SARCOA Area Agency on Aging Chooses Loopback Analytics to Power Regional Health Care Alliance

8-Hospital Consortium, Data Integration and Detailed Impact Reporting Help SARCOA Earn CCTP Program Renewal with Streamlined Automation & Patient Care Management to Reduce Hospital Readmissions

News provided by

Loopback Analytics

Apr 14, 2015, 09:04 ET

DALLAS, April 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Loopback Analytics, a care transitions management platform provider, today announced that SARCOA Area Agency on Aging has selected Loopback's data sharing and care coordination solution to power its Community-Based Care Transition program (CCTP) serving Barbour, Coffee, Covington, Dale, Geneva, Henry and Houston counties in southeast Alabama. The platform will help SARCOA further expand its patient and provider footprint, a significant contributing factor in the renewal of its CCTP by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in February.

The new partnership provides patient data integration, detailed reporting and streamlined workflow automation to empower SARCOA health coaches to efficiently and effectively manage care transitions and follow-up, and to track patient outcomes and intervention results across a consortium of eight hospitals. All of this contributes toward the ultimate goal of reducing hospital readmissions, which not only drive up health care costs for patients and insurers, but also trigger stiff penalties for complicit hospitals.

"While many CCTPs are being cut by CMS for failure to meet mandates on the number of patients served, SARCOA has actually done an outstanding job of outperforming the standard and now needs the right tools to handle the growing volume," said Loopback Analytics President and CEO Neil Smiley. "We're thrilled to partner with SARCOA and provide the complete healthcare coordination platform required to enable them to continue doing such fantastic work to improve health care in the community."

The Loopback solution provides an automated workflow for SARCOA health coaches to ensure that patients referred to them by the eight participating hospitals get the appropriate follow-up care and services they need. Integrated data sharing across all eight hospitals will enable SARCOA to identify at-risk patients based on diagnoses, demographics and other known factors that contribute to re-admission. This automated targeting is much more efficient than traditional referral methods, prevents patients from slipping through the cracks and allows SARCOA's coaches to prioritize patients with the greatest risk.

Loopback's list-bill automation and correction also ensures greater accuracy in reimbursement, and in-depth reporting and analysis of treatment protocol results and overall patient outcomes will help SARCOA optimize post-discharge intervention plans to ensure patients have access to—and take advantage of—the most effective care options based on statistical evidence.

"The Loopback platform gives us the automation and analysis we need to be more efficient, effective and relevant for the hospitals and patients we serve," said Robert Crowder, SARCOA executive director and a board member of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging. "We now have the process, visibility and reporting to understand not only which patients need assistance, but also which interventions are most effective in serving them to reducing readmissions. Now, we can relieve our partner hospitals of the care coordination burden, enabling them to focus on providing outstanding patient care."

Loopback's complete health care coordination solution includes both services and tools to streamline care transition workflows and provide insight into patient outcomes and program fidelity through analytics with a closed-loop feedback system for continuous improvement. The platform is designed for use by health systems, post-acute care providers and community coalitions such as CCTPs and CBOs, to reduce re-admission rates and associated penalties, promote accountability and efficiency, and maximize shared savings programs among participating providers.

About Loopback Analytics
Founded in 2009, Loopback Analytics is a pioneer in empowering health systems and post-acute care organizations to more effectively manage care transitions and reimbursement challenges in a "pay-for-outcome" environment. The company's comprehensive management platform helps identify at-risk patient populations, match interventions and measure efficacy to improve clinical and financial outcomes. For more information, visit www.loopbackanalytics.com.

About SARCOA
SARCOA Area Agency on Aging was established in 1986 to maximize the independence, well-being and health of older adults, people with disabilities, and their families and caregivers living in southeast Alabama. In 2012, SARCOA became a pilot site for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Care Transitions program aimed at improving transitions for Medicare beneficiaries from the inpatient hospital setting to other care settings, improve quality of care, reduce readmissions for high-risk beneficiaries and document measureable savings. SARCOA's Care Transitions Program was formed through the Wiregrass Community Care Transitions Partnership in collaboration with eight hospitals: Andalusia Regional Hospital, Dale Medical Center, Flowers Hospital, Medical Center Barbour, Medical Center Enterprise, Mizell Memorial Hospital, Southeast Alabama Medical Center and Wiregrass Medical Center. For more information, visit www.sarcoa.org.

SOURCE Loopback Analytics