Curaspan TV
Transcript: Dream Job: CAE
In being a clinical account executive with Curaspan Health Group, I would have to say it's been my dream job, it really has, in over 25 years of nursing. The ability to go out and visit with the clients and find out what they're doing for their workflow, and what's going on in the industry, the most recent rules and regulatory things that I can share with my clients, and it's all working towards achieving better patient outcomes. I find that very exciting and rewarding.
Transcript: Being a CAE
If somebody wanted to join Curaspan as a clinical account executive, the best experience I think that they will have is being able to work with hospitals using various models of case management, and they get to work within those models, see those models work, integrate our software, show success with those different models. They're actually getting to work in those various models rather than just reading about them in theory in a text book.
Transcript: Working in Sales
The one thing I like best about Curaspan is the people. You ask anyone that comes in for an interview, they ask that question every time, and the one thing is the people that work at Curaspan. My first day on the job, I had three or four people come up to me and tell me how lucky I am to be inheriting and working the teams that work for me here at Curaspan. And they have been absolutely right since then.
Transcript: Corporate Culture
I'm very proud that we've been able to deliver tremendous value to our customers. The fact that we have the highest customer retention rate in the industry is tremendously valuable. We are trying every day to continue to demonstrate value to our customers to ensure that there's extremely high satisfaction with solution and services that we deliver. By doing that, we create a great company environment, a great organization, because every employee is extremely proud of what they deliver, and every employee is charged with solving problems and addressing customer concerns, and every employee knows that we'll stand behind them if they go and solve one of our customers' problems, no matter what it takes.
And I think people really enjoy working, working in a company that supports those types of initiatives and supports those values. And so, it's not hard to hire and retain good employees, and it's very easy to come to work when the employees are so enthusiastic about their job and enthusiastic about the company and constantly trying to make it a better place to, to be. And I worked in so many jobs and so many companies where whenever you came in on Monday, you said, "How was your weekend?" and the constant answer was, "Weekends aren't long enough." And I rarely hear that when I come in the office.
Now, it may be because of the position I'm in, but even when I overhear conversations I don't typically hear that, and so, it makes me extremely happy that people enjoy working here and that people often are referring friends or peers that they've worked, worked with in other companies, from a recruiting standpoint. That demonstrates to me that we're doing some of the right things to, you know, to make this a good place to work.
Transcript: Support
Working on the support team is amazing. This team is a very well-versed group of individuals, not only with the application, but with the company, and they have a general caring aspect where they are about every single user that calls or sends us an e-mail and wants to help them find the answers that they're looking for. You can't find that everywhere. This is a very unique group that really, truly cares deep down inside about every user that comes on to work with us.
Transcript: Reports
A lot of people talk about great outcomes or actionable items. Our data really gives you that. It gives you specific metrics that, in turn, tell you exactly what you need to do to turn things around. I like working on our length of stay and throughput issues, because we collect data points and give you numbers that you've never had an opportunity to even measure before. Most people don't have admissioned first referral length of stay or first referral to discharge length of stay. Those are things that are just commonly collected, and we're able to passively collect those as your case managers and social workers are doing their work.
Transcript: Network Building
We have a tremendous ability to build out the post-acute networks for our hospitals. We've done it over 400 times throughout the entire United States. We're extremely successful in the way we roll out and build these networks, as well as the way we constantly measure and monitor the success of the networks. We staff appropriately. We know how to communicate and work with them as far as what the needs are from our hospital and post-acute customers.
Transcript: Clinician Benefit
Curaspan can change your life as a case manager. It can make the difference between getting out on time. It can make the difference between having the data that you need to make the changes that are necessary. It can change your life as a case manager.
Transcript: CAEs
(Cheri Bankston) My name is Cheri Bankston with Curaspan Health Group. I'm a clinical account executive. I've been a nurse for over 25 years, with over 15 of those as a director of case management.
(Jen Golladay) Our clinical account executives are extremely important in the success of the hospitals with the application. We're able to work with the discharge planners, the directors, and the team to really be able to utilize the application and be successful.
(James “Rex” Nelson) My name is Rex Nelson. I'm a registered nurse with over 20 years experience. And I've had over 10 years experience as a case manager. I'm a certified case manager.
