The commitment of the Obama
Presidency to fulfill its campaign promises regarding health care and the need
for the commitment of all Americans to become engaged in the hard work of
fixing the broken parts of our society have created an interesting climate for
fostering innovation and "Change". To that end, Independent
Nurse Services (INS) is a proposition that promises to restructure and reduce the cost of home healthcare.
"The Independent Nurse Services
proposition is to change and improve the current Medicare delivery model of Home Health Care
Nursing including: organizational structure, technology utilization, clinical
outcomes, patient satisfaction, care giver satisfaction and delivery costs ."
It is common knowledge that the US health care
delivery model is unsustainable, to a great extent irrational, and fails to deliver
acceptable results across all segments of the population. It is years behind in
its utilization of technology and is actively searching for solutions.
Desiring to participate in some small way towards fixing this problem the
founders of INS spent the past nine months actively engaged in investigating,
interviewing, reviewing, gathering data, analyzing, and evaluating what most
experts consider to be the most efficient delivery vehicle in all of
health care, home health care.
Over the years governmental regulatory agencies and
legislative action have created layer upon layer of seemingly well intentioned
regulatory constraints resulting in the creation of a nearly unfathomable set
of obstacles for the delivery of Home Health Care.
The net result is that licensed healthcare
professionals now find it impossible to deliver home health care to qualified
Medicare recipients without becoming employees of complex management
organizations extracting large profits for recruiting,
scheduling and billing.In many cases,
these organization do a great job, are deserving of their profits and play a
key role in keeping a dysfunctional system operational. However, in just as many cases they are impediment to the delivery of care and require operational efficiencies that restrict the individual providers ability to deliver the continuum of care associated with the achievement of wellness.
INS is a mechanism to provide the independent nurse
with all of the tools and administrative support necessary to re-establish the
direct relationship between the care giver and the patient. Today's
technology deployed via the Internet with a web browser changes the home
healthcare world. Off the shelf computerized Point of Care devices can be
integrated with the Electronic Health Record, enabled with GPS, Biometric
security, supply chain management tools and web camera technology. This
integrated tool set can be supported by a centrally managed data center(s)
efficiently staffed with IT professionals trained specifically to support INS
customers. Each independent caregiver becomes a stand-alone small
business networked by a tool set to other caregivers and physicians allowing
them to collaboratively satisfy all of the requirements of a home health care
episode.
All data, instructions, care plans, referrals, visits
and scheduling managed centrally and fully integrated with business
intelligence reporting tools and billing systems for the entire continuum of
care.Best of all there is a readily
accessible audit trail of all activity to ensure compliance and adherence to
best practices
Complexity still exists, but
it is scaleable, automated and computer assisted by back office software pioneered
by transaction intensive businesses and readily available to be deployed in
this environment. There are many ancillary support functions that enable
this model that can be effectively and efficiently delivered through existing
network infrastructure in a cost effective manner dynamically altering the home
healthcare for the better.