MEDITECH and PtCT Proudly Announce Union Hospital is LIVE with Maestro
(5/16/2008)

MEDITECH and its wholly owned subsidiary Patient Care Technologies, Inc. (PtCT) are excited to announce Union Hospital (Dover, OH) has gone LIVE with the Maestro™ enterprise software for home health, hospice, and private duty care delivery. Maestro is a groundbreaking technology which intuitively understands the needs of a home care system, combining business intelligence with cutting edge monitoring tools to both automate processes and guide the workflow of home care clinicians. As of April 2008, Union is LIVE with Maestro's Home Care capabilities in the administrative, clinical, and billing settings of their home care agency.

"We needed a comprehensive solution for our home care department," says Deb Albaugh, director of home care services for Union Hospital. "The integration of the Maestro product with our MEDITECH system provides our department with the patient's demographic data right upfront, which accelerates the patient intake process and saves us a lot of time."

Maestro is process-based software with Business Activity Monitoring to empower home health care organizations to run their facility in real time. End users know what they need to do and when they need to complete their responsibilities, through a customized "to do list" for each person in the home health care organization. These lists are constantly updated based on an agency's processes, each person's roles and responsibilities, and work previously completed by others. The Maestro billing component is also process-driven, beginning with a set of tasks to ensure insurance verification/authorization, as well as thorough processing of the patient's financial information. And Maestro is fully integrated with the MEDITECH HCIS, ensuring all information collected is populated into the electronic patient record.

"Any system can automate, populate, and process claims and bills. Maestro is unique in the way it performs these processes, actually thinking for an organization rather than the other way around," explains Steve Miller, chief technology officer for PtCT. "This technology has extensive knowledge of home care; it is set up to know your goals and objectives, organizational structure, and reporting relationships. And as Maestro guides your workers through processes, it collects important information on their productivity, efficiency, and accuracy."

"Maestro has really simplified our workflow," says Michelle Stillion, physical therapist for Union Hospital Home Health Care. "Procedure orders are linked right to the visit, so we are prepared with the right materials and supplies for visits before we even get to the patient's home."

Overall, Maestro has given Union Hospital the tools to improve both employee productivity and patient safety. Patient care is now more coordinated, because all providers contribute to the care plan in some way or another. Clinicians perform electronic medication interaction checking right at the point-of-care, ensuring the patient medication sheet is always up-to-date. A scheduling component allows nurses to manage their own schedules, reducing the department's need for a dedicated scheduler.

"Our department has already experienced many productivity gains, and we just went LIVE," says Albaugh. "We are looking forward to continuing our success with Maestro, and what the future holds for improving our home health care delivery."


About MEDITECH
MEDITECH has been the leader in the Health Care Information Systems (HCIS) industry since 1969. MEDITECH's applications unify clinical, administrative, and financial information across a health care organization, including acute care, long-term care, home health care, and physician practices. Today, more than 2,000 institutions worldwide use MEDITECH's information systems. For additional information on MEDITECH products and services, visit www.meditech.com.

About PtCT
Atlanta-based PtCT has been an innovator of home care technology since 1991, and was the first to offer clinical point-of-care documentation; the first to offer a completely integrated system; and the first to develop a fully integrated telehealth product.

About Union Hospital
Union Hospital is a short-term acute care facility in Dover, OH which specializes in Adult and Pediatric, Coronary Care, and Intensive Care. Union was recently rated one of the leading hospitals in northeast Ohio for its quality of care by the Community Healthcare Coalition. The hospital's mission is to provide cost-competitive, quality health care close to home for their community.

About Union Hospital Home Health Care
Union Hospital's Home Health Care agency provides a wide range of medical and social services for patients who need quality health care in their home. From skilled nursing to rehabilitation services to assistance with personal or financial issues, the experts at Union Hospital Home Health Care work to ensure patients receive as much assistance as they need, when they need it.

 

MEDITECH
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