(CB) As a clinical account executive, we bridge the gap between the clinicians at the hospital and the technology experts that we have at Curaspan Health Group. It allows us to speak to the clinical needs, yet keeping in mind the technology, so that we make them work together in the best possible way.
(JG) Being a medical social worker in an acute care setting and using the application, I work with the discharge planners and the case managers to understand their process and see how I can help the case managers to automate their process, to decrease length of stay, and be able to see how we can incorporate best practices.
(JN) We're here to make sure that your staff is successful, that your patients experience good care, good transitions from the hospital, and that we really are here to help support, support the system. And we want this to be a win-win situation, again, keeping the patient first and foremost, and the whole reason why we're here.
(JG) Curaspan can change your life as a discharge planner. It can make you get out of work quicker, it can decrease the clerical tasks that you have to do, and it can help you spend more time with your patients.
Transcript: Clinical Expertise
As a clinical account executive, I think one of the strengths that we bring to the table is our clinical background. We've walked in their shoes, we know the challenges that the hospital case management staff, social worker staff, are experiencing and facing. So we can relate to what their needs are. And it's easy for us to quickly identify solutions to solve some of their challenges and help, help them help their patients transition through the system smoother.
Transcript: Our Story
I'm Tom Ferry, president and CEO of Curaspan Health Group. I founded Curaspan in the late '90s because of a personal family experience. My wife's grandmother broke her hip, and was admitted to the hospital. Through that experience, we realized that she wouldn't be going home to her apartment and would have to be admitted in a nursing home. And through that experience, and the lack of information provided to us from the hospital, and the hospital staff, we recognized there was an opportunity to develop technology that would allow the hospital to become more efficient and more patient-focused in the discharge planning process.
We thought that our keep it simple approach was what healthcare needed, and that we could continue to build on that foundation and provide value and utility to those that participate in the space. We were quite frankly surprised that healthcare was so resistant to change, and that it took so long for people to adopt the technology. A lot of people ask me now, you know, "Did you have a crystal ball back in 1999?" And the answer is no. We were just trying to do what we thought made sense, that we were surprised that other people weren't trying to address these issues, because they could be addressed.
But I think as we continue to look at the environment and we look at the needs of everyone involved, we can see how extensible our platform and our functionality is to others providing patient care.
Well, initially, when we looked at the opportunity, we felt that the gap may be around resources, that the discharge planners weren't aware of the available facilities that a patient could get discharged to. But over time, as we looked further into the workflow, the process within the hospital, we recognized that their main mode of communication was the fax machine, and that was implemented in the late '90s after snail mail. And so, recognizing that there were more efficient ways to communicate and better ways to gather information and share that externally that would help the department reduce their redundant administrative tasks that these highly-paid clinicians were performing.
And so, by developing the technology and communication platform, we helped eliminate those redundant administrative tasks, provided a better, more efficient communication platform to their external partners, and ultimately improved patient throughput within the hospital setting.
Transcript: Our History
I'm Jackie Birmingham. And I am vice president of regulatory monitoring and clinical leadership. I've been with the company since it started more than 11 years ago.
So there is this chaos in healthcare delivery where we have this disorganized way of discharging patients who are at most risk at that time.
I was part of the chaos. I was a director of discharge planning at a very large hospital. I was working with professional organizations to set standards of practice. We were supporting, responding to Medicare for their request for information. We had the standards in place, but nobody knew how to operationalize it. We had, "Okay, this is discharge planning," but then we got all these other tasks loaded on. We had utilization review, quality assurance, infection control, all of the other things, and yet the most patient-centric function was left hanging.
When I met Tom and Ken and they described to me why they wanted me to provide some clinical information, I thought, "This is it." You know how you have an "a-ha!" moment. I had an "a-ha!" moment. I said, "Yes, this will help get the standards in practice, because people will have time to talk to patients. They will not have to find bed availability, phone numbers, fax numbers, put on hold. That this way of automating a mandatory system, a system that had standards in place, will make a difference to not only, to organizations, but to patients, to the staff that use it, and to the fact that hospital systems needed to do something.
