INNOVATIVE COMPANIES | HEALTH CARE
An emergency room patient often arrives with a blank medical slate. Most people aren’t in any condition to give a medical history, and if they are alone or with others who don’t have the information, essential care can be delayed while the medical team gathers information.
Laura Adams, CEO and president of the nonprofit Rhode Island Quality Institute, which owns and operates CurrentCare, the state’s health-information exchange, thinks that’s not good enough. The institute is changing the face of how patients receive care and how providers work. The result is nothing short of transformative.
Providence-based RIQI recently introduced the Care Management Dashboard, an electronic tool linking participating offices of providers such as primary care physicians, mental health centers, substance-abuse centers and emergency rooms. The institute focuses on four pillars: better health, better health care, lower cost and provider joy in work.
“The dashboards notify health care’s right hand about what the left hand is doing and closes critical information gaps in real time,” said Adams. Patient records such as laboratory results, medication histories, care coordination data and providers are available instantly. The result is better, more-targeted and faster care.
The institute protects the most vulnerable patients. The fast access to medical information prevents unnecessary hospital and ER admissions, said Adams, and facilitates the best possible care decisions.
The nation’s opioid crisis gives a sense of urgency to the institute’s work – many addicts are treated and released to risky environments, often without any notification to other care providers. When information is presented in a dashboard and all teams are connected, everyone knows what’s going on and how best to help.
“When a provider community connects and wraps their arms around the patient in this way, it gives them a fighting chance they otherwise might not have,” said Adams.