Lumeon Helps Health Systems Tackle Readmissions by Connecting the Dots Across Care

BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Lumeon, the leader in Care Pathway Management (CPM), today announced the launch of its Care Transitions Management solution, a comprehensive approach to connecting and coordinating care from the point of discharge. It enables health systems to focus their resources on those most at risk of readmission and encourages improved communications with primary care and outpatient providers, while continuously guiding the patient throughout this tenuous period. This new solution is enabled by the latest release of Lumeon’s CPM automation platform, already deployed in over 70 leading health systems across the US and Europe.

Readmissions have a huge impact on the operating margin of a healthcare provider, with Medicare readmission penalties alone estimated to cost hospitals $563 million per year.ⁱ Readmission measures are not only a key quality metric, but researchⁱⁱ has long since concluded that reducing avoidable readmissions presents a potentially large opportunity to reduce cost, improve quality, and simultaneously improve the patient experience.

Reducing readmissions is extremely difficult as it depends on many variables. Independent reviewⁱⁱⁱ has highlighted challenges in providing high‐quality care during hospital discharge and the subsequent period of transition, including inpatient/outpatient discontinuity (e.g. poor follow-up in primary care), changes and discrepancies in medication regime, poor execution of self-care responsibilities and social care support, and ineffective physician/patient communication.

Existing solutions fail to adequately address the continuity of care, while individual interventions have had limited effect. The secret to tackling the readmission problem is to detect those most at risk and focus resources on them, personalize care to those with different needs, and communicate with clarity while monitoring for compliance.

The Lumeon Care Transitions Management solution provides:

Risk evaluation – risk-stratification of patients at discharge, with readmission risk scoring, decision support and automated assignment to a personalized care transition pathway.

Appointment coordination – a prompt check-in with patients via SMS to make sure follow-up appointments are booked, and timely reminders to optimize attendance.

PCP notifications – automated transfer of key information to primary care or alternative post-acute providers, including scheduling priorities, pending test results and alerts when patients are admitted/discharged.

Discharge instructions – automated distribution of personalized care instructions based on information captured at discharge.

Patient monitoring – automated coordination of key activities to monitor patient recovery using a combination of digital, telephone and in-person interactions, according to the needs of each patient.

Lumeon’s Care Transitions Management solution brings together three powerful capabilities in one platform to enable smoother care transitions: the coordination of activities and decisions across care journeys; the autonomous management of tasks, communication and interactions; and the unification of the experience throughout the journey. These capabilities are enabled by Lumeon’s unique pathway engine, allowing care transition blueprints to be rapidly localized and deployed to health systems’ unique organizational structures, care settings makeup, and health payer contracts.

Frost and Sullivan recently awarded Lumeon as best-in-class for the Digital Command Center for Cross Continuum Care Coordination. It noted in its summary article, “Today, the US care coordination market is undergoing transformational changes, owing to the next cycle of regulatory requirements a.k.a ‘The Pathway to Success’ and ‘Promoting Interoperability’ programs proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Frost & Sullivan found that 53% of all US-based providers have acknowledged that their care pathways are somewhat coordinated versus only 7% that said they are fully coordinated. Lumeon is well-positioned to maintain its unique competitive advantage in this market as it caters to these needs and goes beyond to manage personalized intervention plans for complex patient populations across the care continuum.”

“The issue of preventing patient readmissions continues to be a huge thorn in the side for health systems,” said Robbie Hughes, chief executive officer at Lumeon. “Existing solutions have only skimmed the surface and exacerbated the problem by causing fragmentation in care. Lumeon brings a unique approach that quickly addresses health systems’ deepest concerns by first working closely with them to analyze and design relevant pathway-based approaches, then deploying our automation platform to put the solution into practice, ensuring continuity in care with efficient use of resource.”

About Lumeon

Lumeon provides Care Pathway Management (CPM) solutions that enable healthcare organizations to efficiently coordinate healthcare delivery and quickly launch next-generation care experiences. Its industry-leading automation platform acts as the ‘auto-pilot’ for healthcare delivery, automatically handling routine care tasks and communicating with patients along the way while assisting care teams to focus their time on those most at risk. Care teams are prompted to make decisions, take control and intervene when required. Lumeon’s CPM platform also seamlessly integrates and complements provider investments in their Electronic Health Record (EHR) system.

More than 70 progressive health systems in the USA and Europe have deployed Lumeon’s multi-award-winning platform.

www.lumeon.com

ⁱNew Round of Medicare Readmission Penalties Hits 2,583 Hospitals, Kaiser Health News

ⁱⁱ National Institute of Health, Annu Rev Med. 2014 ; 65: 471–485. doi:10.1146/annurev-med-022613-090415. Reducing Hospital Readmission: Current Strategies and Future Directions. By: Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc1, Cecelia N Theobald, MD1,2, Beth Anctil, MSN, RN3, and Eduard E Vasilevskis, MD, MPH1

ⁱⁱⁱJ. Hosp. Med. 2007 September;2(5):314-323: Promoting effective transitions of care at hospital discharge: A review of key issues for hospitalists. By: Sunil Kripalani, MD, MSc, Amy T. Jackson, PharmD, Jeffrey L. Schnipper, MD, MPH, Eric A. Coleman, MD, MPH

Contacts

Hanah Johnson

March Communications

lumeon@marchcomms.com
617-960-8892