It was October 30th, 1999, at five o'clock in the afternoon, and we met in Boston, because Tom, Ken, was here, and they described what they wanted to do. So, from that five minute conversation, when they described what their initiative was, I said, "This will work." So they said, "Show me."
It is more than discharge. It is transition management. Before we had e-Discharge to collect data, I had hash marks, I had a yellow pad. The nurses at the end of the day would come in and, "How many cases did you see and what did you do?" And the importance of that from a clinical perspective and the hospital business perspective is too great to have so rudimentary way to collect data.
So what Curaspan's role is, is that it allows us to work, to track, to manage, to monitor. And it's just remarkable. It almost makes me, I'm very grateful for the experience.
Transcript: DischargeCentral
DischargeCentral is our new, improved discharge software application that addresses the placing of patients into another care setting. The initial platform was eDischarge, which focused on the discharge planning function within an acute care setting. We've now extended the capabilities of that to create a better user interface, more functionality, and the ability to be adapted in any other level of care, such that someone in the post-acute care community that needs to discharge a patient to another level of care, including back to the hospital, can use the tool accordingly.
We designed it to better address the synchronized patient management approach that we were taking. The platform is quicker, it has a more robust reporting tool, and ultimately could be used in any setting within health care.
The biggest value to the users is the utility that it provides. These users are stretched to the limit every day on how they perform their job. They're typically not given many technical resources to conduct their job, yet the regulatory environment is putting more and more restrictions on what they can and can't do. Compliance is asking them document more and more things to prevent potential liabilities. And, you know, there's just not enough time in the day for them to not only perform what they need to do, but spend time with the patients and family to provide the counseling necessary for a good discharge.
This technology eliminates much of that and really provides so much value and allows them to get back to do what they were educated for, which is patient counseling, providing time with the patients and family. And so, by eliminating all these useless, redundant administrative tasks, the requirement for documentation and gathering paper, And the task bars, communication, and notification capabilities, the business intelligent tools that help them keep on top of their, their job and their requirements, really creates a much better work environment for them, much higher job satisfaction, because they're now doing what they were trained to do.
Many hospitals have told us that employee turnover has declined in this already tough market with nursing shortage, because the employees feel that they're getting a lot of benefit out of their job again. And so, we're constantly trying to improve the tools that we provide this department, and I think, I think DischargeCentral goes a long way in, in accomplishing that task.
Transcript: ReviewCentral
I'm excited about Review Central because we're addressing one of the most important mission-critical functions within case management, and that's concurrent review. Concurrent review has many of the same attributes or functions as discharge planning: the requirement to gather a lot of clinical information, communicating that information with an external party, and continuing an ongoing dialogue with that third-party in order to make sure that, that the appropriate outcomes take place.
By automating that process, that's one step in the progress of synchronized patient management. And when you look at the concurrent review process, it's primarily focused on the acute care stay and what procedures and what's approved within the acute care setting. Those patients that now need to move into the non-acute care setting require discharge planning services. And so, there needs to not only be a natural hand-off from the concurrent review process to the discharge planning process, but the payer also has strong interest in understanding what the available choices are, whether appropriate assessment has been done, and then, in the future, what took place in that non-acute setting?
Was it the right assessment? Did the provider provide the right clinical capabilities? And did the right outcome occur for that patient in that downstream stay? Without synchronized patient management or the integration of Review Central, Discharge Central, and ultimately Referral Central, you will not have that real-time knowledge of what took place downstream.
Transcript: Our Approach
No one else does what we do today. It's a combination of software and service, and a very heavy concentration on clinical support. As we look at the marketplace, as we look at our clients' needs, hospitals and post-acute care providers profile in such a way that they're very reactionary, and they have to be very reactionary because of the limit on resources and staff.
And so, if you look at their daily life at their tasks, they're just trying to survive, they're trying to stay afloat, and don't have time to think proactively, don't have time to think about how to make the environment better, how to implement technology correctly. And so, we try and marry a very easy to implement and useful tool that is surrounded by significant clinical services and expertise to not only demonstrate but support the correct implementation of the application, and then ultimately the interpretation that the data, that the data that they gather from the use of the technology in order to drive best practices.
