Please contact the Champions listed below if you would like to have an initiative or issue reviewed at the next meeting. Thank you!

Thank you to all of our clinicians for the incredible work you do each day in order to provide an Amazing Patient Experience to all of our patients.

Managers and Directors have been out in the field more than ever, and we are so proud of the care you provide each day.

The Joint Visits with your Clinical Service Manager, Patient Service Manager or Rehabilitation Service Manager may be any type of visit, or even a ½ or full day "ride-along" where we come out for a few visits in a row. Previously, managers had been getting out with clinicians annually as part of the performance review process. Going forward, you'll notice more visits and encourage you to select cases where you'd like some clinical collaboration. You're welcome to ask us to go out on more challenging cases so that you get the most out of the experience.

These Joint Visits are part of a three pronged approach to ensure optimal service delivery - right care, right provider, right time - and enhance clinical practice development:

You'll also still have Joint Visit requests coming from your Patient Care Manager. These visits are typically focused on Oasis accuracy and OASIS time points.

Adele Pike, Director of Education

 

By Kyra Mihalick, PT, DPT, COS-C, Patient Care Manager

 

In Quarter 2 OASIS Education, SHP outcome data reports detailing individual outcomes were provided to clinicians. This is part 2 of a 3 part series reviewing publically reported functional outcomes to help you bring your data up to the top 20%. Look at your individual SHP data and compare to the most recent data for the top 20%. If you need a copy of your SHP data, please ask your PCM.

 

Bathing:

Please note that it is mandatory that we ask and add to the electronic medical record if the patient has allergies.

We see the patient within 48 hours of referral OR discharge to home (or on MD ordered SOC date) for many reasons. It is mandated by federal law & it is best practice (statistically, patients not seen within 48 hours of facility discharge have a higher incidence of hospitalization).

 

Before the SOC/ROC referral is sent to the Clinical Department, Initial Assessment Visit/Physician Ordered Start of Care Date changes are managed by the Referral Department.

• Always close Clinical Explorer and Interactive Scheduler before you transfer. McKesson will not add any new information to them if they open. We have been receiving calls that clinicians are transferring several times and changes to their schedule are not coming over. When we ask them to close Clinical Explorer or Interactive Scheduler and re-open it they are then able to see the visits.
• Do not use VPN in the office. When you are in any VNA Care office you should have an automatic direct connection to our servers wirelessly from your laptop.

 

The Clinical Applications Department has had a small number of clinical staff report that they have lost documentation. We take this seriously and need to investigate each occurrence. If you have documented something and it is now missing please contact the Clinical Application Help line at 617-886-6730 immediately so we may investigate. McKesson has the ability to trace missing documentation if it was written within a few weeks. We don't always know why this happens but here are a few suggestions to reduce the risk of losing your work:

• Always go to Cases before you close Clinical Explorer. We think sometimes staff may close Clinical Explorer using the X in the upper right hand corner and the system does not save their current work
• Always use the exit icon when available instead of the X. Or use the OK button instead of the X.
• Close both Clinical Explorer and Interactive Scheduler while transferring
• DO NOT document in Clinical Explorer when you are transferring

 

By Kathy Schuft, Clinical Application Specialist

 

There may have been a misunderstanding about locking orders and OASIS before they have been reviewed by the Quality Department. To clarify the process remains the same. Do not lock the orders when performing an admission, recertification or resumption of care (status post) visit and not lock any OASIS regardless of the timepoint.

If you have any questions you may contact me at kathy_schuft@vnacare.org, 617-886-6968 or by calling the Clinical Applications Department (CAD) Help Line at 617-886-6730.

 

We are working to further segment open positions in the Connecter to make them easily searchable by office location. In the meantime, to learn more about career opportunities, please visit careers.vnacare.org or contact a human resources representative:

• Ann Bohac at ann_bohac@vnacare.org
• Debbie Brown at debbie_brown@vnacare.org
• Jennifer MacFaden at  jennifer_macfaden@vnacare.org
• Cheryl Milas at cheryl_milas@vnacare.org
• Bev Riley at  beverly_riley@vnacare.org

 

To suggest an area of focus to the Employee Advisory Team (EAT), please email your suggestion to EATSuggestionbox@vnacare.org. Suggestions can include ideas to improve current processes and procedures, remove redundancies, or even to provide feedback on something you think is/is not working.

 

Please feel free to discuss any issues that you would like brought to EAT with the following members of the committee:

Liz Bourne Ray Brackett Kim Dio Kelly Frew

Mary Helen Mahoney Susan Marlin Procter Mary McCarthy Ilona O'Connor

Mary Ann O'Connor Mae Powers David Rose Danny Yang

EAT is also on the lookout for new members. If you're interested in participating, or for more information on what EAT is all about, please reach out to any of the members listed above. Meetings are held monthly in the Charlestown office.