Improve Patient Care and Check the CMS “Box” with Tailored Clinical Intelligence

Care teams are under tremendous pressure to manage patient care effectively, not only to reduce costs and keep patients well, but also to help their organizations comply with regulations and meet reimbursement requirements. New clinical intelligence technology can help address these challenges.

As of May 1, 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires hospitals to send electronic patient event notifications for admission, discharge, or transfer (ADT) to another healthcare facility, community provider or practitioner.

With 26% of physicians not receiving hospital discharge summaries in time for most follow-up appointments, the CMS rule is intended to improve care coordination by allowing a receiving provider, facility or practitioner to reach out to the patient and deliver appropriate follow-up care in a timely manner.

Surescripts Care Event Notifications makes complying with the rule easy, as it’s designed to provide ADT notifications. By subscribing to updates for their patients, clinicians and care managers can more easily avoid duplicative therapies, prevent adverse drug events and provide informed care.

Furthermore, the technology can help ambulatory care providers comply with CMS Quality Payment Program requirements for demonstrating interoperability. And there is no time like the present to amp up such cross care-team communication: according to a recent survey we conducted, nearly all pharmacists (99%) and prescribers (91%) expect the future of healthcare to be driven by team-based care, where communication between teams is critical, yet most communication still happens by phone or fax.

The technology has applications beyond the ambulatory clinic. With the ability to track care activity for patient populations, Care Event Notifications can also help health systems reach population health goals and ensure cost-effective care.

“If we can harness data effectively, then we have the ability to deliver higher quality care at lower costs with fewer mistakes. We can deliver better outcomes and do it less expensively,” says David Nash, M.D. and Founding Dean at Jefferson College of Population Health. “We’ll be able to achieve this vision—especially if we embrace teamwork. Surescripts is one of the teams making this happen.”