This article will explain MedBridge’s new Multiple Episodes of Care feature - accessible for clinicians in the Patient Profile and HEP Builder, and displayed for patients in the Patient Portal and MedBridge GO Mobile App - and walk through how to utilize its features to create and manage multiple or concurrent episodes of care.
Table of Contents
- Multiple Episodes of Care Update to the Patient Profile
- Creating a New Episode on the Patient Profile
- Selecting an Episode on the HEP Builder
- Patient Experience
- How Can I Access Multiple Episodes of Care?
More complex care plans require support across disciplines throughout the continuum of care, and keeping these care plans both consistent and distinct is vital to optimal patient outcomes. This is particularly important for patients with complex care plans that involve multiple care settings.
Our new Multiple Episodes of Care feature enables the categorization and naming of each distinct episode of care, which increases the efficiency of HEP building by enabling segmentation of episodes and easing care coordination, as well as improving the patient experience by segmenting concurrent care plans. For example, a stroke patient’s comprehensive treatment plan could require separate care plans with their physical therapist, occupational therapist, and speech-language pathologist. With our MEC feature, these separate care providers can interact individually with the patient’s care plan, keeping them informed on the patient’s progress and status. MEC is also beneficial for patients experiencing concurrent episodes of care that are unrelated, such as patients undergoing simultaneous treatment for shoulder and pelvic floor conditions, or for patients with comorbidities that require different ongoing treatment plans.
With the Multiple Episodes of Care feature, you can:
- Provide multiple clinicians the ability to establish a specific ‘episode’ within a program focused on their area of care
- Review and update any episode per patient
- Enable multiple episodes to be active at one time
- Create segmentation between disciplines and treatment types for clinicians and patients
This feature also enables patients to:
- Toggle between multiple episodes assigned to them, review exercises, log adherence, and give feedback on an episodic level
- View ‘ended’ or ‘finished’ episodes of care, allowing for more self-management post-discharge
Multiple Episodes of Care Update to the Patient Profile
When you log in for the first time after the new Multiple Episodes of Care update, you’ll notice a few changes.
When Multiple Episodes of Care (MEC) has been enabled, the system will display an MEC overview in the Patient Profile or HEP Builder. This field overview will remain until the user has clicked “Got it” to close the window permanently.
Tooltips on the HEP Builder will also display to highlight the episode selector.
- Active and archived episodes will now be displayed on the upper left hand side.
- Selecting Episode Name will change the information displayed on the right side.
- The Build/Update Program button is now displayed within the new Episode Details Card.
- The Episode Details Card now includes
- Treatment Categories.
- Discipline Assigned.
- ‘Created By’ field.
- ‘Last Updated By’ field.
Creating a New Episode on the Patient Profile
An Add New Episode pop-up window will prompt the user to fill in the patient’s episode details prior to navigating to the builder.
This will require three pieces of information:
- Treatment Category
- Discipline
- Episode Name
Select a Treatment Category
Once you begin to enter the Treatment Category, a drop down field will suggest categories based on your query. Categorization for the episode of care can be as broad as a body region, such as Shoulder, or as specific as you would like, such as Adhesive Capsulitis (Frozen Shoulder).
Add Multiple Treatment Categories
Once the Treatment Category has been created, users may add multiple treatment categories to the episode of care. As each category is added, a prompt will display below the Treatment Category search field. The episode name will also update to reflect the categories added. Users may add up to a maximum of five categories to a single episode of care.
View All Treatment Categories
If the user cannot find the treatment category they are looking for, they will have the option to view all categories by clicking on the View All Categories link.
The field will change to display all treatment categories in a list with an option to select multiple categories, which have been organized into subcategories to allow for easier browsing. If users still cannot find the treatment category they are looking for, they can choose a general body region or select the “Not Specified” option and suggest a category using the Suggest a Treatment Category link at the top of the page.
Selecting an Episode on the HEP Builder
When a user creates a new episode from their patient’s profile, it will pull them automatically to the builder. When users land on the HEP Builder, there will now be an episode selection menu. Users can select any active episode of care or create a new episode by clicking on Create New Episode. The Episode details will not display until after the user has added content to the program and clicks an action item, such as Save, Print, Email, Preview, Document, etc.
Multiple Episodes of Care—The Patient Experience
After the clinician has created a new episode in their patient’s profile and adds the relevant treatment categories, their patient will be able to engage with the episode on their Patient Portal or on the MedBridge GO Mobile App.
Multiple Episodes of Care on the Patient Portal
When a patient has more than one episode that was created for them, a new episode selector menu will display at the top of the Resources page. The episode selector menu will display the Active Episodes at the top and list the Archived Episodes (episodes that have ended) at the bottom. Selecting the episode will modify what is displayed on the remainder of the page.
Multiple Episodes of Care on the MedBridge GO Mobile App
MedBridge GO patients will have a floating action button that displays if there is more than one episode of care assigned to them (for both active or archived episodes). Users can tap on the button to select the episode they want, and the app will refresh to display that episode's content. A red icon will display to show newly added episodes that have not been viewed yet.
How Can I Access Multiple Episodes of Care?
This feature will be available to organizations with an HEP+ license at no extra cost on June 28, 2021. If you have any additional questions or would like to upgrade to HEP+ to gain access to this new feature, contact MedBridge Support or your CS Representative. As of publishing date, this feature is not yet available to HEP Lite, NPS-enabled clients, or Casamba and Raintree clients.