It's elegantly simple in its approach, but very complicated in all the areas that it addresses. So, on the front-end, it helps automate data collection and a lot of the administrative tasks that a discharge planner, a social worker, has to perform in their job. The underlying platform is a communication platform that allows that individual to securely and privately select who they want to share that clinical information with. And then behind that is a very robust databank of information that provides a plethora of choices that they can then share with the patient and family.
So, all of those tools not only make the, or help provide the clinician to be more effective at what they're doing in their job, but really extend it beyond that to provide better patient satisfaction and better clinical outcomes for the patient as well.
Our approach has always been to look at executable ways, simple, simple solutions that can be executable. And I think healthcare tends to overly complicate issues or their solutions. They try to be all things to all people. And when you try to develop a technology platform to serve many masters, it's very hard to deliver benefits to everyone. And we looked at what we thought was a mission critical task, which I think was maybe simple or mundane to many people, and focused on solving that problem very well.
We realized that by solving that problem, we could then gather a lot of information or data about that whole flow of information or transition of moving one patient from one setting to the next setting. We also recognized that the two most costly areas in healthcare are not only the acute care setting, but the post-acute setting as well, because traditionally that's where your sickest and most complicated patients reside.
And if we could improve the data set around how patients are being treated in each of those settings, we could better solve not only the transfer of information between those two parties, but also how the patients were being treated in both of those settings.
Transcript: Our Vision
Synchronized patient management is a fully integrated tool that gives user-specific roles, patient-centric information. What that means is, a user can identify data regarding that patient in any setting, and use that data to drive better clinical outcomes.
And the approach that we've taken, or the approach that our clients have taken, is to try and break down the walls, the silos, that exist among the different departments, not only internally, but externally as well. They're taking a holistic view to patient care, in that everyone needs to be on the same playbook, everyone needs to be on the same platform, everyone needs to be working together to drive towards the same outcomes. And you can't do that if you're working in a silo, you're working on different platforms, you're not willing to share information.
And so, we've extended what we've done in the discharge planning department to case management and leveraged our core technology, work flow automation, communication platform to leverage the concurrent review process, which, again, is a mission critical function within case management. And by automating that process and by bringing payer partners into the process from an electronic communications standpoint, you can see, you can start to see, how those relationships exist and how those, how that communication is currently working.
I think intuitively most people feel that providers and payers tend to be at odds, and are not always working together in light of what the patient needs. But, again, by breaking down those silos and integrating the platform across those departments and to the external partners as well, you can start to, you can start to look at, investigate, and ensure that everyone is on the same page and trying to drive towards the same outcome, or the most appropriate outcome, for that patient.
Transcript: Network Expertise
We're in the business of building networks for our hospitals and post-acute customers in that we create a two-way communication platform between the hospitals and those post-acute providers. So, as the staff uses in the hospitals and communicates that patient information and referral request to the providers, the more information we capture, the more information we give back to the hospitals to make better decisions, to affect their outcomes. From the post-acute side, we're increasing efficiency and productivity for their staff. They're not picking up the phone, they're not missing calls from the hospitals, they're not looking through 50-page fax referrals and calling them back for page 17 that might be missing. It's all instantaneous, it's all trackable, it's all captured in our application for both our customers' benefits.
Transcript: Implementation
(Cheri Bankston) My name is Cheri Bankston. I'm a clinical account executive with Curaspan Health Group. I've been a nurse and a director of case management for over 25 years, so I bring a lot of clinical expertise to the table when I get to work with clients here at Curaspan, and actually used Curaspan Health Group software prior to coming to work with them. I currently work as a clinical account executive, and I support our clients from a clinical perspective in their use of the software, and stay with them and support them throughout their relationship with Curaspan.
(John Muccio) I'm John Muccio. I'm an implementation specialist, technical project manager here at Curaspan. My core responsibility is to be the technical lead on all hospital implementations.
(CB) Having been through a lot of software implementations, when I was actually the one on the other side of the table, implementing Curaspan Health Group products, I enjoyed the structure that was given to me during the implementation. Everything flowed much easier than it had in other software implementations, and I was really pleasantly surprised at the level of support that I received. It was unusual to have a clinician working with me, as a director of case management, to help me through that process, because, as a director, this is usually something that I'm given in addition to my other duties. And to have that extra support to help guide me through the process was a real benefit to the department.
