Forging partnerships with other providers and adopting health information technology are critical to the survival of long-term care providers, new guidelines recommend.

Released Monday at the Long-Term and Post-Acute Care Health Information Technology Summit in Baltimore, the “Roadmap for Health Information Technology (HIT) In Long-Term and Post-Acute Care” identifies five key areas providers should focus on over the next two years.

These priorities include: care coordination with hospitals and primary care providers; devising coordinated quality measurement and improvement activities; viewing healthcare information technology as business imperative; accelerating adoption of culture change strategies; and boosting educational efforts to keep LTC workers up with new technology.

“The roadmap is intended to stimulate grassroots activities; investments; and advocacy collaboration among policy makers, researchers, vendors, providers, consumers and others,” Deborah Green, vice president of HIM Solutions at the American Health Information Management Association,” said in a statement.

To read the guidelines, click here.