Wound care is a significant healthcare challenge. It costs the healthcare industry 28–96 billion USD per year, and it impacts nearly 2.5% of the US population. Wound care in skilled nursing facilities is especially challenging, both due to patient health factors and the difficulties that clinicians face as they seek to provide adequate care.
Thankfully, the advanced functionalities that electronic health records (EHR) possess can help improve wound care in skilled nursing facilities. Having the right tool can not only facilitate communication between providers, but can deliver faster, clearer insights into the status of a patient's wound. This helps patients receive better care, and ultimately improve quality of life (QoL).
The Challenge of Wound Care in Skilled Nursing Facilities
Skilled nursing facilities face a host of challenges every day. These challenges serve as roadblocks to providing adequate wound care, so facilities seeking to improve their wound care processes must take active steps to overcome them. Some of the main challenges to delivering quality wound care in skilled nursing facilities are:
- Complexity. Wounds can cause a high degree of physical and emotional pain for the patient, and can lead to infection, sepsis, and even death. They are also often accompanied by other health conditions, so their complexity requires treatment at multiple levels.
- Access. Some clinics and hospitals have developed wound care centers to address the need for the specialized care that wound treatment requires, but it still may be difficult for skilled nursing facilities to help their patients access the available resources. The result is that providers within skilled nursing facilities may be left on their own to provide the specialized care that their patients need.
- Communication. The complex treatment requirements of wound care causes them not to fall under a single specialty, but to be handled by multiple clinicians. This can result in a communication breakdown between clinicians, leading to knowledge gaps in how to provide the best care.
Another key challenge of wound care in skilled nursing facilities is cost. Wounds can be difficult to manage, often taking a long time to heal, requiring frequent hospital admissions, and additional equipment for treatment. The process only takes longer when suboptimal treatment plans are in place, which can often occur due to limited access and miscommunication between clinicians. These setbacks further elevate the cost of wound care, damaging profitability as well as patient health outcomes.
How EHR Tools Drive Better Wound Care
EHR tools can help clinicians overcome the challenges that they face in providing quality wound care in skilled nursing facilities. Their functionalities can drive better communication, facilitate access, and give better insights into the best wound treatment plan possible. Here's how.
Features
EHR tools come with multiple functionalities that can help yield better insights into the status of a patient's health. For example, some wound care tools integrate into EHR systems to take pictures of a patient's wound, automatically measure wound depth, and record observations. These features enable clinicians to better track the progress of a patient's health and create a treatment plan that will put their patients on the road to recovery.
Documentation
The main function of an EHR platform is to help clinicians better record their tasks. A quality EHR tool should provide an intuitive interface and a seamless user experience, so that they can thoroughly, efficiently, document all necessary aspects of each patient's care.
Not only do these documentation capabilities facilitate clearer communication between clinicians — which in turn allows better treatment plans for better wound care — they can also streamline healthcare operations while boosting profitability. Clearer communication allows clinicians at each phase to perform their tasks without confusion, and EHR tools can reduce the time spent on documentation — which takes up a significant part of their time. Thorough documentation also can lead to higher reimbursement rates for skilled nursing facilities, meaning that the right EHR tool can combat the cost of wound care.
Access
Because wound care management can be so complex, it's often helpful to have a resource to consult for best practices. Some EHR tools come equipped with a knowledge portal that clinicians can access to find helpful information on proper wound treatment. This asset is especially helpful for skilled nursing facilities that may not have a specialized wound care center nearby, or that may have difficulty helping their patients access them.
Knowledge is power in healthcare, so access to more resources means better wound care in skilled nursing facilities.
What to Look for in an EHR Tool
EHR systems could be highly beneficial for improving wound care in skilled nursing facilities, but choosing the right one can take some thought. In addition to the above capabilities, your EHR tool should be:
- Interoperable with other health systems
- Cost-effective enough for implementation
- Supported by a team of helpful technicians
Another key feature to look for in an EHR tool is AI. From improving coding processes to identifying gaps in documentation, there are many uses of AI in EHR systems, so look for one that's complete with the functionalities that your facility needs.
ChartPath: Empowering Better Wound Care in Skilled Nursing Facilities
With its heavy financial cost, difficult treatment, and high frequency in the US population, wound care is a prominent pain point within the healthcare industry. Health factors such as comorbidities, aging, and pre-existing conditions make wound care especially challenging, while operational factors such as provider shortages, lack of communication, and scarcity of wound-related knowledge complicate patient care even further. Implementing the proper EHR tool can solve many of these operational challenges, empowering providers to give better wound care in skilled nursing facilities.
ChartPath's EHR platform has been an industry leader amongst long-term care post-acute care (LTPAC) facilities since 2012. Our solutions facilitate communication between clinicians, and tools such as Woundzoom integrate with our platform to provide functionalities such as image recording and automatic depth measurement, better tracking the healing process. Armed with these capabilities, clinicians can provide better wound care in skilled nursing facilities, improving patient health outcomes and increasing profitability at the same time.
If you'd like to see how ChartPath can elevate your wound care processes, contact us to request a demo today.
