The need: Managing the continuum of care

There is overwhelming pressure on healthcare organizations everywhere to improve quality whilst containing costs. Although the rewards for successfully achieving quality improvement and cost management are enormous, achieving them is seriously inhibited by the reliance, still, on paper driven systems and the fragmented nature of “legacy” healthcare computer systems resulting in the lack of clinical data at the point of care. There is universal recognition that paper systems cannot meet the demands of today’s healthcare challenges.

For effective disease management of chronic illnesses, these limitations are even more difficult. Cost effective, quality care of such patients involves the coordination of providers and healthcare professionals throughout the community. Information must be captured from and available to a variety of people at different locations each with a different role in the care of the patient. Significantly improved healthcare information management is needed to deliver patient-centered, seamless, integrated care with information shared between healthcare professionals.

Additionally, when reviewing its performance, a healthcare organization must be able to measure the effectiveness of the clinical activities carried out (process), the clinical outcomes (quality) and the financial outcomes (costs) achieved.