(JM) It's typically a work in progress as far as the whole implementation is concerned. Typically we work in parallel, but they all sort of build off one another as we go through the process.
(Alison D’Amour) My name is Alison D'amour. I'm a network development manager here at Curaspan Health Group, and I work with our hospital clients to get their top providers online.
(CB) I'll come in and talk with you specifically about what your current process is, and we'll look to see where automation is going to make a change. We want to involve the staff and be prepared, so that when we get ready for training, everybody's involved and on board and feels good about the process.
(AD) We have a proven methodology as far as getting all of the providers signed on. We've done it for years. And every single time, whether it's an existing market or if we happen to go into a new market, it really, the outcome is going to be the same. We work with the providers, we explain why the system does work, and we explain that we've done this tons of times. And they really start to understand the benefit of it, and they can see how it's going to make their jobs a lot easier.
(AD) Network development starts almost immediately. We want the post-acute providers to be live immediately when the hospital goes live. That way, this system can be effective. We want to make sure that the hospital is able to send out their referrals immediately, and for the providers to be able to respond and receive those referrals electronically.
(JM) The amount of time it takes to implement DischargeCentral from an IT perspective, probably anywhere between eight to 15 hours, and that's across the board. So, that's all the different roles in the IT, in the IT department, when we're talking VPN, ADT, or printer setup – all together that's the amount of time required. In comparison to maybe other implementations that you're accustomed to in the past, where you're required, you know, weeks and months and even a year full of time and energy spent. That's not what we require.
(CB) The implementation process is made simply by our use of best practices. At Curaspan Health Group, we've implemented hundreds of hospitals, and we take that knowledge together and we bring it to the table when we work with you.
(JM) The way that the teams work together in a hospital implementation is mostly through collaborative efforts between the teams, mostly on weekly status calls that we have as a group, each focusing on their respective departments as far as clinical, technical and network development. But each sort of do build off of one another as the weeks progress.
(CN) My name is Caitlin Nash. I am the customer support supervisor. I oversee the customer support specialists who assist in troubleshooting and answering questions from our users via e-mail and phone, and on a day to day basis handle any other inquiries that might come our way.
(JM) It's very gratifying to be able to pass things over to support once things are all done. You really build that relationship with the customer from beginning to end, but at that point you feel like you've done your job. And at that particular point, be able to pass it over to support and put it into the hands of what we feel is the best customer support today.
(Caitlin Nash) I love to help people. My passion in life is being there to help somebody get from a question to a resolution.
(CB) I love working with John and Caitlyn and Allison on a project. The energy that they bring to the table and the outcomes that we're able to achieve in such a short period of time are very exciting.
(CN) Being able to help patients have a smoother transition in this particular field of support is very gratifying. It makes me proud to hear somebody say, "You just made my day."
Transcript: Workflow Design
(Cheri Bankston) At Curaspan Health Group, workflow redesign is not a cookie cutter type thing. We come and look at your individual practice, whether or not you have liaisons coming on site, whether you've got some different roles or one-offs that we might need to consider in the automation process. We don't come in and just lay something on top of your workflow. We customize it to what's going to meet your needs and what's going to help you get your return on investment with our product.
(Jen Golladay) For the workflow process, we set up a meeting with all of the key players, so that we make sure that every person that has a piece in the actual discharge planning process is involved, so that we really understand their process and that we're able to not only incorporate best practices, but really be able to understand the world that they live in.
(CB) During the implementation process, we begin to look at inefficient, paper-based systems and how we will automate those to have more efficiencies for the case managers and social workers. Having the clinical expertise at the table makes a big difference when you're beginning to look at changing the work design.
(JG) We really take a lot of time to map out each and every step of the process. We then review that and try to work with the team really as a partnership to try to figure out what pieces can be automated, what does the best practices look like, what are their goals, and how we can map out a new workflow that is going to be part of the implementation piece.
