Coordinated Care in Epic Reduces Wound Care Readmissions by 19%

After patients are discharged from a hospital, they still might need to spend time at a skilled nursing facility as they recover. To provide seamless care as patients transition to SNFs, TriHealth used EpicCare Link to share patients’ charts with local facilities. Within a year, they reduced readmissions for patients with wounds by 19%.

TriHealth formed a preferred provider network of SNFs that had the highest-quality performance, according to Epic data. Providers choose from this network when discharging patients to skilled nursing care. The nurse at the admitting SNF can then log in to EpicCare Link to see the patient’s health history and complete an assessment. SNF documentation becomes part of the patient’s Epic record, so both organizations have a complete picture of the patient’s health history.

“Our strong culture of multi-disciplinary partnership has allowed us to join technology and processes in a manner that has made significant impacts to our organization and, most importantly, our patients,” said John Ward, CIO and senior vice president at TriHealth.

For their work on reducing readmissions, TriHealth received a HIMSS Davies Enterprise Award.

Epic community members can read more about strategies for connecting to community partners with EpicCare Link on the UserWeb.