Methodist Care Connect

At Methodist Healthcare, our patients and the providers who care for them are our top priority. Ensuring we provide top quality care in a safe environment requires that we provide the tools and resources for both patients and provider colleagues to connect. There are multiple opportunities that we encourage our provider partners to join to best serve our community - creating ease of access and efficient communication ultimately leading to better patient care.

As Methodist Healthcare continues to strive to become the leading high-value care network through enhanced innovations, we believe that Blockit is the most effective platform to enhance the current management and workflow of needed patient follow-up care.

What it is

• The program will initially focus on patients who have been seen by an emergency room physician and received a referral for follow-up care.
• All members of Medical Staff within the specialty will have the ability to receive electronic referrals for follow-up care, via email, through the Blockit communication platform.
• Blockit is a technology platform that enables electronic referral communication and has the capability to enable real-time scheduling for patients prior to leaving the care facility.

How it works

• Methodist Healthcare has partnered with Blockit to provide FREE access for all physician practices to the Basic platform to receive electronic notice of the follow-up care referrals.
• Practices will need to create a Blockit account and then will be able to receive email notifications each time a patient consents to a follow-up care referral made from a physician providing care at a Methodist Healthcare emergency department.
• Additional Blockit functionality available for use at the discretion of your practice.

Planned service line integrations include Cardiology, Orthopedics, Gastroenterology, OBGYN, Urology, General Surgery and Primary Care.

Current State: We are in phase one of integration focusing on initial roll outs in Cardiology and Orthopedics.

Blockit is provided at no cost to those providers who would like to opt into the platform through Methodist Care Connect. Additional features are available at the expense of individual practice and/or providers.

*Methodist Healthcare is integrating service lines across facilities in this market. As we phase in your respective service line or specialty (if not currently live), you will be contacted once live and you can begin your official onboarding process for the designated program.

At Methodist Healthcare, we are continually striving to improve patient care and expedite continuity of care. To further this mission, we have collaborated with VitalEngine to improve communication and collaboration with our community physicians and their staff.

VitalEngine is a HIPAA compliant, cloud-based healthcare collaboration and workflow platform that allows for secure communication among healthcare professionals and transmission of referrals, medical records, and images in order to streamline patient care. The platform is an imaging and medical records exchange, procedure database, and communication platform designed to securely facilitate care planning. The unique collaboration platform offers a variety of benefits and potential positive impacts for users:

• Creates expanded virtual patient access points
• Expedites the identification of CV disease and care planning
• Ensures secure exchange of HIM
• Timely referring physician follow-up, including before and after images
• Decreased inappropriate transfers

Planned service line integrations include Cardiology, Orthopedics, Neurology, Oncology and Pulmonology.

Current State: We are in phase one of integration focusing on initial roll outs in Cardiology and Pulmonology.

VitalEngine is provided at no cost to those providers who would like to opt into the platform through Methodist Cares Connect. Additional features are available at the expense of individual practice and/or providers.

*Methodist Healthcare is integrating service lines across facilities in this market. As we phase in your respective service line or specialty (if not currently live), you will be contacted once live and you can begin your official onboarding process for the designated program.

VitalEngine is a program that requires providers to opt in. Get started below.

Care Assure is our commitment to excellence in follow-up care. Care Assure was created to ensure patients receive appropriate care following hospital visits. Clinically trained Nurse Navigators support patients after discharge from the hospital by answering questions and facilitating follow-up appointments.

By taking a broad view of patient care, Care Assure helps to improve management of disease during the transition from the hospital back into the community.

During the weeks following a hospital admission, patients can expect to:

• Receive calls from a Nurse Navigator who will ensure that you receive appropriate follow-up care
• Be supported by a healthcare team who is dedicated to helping you navigate and work through the healthcare system
• Interact with Nurse Navigators who will help you understand your discharge plan and work with you to complete follow-up appointments

Care Assure programs are internally managed and do not require an opt in process. These programs are triggered by various algorithms in patient data to aid in closing the gap in continuity of care.

Our navigation staff plays a vital role in cancer care, managing what patients go through on a day to day basis. Patients routinely tell us what a difference our staff make as they go through one of the most challenging times of their lives. We have formalized a process to allow nurse navigators to comprehensively manage a patient’s experience with cancer.

We have created oncology pathways that help ensure seamless care across the cancer journey for both the patient and providers. Pathways ultimately improve consistency and maintain quality care and patient outcomes. Over the last few decades, patient navigation has developed and gained prominence, to the extent that this process is now a requirement of major oncology accreditation bodies. These requirements are not the only reason that patient navigation programs have proliferated – studies have demonstrated clinical benefits (including increased screening rates, improved stage at diagnosis, reduced broken appointment rates and more timely follow up) and improvements in patient satisfaction.

This patient navigation system addresses the continuum of cancer care and is designed to support cancer patients in all phases of the treatment spectrum, addressing prevention, screening and early detection, diagnosis, treatment, palliative and supportive care. By tracking progress, providing check lists, facilitating communication and producing reminders, the system is a vital tool in the expansion of our capabilities and patient outcome success. Our efforts will both strengthen the care that we are able to give our patients and provide support to the staff who administers this outstanding care.

Our Nurse Navigators:

• Reinforce patient education on cancer types, treatment options, and clinical trial availability
• Coordinate office visits across medical disciplines to streamline cancer care delivery
• Facilitate communication between all members of healthcare team
• Participate in multidisciplinary team conferences to promote collaboration in cancer treatment
• Provide a personalized touch to cancer care by visiting patients at appointments, assessing patients needs, and relaying relevant information to providers
• Serve as an ongoing source of support for patients, and are available to answer ongoing questions
• Help decrease barriers to care by assessing needs and linking patients with support groups and community resources