MDS Tool Flexible and Adaptable
On June 2, the Interior Health Authority (IHA) in B.C. went live with GoldCare's Assessment Information Manager (AIM) and MDS tool. AIM is used at 18 sites.
IHA was looking for a comprehensive system for interRAI assessments, care planning, documentation, wait list management and decision support. The evaluation process scrutinized the clinical features, decision support functionality, and technical architecture offered by various vendors. IHA's evaluation teams included clinical, management, and IT staff.
Interior Health Authority sought a software solution that would provide a suite of tools for community health services and programs. Commitment to further expand to other interRAI assessment tools as they develop was also a selection factor. To meet the needs of their community case managers, full integration of MDS with care planning and other assessment and documentation tools was essential.
GoldCare was selected as IHA's preferred vendor after evaluating these factors:
- Clinical tools
- Decision support tools
- Technical architecture and compatibility
- Price
- Company characteristics
- Customer references.
Norma Malanowich, Director, Electronic Health Record Development, said, "The implementation process was relatively trouble free, including the development of an ADT interface with our Meditech Clinical System. The clinicians were very pleased with the flexibility of AIM and the ability to build supplemental forms that meet changing clinical practice needs. The support of the GoldCare implementation team was excellent."
Norma noted that the key organizational benefits of AIM include:
Continuity of Care - The ability to use common language and common information across the healthcare sectors improves the continuity of services experienced by the client.
Evidenced based decision-making - Standardized assessments provide evidenced base information to support clinical and management decisions.
Provider effectiveness and efficiency - Reducing the number of redundant assessments and enabling the choice of the best intervention are more likely to reduce/prevent illness, further decline in function and/or disability.
Standardization - Adopting standardized case mix data supports accurate comparisons to best practices for utilization and health planning. Analysis of standardized data supports measuring outcomes, quality, productivity, efficiency of operations, and planning for future resource requirements.
Continuous Electronic Patient Record - One longitudinal client record ensures that relevant health information is obtained at different points of time in the episodic care of the client and is available to providers to monitor outcomes and enhance quality of care.
The implementation of AIM and the use of MDS fundamentally changes the clinical practice of IHA's case managers in two ways: 1) a new clinical assessment tool and 2) new technology that is used at the point of care in the client's home (with the help of Care Anywhere). Care Anywhere allows staff to sign out AIM forms at the office and put them on their laptops, go to clients' homes and perform assessments, and when back at the office, check the forms back in, complete them, and calculate the outcomes.
"This new system enhances the assessment and care planning capacity of our professional staff and provides an improved and standardized assessment of a client's care needs," added Norma. "It also helps to monitor changes in client needs so that care plans can be adjusted. Collecting assessment data in an electronic form will enable us to make linkages with the data collected in ways that have not been possible before. The clinical assessment information will be integrated with the Interior Health Electronic Health Record to provide a single, comprehensive view of clinical care."
Ninety-six case managers are currently using this system. For the next phase of the project, over the next year, an additional 100 case managers spread across three large health service delivery areas will start using the GoldCare AIM and MDS tool.