Shriners Hospitals for Children Expands Partnership with Tonic Health In Mission To Build the Largest Pediatric Outcomes Database in the U.S.

MENLO PARK, Calif., Nov. 6, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --Tonic Health announced today that Shriners Hospitals for Children is expanding the implementation of its mobile patient survey platform across the organization's entire national footprint of non-profit hospitals, clinics and outreach facilities in order to achieve Shriners' goal of building and utilizing the largest database of pediatric patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) in the United States. 

Famous for its patient-centric approach and high quality of care for a wide range of complex surgical needs, Shriners' growing pediatric outcomes database enables the health system to trailblaze new standards of excellence.  "Intentional integration of patient-reported outcomes into health care processes is the key to unlocking quality care and helping our patients to live well," says Dr. Richard Paula, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Shriners Hospitals for Children. "Tonic provides the innovative platform we need to simply and efficiently engage patients, providers, administrators, and researchers."

The use of PROMs has gained increasing importance due to the emergence of value-based payment programs and an emphasis on patient-centered models of care.  But many providers, including Shriners, have found that collecting these measures from patients is fraught with challenges, including: lack of documentation fields in the electronic health record (EHR), low completion rates due to disparate language and literacy levels, high administrative cost of paper-based workflows, and little ability for clinicians to act upon the data in real-time at the point of care.

In response to these challenges, in 2016 Shriners chose Tonic's customizable mobile survey platform to collect PROMs across all of its surgical focus areas.  Using iPads in waiting rooms, patients complete interactive, electronic PROMs surveys in the language of their choice, with questions dynamically changing to obtain important data such as physical symptoms, peer relationships, and psychosocial needs.  These results get automatically integrated into Shriners' Cerner EHR, enabling providers to see critical patient data in real-time and use the information to guide better clinical decision-making while with the patient.

"Using Tonic to seamlessly collect PROMs data has helped us obtain vital information more consistently," says Dr. Michelle James, Chief of Orthopedics at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Northern California.  "Tonic has helped us uncover patient issues and make connections that we would have otherwise missed."

With 10 hospitals already collecting PROMs using Tonic, Shriners now plans to replicate this success at its remaining U.S. hospitals, clinics and outreach facilities and continue building out what will soon be the largest database of pediatric outcomes in the country.  Sterling Lanier, CEO of Tonic Health, states, "We are excited to further partner with Shriners in its mission to transform the lives of children through constantly setting new standards of care."

About Tonic Health
Tonic Health (www.tonicforhealth.com) is the leading mobile patient survey and payments platform among large enterprise healthcare organizations. Tonic offers patients and staff an engaging, interactive experience for capturing any type of health information or any type of health payment from any device in any setting, plus real-time analytics to make that information actionable when and where it's needed most.  Tonic is used by 15 of the Top 30 health systems in the United States, and is Apple's mobility partner for patient data collection.

About Shriners Hospitals for Children
Shriners Hospitals for Children is changing lives every day through innovative pediatric specialty care, world-class research and outstanding medical education. Its locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico provide advanced care for children with orthopedic conditions, burns, spinal cord injuries and cleft lip and palate. Shriners Hospitals for Children is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and relies on the generosity of donors. All donations are tax deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.

SOURCE Tonic Health

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