Recap: PatientPing Hosts Texas Community Summit
On October 18th, PatientPing hosted a Texas Community Summit at the Hilton Houston Westchase in Houston, Texas. The event brought together over 50 of our Accountable Care Organization (ACO), skilled nursing facility (SNF), home health agency (HHA), long-term acute care (LTAC) and hospice community members–who traveled near and far–for a day of networking, product updates and feedback, and discussions about the latest trends in healthcare.
When they arrived, attendees enjoyed coffee and breakfast as they settled in for opening remarks. PatientPing’s Head of Operations, Neal Vachhani, and Director of Operations, Vanessa Kuhn, took the stage to kick off the morning. They emphasized the importance of bringing Texas’ community of providers together to improve care, lower costs, and break down the barriers to effective care coordination today.
PatientPing’s Head of Product, Dave Rodger, took the stage next to provide attendees with a product update. Dave talked about the “four pillars” of our product vision, and reviewed some recent advancements in our platform. Then, he gave attendees a sneak peek into our product roadmap.
After a short break, attendees took their seats for our Care Coordination Panel, monitored by PatientPing’s Clinical Lead, Dr. Namita Seth Mohta, and led by three of our Texas community members: Janice Finder, Director of Population Health at Houston Methodist Coordinated Care, Ron McGaughy, VP of Network Development at HMG Healthcare and Janice Riggins, SVP, Home Health Clinical Services at Encompass Health.
Namita opened the discussion by acknowledging the ever-changing and complex healthcare landscape. “Care coordination is worth the investment,” she stated. “How do we as providers do that at scale, and more importantly, efficiently?”
The following topics served as a guide for the panelists during the discussion:
- Integrating mental and behavioral health with primary care
- Addressing Social determinants of health (SDOH)
- Meeting the needs of rising risk populations
- Improving measurement and evaluation of care coordination
- Committing to patient care regardless of insurance
For the next hour, panelists and members of the audience discussed how their organizations achieved success in these areas, as well as roadblocks they faced. Due to attendees and panelists representing organizations across the entire continuum, the rich conversation allowed all to gain a unique perspective on each topic, facilitating even further the communication and collaboration among various providers.
Here’s a look into just a few of the takeaways:
“Our guiding true North should always be taking care of the patients.”
“The hospital is no longer only responsible for the acute care stay; it is the entire continuum–this is a big change for the hospitals.”
“The physician is the link between the hospital and the post-acutes.”
“We have to expand the care beyond our four walls and invest in technology, and people.”
“We want to meet the patients before they are discharged. If we can better understand the dynamics of care, we can improve the safety of transitions.”
“Everybody needs to be at the table. If we do not have everyone involved in the discussion, then we will not succeed. If they are not at the table, then care guidelines become a wishlist”
These conversations continued on through lunch, where attendees were encouraged to sit with others not part of their organization. By doing so, they were able to take advantage of the unique opportunity to collaborate, network, and engage with different provider types from all over the state.
To close out the day, attendees went on to join one of our two breakout sessions; a User Discovery Session and a Strategy Breakout Session. Those attending the User Discovery Session, led by our Product Designer, Christina Raymond, talked about how their organizations were using using PatientPing, which features were utilized most frequently, along with what would be helpful from PatientPing in the future to further improve their care coordination efforts. Down the hall in the Strategy Breakout Session, providers discussed changes in the healthcare landscape and key areas of focus for 2019. We could have spent the whole day talking, and will have to pick up the conversation at the next event!
Thank you to our Texas community for coming out and making the day such a success. Stay tuned for details on our next summit!
