Introducing 'Well On Track'

New Patient Follow-Up Tool Helps Improve Care Coordination and Ensure Discharged Patients' Recoveries Remain On Track

PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Better care, improved coordination, reduced hospital readmissions. Those are among the goals of federal healthcare reform.

Today, NJHA Healthcare Business Solutions unveiled Well On Track, a new patient follow-up tool to help hospitals achieve those goals and ensure their discharged patients' recoveries remain on track.

Well On Track is an easy-to-use patient contact management and tracking tool that streamlines activities required for care coordination for discharged individuals with congestive heart failure (CHF), stroke, pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction (AMI.) Well On Track establishes work queues for patient follow-up calls and includes simple questions developed by clinicians to assess discharged patients' progress and adherence to treatment protocols – providing valuable information to clinicians and discharge planners and potentially reducing readmissions through timely intervention.

Well On Track was developed and field-tested as part of a federally approved physician-hospital gainsharing pilot program led by the New Jersey Hospital Association. NJHA Healthcare Business Solutions has made several enhancements to the original tool to expand its offerings to hospitals nationwide.

"Amid all the changes under the Affordable Care Act, one thing remains constant: the goal of healthcare providers to ensure quality patient care and successful outcomes. Well On Track is a valuable resource in the post-discharge care coordination process to reach out to individuals at key points in their recovery to document their progress and identify early-on any potential problems," said Aline Holmes, RN, senior vice president of clinical affairs at NJHA.

Key features of Well On Track include:

• Web-based admission, discharge and transfer (ADT) system interface option for automated patient selection
• Convenient drop-down menus for easy electronic capture of patient progress
• Downloadable reporting capability
• Color-coded tickler prompts
• Easy work queues with sort and clinical condition category filters
• Automatic follow-up notification
• Best practice follow-up intervals for CMS core clinical conditions
• Standardized survey scripts with free-form information capability.

"Well On Track is HIPAA-compliant and designed to offer an easy ADT interface capability to further streamline the process for hospital users," said Joe Carr, chief information officer. "We know staff time is valuable, and we've designed this tool to maximize ease and efficiency for our users."

The resource is relevant for tracking patients discharged to their homes, but also patients under the care of a skilled nursing facility or home health agency, said NJHA's Theresa Edelstein, vice president of post-acute policy.

Well On Track has withstood the field test for 18 months in several pilot hospitals. Said one user:

"Well On Track provides the right questions to ask so we can monitor patient progress accurately. It's been an invaluable tool. With its reporting feature we are able to screen clinical issues as well as trends on patient populations that are vulnerable for readmission."

For more information or to set up a demo of Well On Track, visit www.wellontrack.net or contact NJHA Healthcare Business Solutions' Bill Kennedy at 609-936-2196 or [email protected].

The New Jersey Hospital Association, based in Princeton, is a not-for-profit trade organization that advocates for its member hospitals and post-acute providers and the patients they serve. Its affiliate, NJHA Healthcare Business Solutions, provides group purchasing and other cost-saving products and services to healthcare providers.

SOURCE New Jersey Hospital Association