Providers benefit from efficient, paperless, integrated wound management, empowering staff to deliver service at the bedside - or wherever the patient goes

JACKSON, Miss., Feb. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- American HealthTech (www.healthtech.net), the Ultimate Connectivity Partner in long-term care, announces the addition of Wound Management to Quality Assurance.  In a single system, clinicians use a visual body map and Braden assessment wizard to enhance quality care planning and proactive treatment.  Wound Management has also been added to Outcomes Reporting for providers wanting to position successful wound programs to hospitals, as well as a tool for compliance with future Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (QAPI) regulations. 

Wounds are traumatic for patients and costly for post-acute providers.  A 2007 study concluded that an average of 16.7% patients develop pressure ulcers in skilled nursing facilities.[1]  The cost of treating each pressure ulcer in a skilled facility costs an average of $1,284 to $4,647. In a 100-bed facility treating 500 patients annually, treatment costs could exceed $300,000 per year.[2]  When litigation risks are factored in, the impact to the bottom line and a provider's reputation, can be devastating. 

Teresa Chase, President and CEO, American HealthTech, explains, "Prevention of pressure ulcers is an essential clinical practice, along with early interventions. Unlike simple assessment tools, full Wound Management relies on integrated clinical information flows, centralized progress notes, care planning, and enterprise views to drive continuous improvement and outcomes reporting." Dietary information, for example, flows in automatically; infection and incident reporting are built into workflows; and relevant data flows to MDS. Chase concluded, "Separate wound management systems are expensive to license and maintain with double data entry. In AHT, data flow is seamless, empowering clinicians with intelligence to drive outcomes." 

Tanya Procell, Director of Clinical Services for Provider Professional Services, ASI Management, stated "We're excited about the big benefits we're seeing with Wound Management in AHT.  We enjoy streamlined workflow to see when assessments are due, track wound status, write progress notes, link to infection control, and get real-time reports – in a single system.  And we love having Federal Treatment Guidelines at our fingertips:  it's a real time saver."

About American HealthTech
Headquartered in Jackson, MS, American HealthTech is the post-acute industry's Ultimate Connectivity Partner, connecting caregivers, partners, and healthcare networks to drive higher outcomes in the new era of post-acute care. Coast to coast, a fifth of the nation's providers depend on AHT daily for innovations that free hands to care for others. Founded in 1982, American HealthTech is an employee-owned company.

[1] "Nutrition Status and Pressure Ulcer: What We Need for Nutrition Screening," Journal of Parental and Enteral Nutrition, Vol. 31, No. 4, 288-294 (2007).
[2] International Severity Information Systems, Inc. and the Institute for Clinical Outcomes Research, "Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Long-Term Care Facilities," 2007.

 

SOURCE American HealthTech

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