[September 12, 2017]

Emmi Launches Portfolio of Customized Patient Engagement Solutions for the Post-Acute Market

Emmi, a leader in interactive patient engagement solutions, today announced a suite of solutions for the post-acute market that support better care transitions and a more successful discharge to the community. The solutions are designed to extend the reach of care teams to effectively engage patients entering post-acute care settings, including skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, long-term acute care organizations and rehabilitation, or transitioning from these facilities back into the home.

Leveraging Emmi's dynamic platform, care teams can easily prescribe programs to meet a patient's needs, receive daily reports that track progress being made and document select activity related to a patient's self-reported health status, equipping clinicians with insights that can allow them to intervene at the right time to help patients take appropriate actions for optimal recovery. In addition, care teams can use the platform to engage family caregivers who play a key role in the care transition process.

Post-acute facilities care for patients at a critical point in the care continuum. During this period, it is important to ensure that patients leaving the acute clinical setting or transitioning back to their homes understand and follow care plans while engaging in their own care. With reimbursement directly tied to quality and a facility's ability to avoid readmissions, a common issue associated with post-acute organizations, care coordination and engagement are imperative. According to research conducted by the University of Colorado School of Medicine¹, approximately 23 percent of patients discharged to post-acute care facilities following acute hospitalization were readmitted to the hospital at least once within 30 days. Nearly half of these readmissions occurred within two weeks of discharge. This new suite of solutions aims to fill the gap, supporting successful care transitions and empowering patients to take an active role in their care.

"Post-acute organizations need a way to engage with patients to improve their quality of care and reduce the likelihood they will return to the hospital. However, staffing challenges make it difficult for patients to receive the kind of one-on-one motivation they need," said Melissa Purvis, MSN, a post-acute nursing executive and one of the program advisors. "To help reduce avoidable readmissions, patients need a digestible form of education that supplements their interations with busy staff during post-discharge follow-up."

Emmi's post-acute suite of solutions includes a customizable selection of interactive, multimedia programs and interactive voice response (IVR) calls. These are designed to help facilities improve operational efficiencies and meet quality measures by engaging patients in their prescribed care plan at scale. The programs provide patients and their circle of care with resources and educational information to support their transition from the hospital setting to a post-acute care facility, and eventually successful discharge to the community. Educational and motivational in nature, patients become better prepared for what to expect during the transition and are more equipped to manage their care. The suite of programs covers various topics, helping patients better understand what to expect when transitioning to a post-acute facility or how to engage in their own care as they transition to the home.

"When referring patients to a post-acute facility, hospitals will turn to, and choose to partner with, the facilities able to uphold a high-standard of care that reduces the likelihood of patients being readmitted," said Amy Cain, RN, RNC-EFM, client services director for operational consulting and care transitions at Emmi. "We believe engaging patients and their families during this transition - as well as the transition back into their homes - and providing them with the appropriate resources to take a more active role in their care, ultimately leads to benefit for all stakeholders - patients, care teams, post-acute facilities and hospitals. By deepening our portfolio of programs for post-acute organizations, we are equipped to better serve the full care continuum and support organizations as they navigate value-based reimbursement models."

Programs are seamlessly integrated into existing workflows and Emmi can also directly integrate with existing EHRs, enabling clinical staff to order the program best suited for a patient's needs and ensures the patient record is up to date to improve care coordination.

For more information on how Emmi's can support post-acute organizations, please visit https://www.emmisolutions.com/who-we-help/post-acute-providers.

About Emmi

Emmi® helps healthcare organizations extend the reach of care teams in and beyond the care setting, enabling them to build stronger relationships, enhance the care experience, improve health outcomes and support value-based care initiatives, while increasing revenue and reducing costs. Emmi combines a science-based approach to communications design with healthcare expertise and a patented technology platform that brings dynamic, interactive and personalized multimedia interactions to life. For more information, visit emmisolutions.com, or follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

¹ http://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(15)00705-7/abstract?cc=y=

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170912005391/en/

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