In simple terms, care management involves all the activities and deliberate actions taken to maintain and improve the quality of life of patients, as a means to help them manage health conditions. Assisted living centers and long-term care facilities such as nursing homes are typical examples of organizations that carry out such activities.
In today’s fast-paced society, incorporation of artificial intelligence and digital interventions has proved to assist in the provision of top-notch services across various sectors and fields, including the health sector.
Choosing to integrate care management software might be one of the best decisions your organization could make. However, with the overwhelming amount of options, how do you ensure you get the best service for your money?
We’ve created a three-step guide to help you narrow down your options.
Factor 1: Keep your goals in view
Before going further, it is important you have a general overview of what you are expecting in software. This way, you get to focus on what really matters to you and your organization.
Take a pen and make a list of 5 things you feel should be included in great care management software. This might seem like a burden, but this decision—whether it turns out to be a good or a bad one—would have a tremendous impact on the quality of care offered by your organization.
Factor 2: It should be all-inclusive
Although the primary purpose of care management software is to collect the electronic health records of patients (and residents for an assisted living software), the data sources should go way beyond the medical history of the patient.
A major inclusion of a good care management software is quality customer support features. Software that provides tech support, whether via email or an in-app messaging system can be considered.
Other features that could be a deal-maker include:
- A secure software. Ask if the software vendor is HIPAA certified before choosing it.
- Presence of a patient portal. The patient portal would give patients summaries of their care. This, in itself, would give the app a great user interface.
- Presence of scheduling tools in the app. Without scheduling tools, making plans for each patient would be burdensome on the caregivers. This could ultimately translate to bad patient care.
- An easy-to-use billing interface.
- A clean user interface. Avoid software that is too complicated to navigate through.
- The software should also include an effective management system.
- There should be an easy reporting system that enables you to generate clearly outlined, exportable reports of your patient population, as well as care plan update reports.
- If possible, the software should have a great interfacing system—especially with your current Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system. This creates an avenue for easy input of patient data and records.
Factor 3: Pricing
You get what you pay for—very true!
A very huge factor that could be a deal-breaker is the pricing of the software.
When it comes to understanding the pricing of some software, it might be a little sketchy. Be sure you avoid such software providers and go for software providers with a clear pricing system.
First, you should figure out what your budget really is. Then, go on to list all the software which fits into your budget. Doing so will narrow your gaze to a few software systems.
Next, using Factor 1, check out if the app is all-inclusive. Are there any features you’d love to be included in your software, but were not listed in factor 1? Think of such features and include them in your consideration.