(CB) The best thing that I ever heard after an implementation from a hospital was when a case manager told me that she finally had a tool that allowed her to be at the bedside sooner rather than later. It removed all those paper-based administrative type duties that took up her time, and allowed her to actually start discharge planning on admission, which is our ultimately goal. Therefore, she was able to spend more time with her patients and have better planning and a better outcome.
Transcript: Reports and Data
(James “Rex” Nelson) What the application brings to the end user is, first, it's very easy to use. It's easy to learn how to use the application. It's easy to work through the system. It keeps in, it keeps the patient in control of the choices of what services that he or she would want. That information that's collected by the application then generates data that is meaningful data, both to the managers and the directors on the case management side and it's meaningful data all the way up to the C-suites, when they're trying to make some decisions based upon length of stay, staffing. And, in the future, with some of their ACO initiatives that they're putting forward, it brings to the table meaningful data.
(Jen Golladay) We're actually capturing behind the scenes the referrals, the application, we're date-time and stamping each and every item that takes place. The data is extremely important in being able to make, to make change.
(Cheri Bankston) Sometimes organizations struggle with change. Change with technology is difficult, and can sometimes come slowly. We can help with that. After our hundreds and hundreds of implementations, we've worked through the difficulties of change management, and we can be there to assist you and help you with your staff. Getting them involved is the first step in the process, getting their acceptance of the new workflow, and letting them feel that they're a part of the process. We'll help lead you through the change together.
(JG) The secret to our application is the data, and the power of the data, because without that information it's difficult to make change. So our data allows the discharge planners to have the information, to make better decisions, and to have better outcomes.
(JN) One of my functions is to help the hospitals sort through a lot of data. Our data can tell the hospital what their trends are with their lengths of stay, it could tell the hospitals what their trends are with provider placements, it can help hospitals identify what their readmission rates are, it can help hospitals identify what payers are their patient population being discharged from. It can help the hospitals know which of their staff are being proactive with their discharge planning and which of their staff are being reactive in their discharge planning. And it actually has helped hospitals before identify that they need to put more resources into their case management department. So it gives the . . . There's a lot of data and it gives the hospitals a lot of meaningful information.
Transcript: Staff Satisfaction
I believe one of the benefits of being a clinical account executive is working with hospitals that know they need to make changes within their department, know that they need to find ways to smooth their processes. And our clinical experience, our business experience, allows us to help them identify what they're currently doing, and then how can they improve those processes with the implementation of our software, with the integration of our software.
And once they get through that, that change, that internal change, and they get over the anxiety of that change, many of our hospitals find that, that the improved processes that have been implemented with the utilization of our DischargeCentral application, it does, it gives them time that their case managers and their social workers can spend – it gives the case managers and social workers more time that they can spend at the bedside, more time to spend with the patient and the families, more time to do what they felt that they went to school, and they wanted . . . a path that they wanted to take with their, with their careers. It gives them that time and less time spent on faxing and printing and clerical tasks, functions that they don't see are important, important to their career choice.
Transcript: DischargeCentralDebut
I'm very excited about DischargeCentral. It's useful in virtually every setting in health care. The biggest value to the users is the utility that it provides. These users are stretched to the limit every day on how they perform their job. They're typically not given many technical resources to conduct their job, yet the regulatory environment is putting more and more restrictions on what they can and can't do. Compliance is asking them document more and more things to prevent potential liabilities. And, you know, there's just not enough time in the day for them to not only perform what they need to do, but spend time with the patients and family to provide the counseling necessary for a good discharge.
This technology eliminates much of that and really provides so much value and allows them to get back to do what they were educated for, which is patient counseling, providing time with the patients and family. And so, by eliminating all these useless, redundant administrative tasks, the requirement for documentation and gathering paper, And the task bars, communication, and notification capabilities, the business intelligent tools that help them keep on top of their, their job and their requirements, really creates a much better work environment for them, much higher job satisfaction, because they're now doing what they were trained to do.
Many hospitals have told us that employee turnover has declined in this already tough market with nursing shortage, because the employees feel that they're getting a lot of benefit out of their job again. And so, we're constantly trying to improve the tools that we provide this department, and I think, I think DischargeCentral goes a long way in, in accomplishing that task.
