Hospitals Experience Improved Efficiencies with Care Finder-Pro®
Seattle, Wash. (Jan. 23, 2012) – More than half of Total Living Choices’
customers are achieving a median response time of less than 30 minutes
per patient discharge with a 70 percent response rate from post-acute
care providers, thanks to Total Living Choices’ Care Finder-Pro
electronic discharge system.
Care Finder-Pro is a Web-based system that helps hospital discharge and
case management staff efficiently place patients in post-acute care.
Instead of spending several hours using a manual discharge process that
involves phone calls, faxing and follow-up with providers, staff use
Care Finder-Pro to send requests to multiple care providers
simultaneously. The electronic system contacts the selected providers,
then notifies the hospital with bed availability, typically within 30
minutes.
Total Living Choices’ growing list of more than 70,000 registered U.S.
care providers assures hospital staff has the most complete and accurate
database search available. “We exceed industry standards by not
charging providers to pay to be in our database,” said Kyle Salem,
Ph.D., Total Living Choices president. “This open provider network helps
hospitals build a strong community for referrals, thus speeding up
their discharge process.”
Case Study: Bon Secours St. Francis Health System
Bon Secours St. Francis Health System’s downtown location in Greenville,
S.C., is one hospital that has experienced improved efficiencies
through implementation of Care Finder-Pro. Through September 2011, St.
Francis achieved a median response time of 16 minutes per discharge and
an 81 percent response rate from providers. Prior to Care Finder-Pro,
the hospital’s social work staff would spend up to two hours calling,
faxing and following up with providers for each patient.
Jim Jones, Ph.D., RN, St. Francis case management administrative
director, credits the partnership with Total Living Choices in helping
his hospital system decrease average length of stay and expedite the
discharge process.
“Total Living Choices’ 24/7 customer service is outstanding. After the
initial implementation of Care Finder-Pro, they continue to provide
on-site follow-up as well as visits to external providers to achieve
high response rates,” Dr. Jones said. “They have improved the process of
making multiple referrals from over an hour to mere minutes, improving
our social workers’ effectiveness and efficiency.”
Care Finder-Pro electronically collects data on the number of referrals
made to each type of provider. The online system documents who made the
referrals, the response time and the number of days after a referral is
made until the patient is discharged. The system also documents and
provides business intelligence on each provider, allowing hospital
management to track which facilities responded, how often they respond
to each request and how quickly. All of these data points help hospitals
monitor and improve their discharge planning process.
About Total Living Choices
Total Living Choices unites patients, families and health-care
organizations in finding the best transitional care solutions. Founded
in 1999, Total Living Choices maintains the largest-known national
database of more than 70,000 licensed post-acute care providers.