From throughout the chain, health care providers come together to continue to provide good and efficient care. ChipSoft is the only EHR provider that allows health care institutions to collaborate in one EHR (HiX) and erases the boundaries of the chain. Whether a first date or a long-term love relationship: we offer the correct solution for any collaborative relationship between health care institutions.
Care close by if possible, far away if necessary. The government is working toward that landscape of health care. The first results of this policy are already visible: specialist care is moving to central locations and standard care remains locally available. This leads to situations in which hospital A performs a surgery, hospital B takes over the rehabilitation and care facility C organises the home care. An intensive joint cooperation is essential to be able to offer this care well and efficiently. ChipSoft offers the solution to this: with multiple health care institutions working together in one EHR. This means efficient transfers, smooth scheduling and a central availability of current patient information.
New world of health care
In our chain EHR, the support of first, second and third line care seamlessly merges. The flow of patients is therefore optimal. Rivas Zorggroep can confirm that the chain EHR opens up a new world of health care. Thousands of health care workers, spread out throughout the entire chan, have been working with one electronic file since 2014. "Through the chain file, we are in a position to work in a more targeted way to provide better and more efficient care", responsible programme manager Roger van Driel stated recently. "We can now offer the right care in the right place at the right time."
"All of the links meld seamlessly", says Van Driel. "Whether our employees in home care, in the Beatrix Hospital, the maternity staff or the youth care staff: current patient information is available to every authorized health care worker 24/7. The ER doctor can, for example, take into immediate consideration the medicines that the home care staff administer daily, or react to a diagnosis that the general practitioner made a day earlier. And when scheduling surgery in the hospital, all after-care can be scheduled as well, taking into consideration the available resources, tools and preferred patient location. All without telephone or paper transfers, but comprehensive and structured in one system."
Multi-company design
The various links in the chain within Rivas all belonged to one legal organisation when they started to work from one EHR. ChipSoft makes this procedure just as easy for independent care organisations that (want to) work together. It doesn't matter if this is a chain cooperation or a bundling of forces among hospitals. We have developed a "multi-company design" for this. For collaborating hospitals that work in one EHR, different laws and regulations apply than to institutions that are merged. When can patient data be exchanged? And which treating physician and which institution has the rights to view and edit the data? All of these types of questions are completely answered within the multi-company designed and directly applicable when the collaboration or merger enters another phase.
And important wish
Franciscus Hospital Roosendaal and Lievensberg Hospital Bergen op Zoom were the first health care facilities to use the multi-company design. The health care institutions merged on January 1 of this year into Bravis Hospital, but have been working together in HiX since 2013. That was an important wish of the two health care institutions, says care group manager Arnoud Slooff. "To be able to work efficiently, we wanted all locations to have exactly the same, current patient information and to be able to view capacity in both facilities when scheduling. With the multi-company design, we can work at all locations with one patient file, one scheduling system, one database and one management organisation. The financial settlement of both hospitals did remain completely separate.
Silent transition
In the first stage of the collaboration between Lievenberg and Franciscus, it was still unclear if and when the hospitals would merge. The multi-company design allowed both institutions to immediately profit from working in one EHR while retaining their own administration. If the cooperation between the hospitals had unexpectedly hit a wall, they would have easily able to continue with their own EHR's. The merger came about rapidly. The institution was silently adjusted to the laws and regulations applicable to merged hospitals and the health care providers never even noticed. "Everyone just kept working in one system", says Slooff. "That was a positive experience for us. The multi-company design, in our eyes, fits precisely into the current picture, where health care providers come together.
Support for every collaboration
Not every health care provider wants to take the immediate step to work together with one or multiple partners in one EHR. Our JSP solution (joint service provision) puts health care institutions in a position to strategically contract out parts of health care. This makes it possible to send your patients to a colleague institution for tests or treatments that you do not or no longer offer, while this patient is formally still under your care. The attending hospital declares the transactions to your hospital, after which you can bill the patient according to your own financial structures. All completely digital and without additional work. When referring patients it is handy to also be able to exchange the patient data, such as core information, images and reports in a structured manner. ChipSoft offers extensive support of the CCD and CCR standards, in which health care institutions can use all of the data from the EHR to transfer directly to each other. This is also possible based on the IHE-XDS support* within the EHR. With this, health care institutions can offer the standardised medical data to a central, secure database, where their health care partners can access these data. This takes into consideration all conceivable privacy aspects.
Never too early
Is your health care institution also oriented to create the best possible cooperative connections to make your provision of care future-proof? Then certainly contact ChipSoft. As the only EHR provider in the Netherlands, we offer the right solution for every type of collaboration. Because the right support provides great improvements in quality and efficiency even in the early cooperation stage. Have you decided to chart a different course? The we'll make sure you're treading the right path. Together with your partner(s).
*ChipSoft strives for conformity with the IHE standards and in 2019 is taking part in the IHE Europe Connectathon to be compliant.
 HiX voor verpleeghuizen?RenditionID=34)