Software helps ensure best health care practices.
Press Release Summary:
Embedded in Integrated Medical Management, OptiCarePath delivers clinical best practices and knowledge for case and disease management. Series of clinical pathways is based on recent medical literature, best consensus statements from expert societies, and opinions of experts in various medical fields. OptiCarePath helps care managers maximize patient and provider interventions by streamlining and automating as much of their workload as possible.
Original Press Release:
MEDecision Delivers Clinical Best Practices and Knowledge for Care Managers, Physicians, and Patients with OptiCarePath
WEA Trust is the First Customer to Integrate Clinical Knowledge into IMM Automated Processes and Workflow Streams
WAYNE, Penn.- June 8, 2005-MEDecision Inc., the leader in collaborative care management, today announced OptiCarePath, a breakthrough product that delivers clinical best practices and knowledge for case and disease management, embedded in MEDecision's Integrated Medical Management (IMM). The first deliverable of its new Clinical Rules and Processes solution set, OptiCarePath increases the clinical impact of IMM to ensure the best health care practices are delivered to the point of care.
WEA Trust, a MEDecision customer and Wisconsin's second largest health insurer providing health insurance to public school employees, is the first health plan to implement OptiCarePath. By integrating clinical knowledge into IMM automated processes and workflow streams, WEA Trust is leveraging the efforts of care managers seeking to have the highest impact on the health management and improvement of its members. Similarly, OptiCarePath's clinical pathways and best practices will help establish clinical consistency throughout WEA Trust care management activities.
OptiCarePath is a series of clinical pathways based on the most recent medical literature, best consensus statements from expert societies, and opinions of experts in various medical fields on the best way to manage the more than 25 conditions it will cover. In light of the nationwide nursing shortage, OptiCarePath helps care managers consistently maximize their patient and provider interventions by streamlining and automating as much of their workload as possible.
"With OptiCarePath, we've taken state-of-the-art clinical knowledge and embedded it into our Integrated Medical Management solution, giving care managers immediate, ready access to the best processes for managing their patients," said Dr. Henry DePhillips, chief medical officer at MEDecision. "OptiCarePath contributes to the common patient view, which allows our managed care partners to more effectively and efficiently assist their insured populations to achieve the best health outcomes and provide cost-effective health care."
WEA Trust Integrates Clinical Best Practices
WEA Trust has already automated its care management workflow with MEDecision's Advanced Medical Management. Integrating Clinical Rules & Processes is clearly the next step for WEA Trust.
"MEDecision will help us reduce costs and improve health care outcomes," explained Sharon Espinosa, care management director at WEA Trust. "We believe it is time to expand the clinical impact of our case and disease management programs, so we can bring better care to our patient population."
WEA Trust selected OptiCarePath as part of its automated workflow management, in order to be more proactive in the identification and management of specific conditions within their insured population. "OptiCarePath will enable us to provide more comprehensive case and disease management programs for our membership," added Espinosa.
Inside OptiCarePath
A series of clinical pathways, OptiCarePath presents plans of care based on best practices for asthma, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, diabetes, comprehensive case management, and more. Integrated within IMM, OptiCarePath information unites with the power of IMM automation and communication, delivering actionable information to the care manager, the provider, and the patient.
OptiCarePath uses clinical content and processes based on national standards, such as the American Diabetes Association, American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute guidelines, to create automated questionnaires that care managers use when interviewing members. As the interview progresses, OptiCarePath applies branching logic to each answer, thereby generating appropriate follow-up questions. When all the questions are answered, a problem list is automatically generated, as are lists of proposed interventions and goals.
The interventions and goals will be automatically communicated, in writing, back to the patient and out to the patient's primary care providers. Additionally, patients will receive automatically generated "Ask Your Doctor" information worksheets to help guide discussions with their providers. IMM will then prompt the care manager at appropriate time intervals to revisit the patient's case to ensure the provisioning of prescribed care.
With OptiCarePath knowledge automated and woven into IMM, the care manager is freed from additional, manual processes, while providers automatically receive an individualized plan of care that is tailored to and optimized for each patient.
Establishing Clinical Consistency
OptiCarePath helps care managers by delivering reliable and accurate clinical content, embedding state-of-the-art best practices validated by evidence-based medicine. Streamlining and automating as much of their workload as possible, OptiCarePath promotes the clinical consistency required to provide the best diagnostic and treatment recommendations.
OptiCarePath provides each care manager with the same level of clinical knowledge to create individual plans of care, improving the quality and consistency of health care interventions and outcomes.
In addition to the health plans, providers and patients also benefit by receiving consistent information based on patient responses. Instead of various opinions from the health plan staff, providers receive personalized patient summaries of the current treatment plan and identified opportunities for improving the quality of patient care. Patients, too, benefit from the care plans that are tailored to their specific needs, taking into account their lifestyle, environmental, and health care issues.
About MEDecision
MEDecision is the leader in collaborative care management. Founded in 1988, the company's Integrated Medical Management solutions create a seamless, payer-based, medical management system to analyze, apply, administer, and automate the management of health care programs and provide a common patient view at the point of care. MEDecision's software solutions are being used to improve patient outcomes, reduce medical errors, and increase operational efficiencies for approximately one in every six Americans with health insurance. For more information about MEDecision and Integrated Medical Management, please call (610) 540-0202, send an e-mail to Marketing@MEDecision.com, or visit MEDecision.com.
MEDecision is a trademark of MEDecision, Inc. The MEDecision logo and product names are also trademarks or registered trademarks of MEDecision, Inc. Other product and brand names are trademarks of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Laura Paden
MEDecision
(818) 597-0480
Laura.Paden@MEDecision.com
