St. Joseph Health Systems To Roll Out Allscripts Software As Service Care Management and HomeCare And Will Work with AT&T for Telehealth Stations

This is a combination post of a couple of new things going on with St. Josephs Health Systems. First of all the Allscripts Software as a Service will be rolled out to help track patients through their system and secondly the Home care unit will provide a medical records system for hospice and those who care for patients at home settings.

The second part of this post deals with “stations” that St. Joseph’s will be installing at 7 different locations so individuals can visit the station and interact with a physician from a remote location, in other words not physically being present. This will allow for “virtual visits” to be conducted.

The telepresence was built in connection with Cisco and you may have heard some of this already with the Cisco NOW vans that travel the US and demonstrate their capabilities. The link below will catch you up on where telepresence technology from Cisco is being used, a few videos to watch as well and see how the bank are connected already.

Cisco TelePresence Expanding Beyond Healthcare with Collaboration with Bank of America

A couple of years ago UnitedHeatlhCare and Cisco teamed up for their vans that also run across country and you can read more about that project below. BD

UnitedHealth To Spend Tens of Million of Dollars with Cisco to Build Nationwide Telehealth Network

The Allscripts Care Management solution will help ensure continuity of care by automating and consolidating everyday tasks for SJHS's hospital case managers including utilization management, discharge planning, documentation integrity, audit management and quality management. The fully-integrated, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application also will streamline the referral of patients requiring long-term care to SJHS's network of post-acute organizations as well as the Allscripts proprietary network of 110,000 post-acute providers.

"Allscripts will standardize case management processes across the organization while improving transitions of care for all of our patients," said Clyde E. Wesp, Jr., MD, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Medical Information Officer of SJHS. "A key benefit is the automation of the discharge process, which lets us quickly and easily connect with our own and other long-term care organizations to find the best fit for patients who need further care, and helps patients make a faster, more informed choice."

The St. Joseph Home Health Network's home health and hospice agencies across California and Texas will deploy the Allscripts Homecare solution, providing billing, scheduling, and an Electronic Health Record in a unified, seamless electronic system. During home visits, SJHS nurses will use the EHR to document patient care and compare their assessments from previous visits. They can also generate customized care plans and OASIS quality reports for Medicare.

ORANGE, Calif., Feb. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- St. Joseph Health System (SJHS), a $4.6 billion Catholic healthcare organization, and AT&T* today announced an agreement with plans to implement a new telehealth pilot project that will allow patients and physicians in disparate locations to meet and consult via immersive video utilizing AT&T Telepresence Solution®.

Under this collaboration, St. Joseph Health System will have seven interactive wellness stations that will help improve access to specialty care, urgent care, wellness and health improvement services. This new pilot will be rolled out in the next several months in various Southern California locations including physician and patient sites.

The wellness stations will include a fully managed AT&T Telepresence Solution comprised of components including Cisco HealthPresence®, connectivity to the AT&T Business Exchange and AMD Global Telemedicine medical peripherals. This project will allow physicians and other health and wellness specialists to connect with patients virtually using the AT&T global network and real time, immersive multi-point video and audio technologies.

The focus of this pilot is to address the needs of patients who experience financial, social, geographic and other barriers to care.

Five initial sites have been selected by SJHS: Occupational Health Services at St. Jude Heritage Medical Group in Fullerton, Camino Health Clinic in San Juan Capistrano, St. Jude Neighborhood Clinic in Fullerton, Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach and a standalone kiosk in Rancho Cucamonga. Two additional sites are expected to be selected by year-end.