Editor’s Note: The 2019 winners of the McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards are being announced Oct. 4-11. Skilled Care track winners are being announced here by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. Senior Living track winners are being announced on the website of sister publication McKnight’s Senior Living.

A technological embrace of value-based care earned Bridgemoor Transitional Care, which provides short-term rehabilitation following a hospital stay, the Gold Award in the Transitions category of the Skilled Care track of the 2019 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards. 

“The shift to value-based care from the longstanding fee-for-service payment model is especially impactful in the post-acute care industry,” Mark Fritz, president of Bridgemoor Transitional Care, which has four locations in Texas, told McKnight’s Long-Term Care News. “This shift has generated a market need for short-term, high-quality care for higher acuity patients. We saw this as an opportunity to create an innovative approach to post-acute care and are very pleased with the model we created.” 

Bridgemoor launched a technology-enabled, patient-centered, outcomes-focused integrated care model with payers and Bridgemoor staff. It provides payers with a dynamic view of shared patients, enabling case managers to visit the patient virtually and create efficiencies for the payers. It also forged stronger clinical partnerships with providers, doctors and hospitals via the ability to share information in real time, 24/7, through cloud-based platforms. Furthermore, it has created a paperless environment where clinical teams have anytime/anywhere access to patient information. 

The model relies on an integrated technology platform that advances care and communication. A comprehensive and user-friendly EMR, dashboards that build custom data relative to the payer relationship and an electronic pharmacy dispensing system are aspects of the applied technology. 

2019 Tech Awards

Other winners in the Transitions category:

Silver Award: Laurels of Forest Glenn, for a communications platform that allows it to track residents once they are discharged home from the Garner, NC-based skilled nursing facility. WadeHealth, a mobile app, follows patients throughout the post-acute continuum of care. The improved communication has resulted in increased satisfaction rates among family members and decreased re-hospitalization rates once residents return home.

Bronze Award: Genesis Healthcare of Kennett Square, PA, for piloting software that monitors residents once they return to the community from a skilled nursing center. NexusConnexions software along with Nexus Health Call Center helped the company create a standardized patient follow-up program, identify alerts and provide tracking and insight for resolution of the alerts. Beyond preventing readmissions to the hospital from home, the technology has improved customer service. 

Entries for the competition were collected earlier this year and judged by an independent panel of long-term care and senior living experts.

Stanley Healthcare is the Platinum Sponsor of the 2019 McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards. MatrixCare is the Gold Sponsor of the Senior Living track.