criteria such as geography, language, and services required. Caregiver candidates then needed to be compared against things like scheduling and compliance.
Once potential matches were identified, the outreach to fill new cases was manual, with team members often making numerous calls in order to successfully place each new case. This had a significant impact on the amount of time from when a new case was received to the time when a caregiver first visited the member to deliver care.
Considering that a plan of care often involves critical daily personal support tasks like cooking and bathing, the impact and stress caused by a delay in care to a member and their family can be significant. With member satisfaction and patient outcomes a top priority for VNS Health, there was a critical need to reduce, or ideally eliminate, the days that elapse between authorization of care and utilization of care by the member, while still being able to match each caregiver and member according to the best possible fit.
To solve this challenge, VNS Health implemented HHAeXchange’s Caregiver Scheduling & Case Broadcasting functionality. Using Case Broadcasting, the VNS Health team can now set up new cases and broadcast them based on member service needs and location with just one click. Care requests are sent out systematically to all providers who meet the case criteria, which ensures that the case can be staffed in a timely manner. Reporting and analytics features also allow VNS Health to quickly view and monitor case placement status in real time.
“We have always found HHAeXchange to be a true strategic partner, essentially, an extension of our team,” says Robert Orlando, Vice President for Software Engineering and Product Development. “We know we can lean on them for expertise and guidance, so looking at an HHAeXchange solution to help us further streamline and automate our member placement processes was a natural choice.”
Leveraging HHAeXchange’s Case Broadcasting functionality enabled VNS Health to streamline their new member placement process and increase program effectiveness by reducing manual tasks and increasing speed to care. Without sacrificing quality or customization, VNS Health eliminated their multi-tiered, manual process for checking and comparing lists, and the related need for manual phone calls. By implementing Caregiver Scheduling & Case Broadcasting, they also gained reporting capabilities they didn’t have previously. This offers them at-a-glance insights that reveal how quickly cases are placed as well as any cases that remain unplaced, allowing them to take action quickly, and also provides improved communication with clinical leaders and members.
“With the push of a button,” said Salvatore Bastardi, Vice President of Corporate Support, “the entire process happens behind the scenes almost instantly, enabling us to drastically improve the speed at which a new case is placed, and care is delivered. It virtually eliminated unplaced cases overnight.”
The most important benefit of this streamlined caregiver scheduling process is a faster timeline between authorization of care and the utilization of care, which has reduced unplaced cases by 90%. This process directly improved patient outcomes and member satisfaction and has decreased stress on a member’s family.
“When we receive a new case, our primary focus is on getting that patient service,” said Bastardi. “With our old process, in some scenarios, a member may have had to wait two weeks to get a caregiver. With Case Broadcasting, we’ve gotten that down to two days max. We are getting them the care they need, and that they depend on, faster.”
“This also helps improve patient satisfaction,” said Orlando. “If we tell the member we’re going to provide service because that’s the physician order, and we deliver when expected or even exceed that, then that goes a long way in them feeling good about VNS Health and our standing in the community, which means they will be more likely to request us again the next time they need service.”
In the end, Case Broadcasting is another benefit of HHAeXchange’s homecare management software that is helping VNS Health improve efficiency, communication, and compliance, and deliver better patient and member outcomes.