Thanacare's HIPAA-compliant platform enables healthcare professionals of all shapes and sizes to remotely engage their patients to capture, certify, and make accessible their healthcare directives and wishes. Out-of-the-box obtain capabilities related to clinical, operational, and financial needs.
Background
International Doula Life Movement (IDLM) dual wields Thanacare to empower death doula's education and professional tools
Challenge
IDLM, an end-of-life care training and certification firm, sought a software solution to provide a dual utility: power death doula student’s education and, upon graduation, become a professional tool to death doulas to service clients
Solution
With Thanacare, IDLM digitizes end-of-life planning education documents while providing graduates with an end of life care platform that enables professionals to engage more clients, save time and energy, and more efficiently manage client’s end of life documents and wishes
Benefits
Save Time: IDLM leadership and students each save ~20 hours per week by eliminating paper-intensive processes and utilizing Thanacare to efficiently complete, certify, and store end of life documents
Scale Experience: By digitizing end of life education and documents, IDLM and graduating Doulas reach more clients with Thanacare’s modern capture, certification, and sharing capabilities, using QR Codes and Video Wishes
Seamless Management
Utilizing a strong permissions framework that ensures different resources are protected on a granular basis, Thanacare allows diverse interdisciplinary teams to coalesce around the patient, family, and loved ones during end of life
Background
A palliative and hospice care team provides comprehensive end-of-life care to patients and resources for their loved ones. The interdisciplinary team utilizes culturally sensitive materials in a remote and in-person setting to improve the understanding and quality during end-of-life care.
Challenge
The nursing managers oversee a remote, specialized palliative and hospice team to better serve patient needs at end of life and desired a solution that would save time for management and patients alike, improve the patient and provider experience with modern end-of-life care documentation, and allow their cultural care initiatives to scale effectively while giving patients improved ownership over their death process.
Solution
Time Efficiency: The integrated Thanacare platform allows team leaders to easily create, distribute, and manage end-of-life care documents that are culturally specific from patient to patient from one easy to use tool. Patients and loved ones easily access personalized documentation in a hybrid environment, eliminating the need for multiple platforms and saving time for both providers and patients.
Enhanced Experience: By onboarding diverse, remote teams to a permission-based platform to seamlessly and securely manage unique patient needs at end of life, the nurse managers improved providers and patients experienced by offering more cohesive and user-friendly experience. Patients' preferences and decisions were accurately captured, ensuring their end-of-life wishes were respected. In addition, the interdisciplinary team found new ways in which to engage patients, impacting the meaningfulness of interactions and subsequent care.
Outcomes
Scalable Education & Care: Education and documentation initiatives could now scale more effectively due to the efficient tool. Reaching patients upstream with personalized end of life documents allows provider to focus on educating on options rather than dealing with complex paper-intensive procedures. This enabled the managers to reach a wider patient audience.
Collaborative Care: The integrated platform fostered collaboration among all stakeholders responsible for end-of-life care, including healthcare providers, patients, caregivers, and instructors. Communication and coordination improved, leading to better patient experience and care outcomes.
Background
A large hospital system in the midwest recently re-evaluated their end of life care strategies and tools, focusing on patient and provider challenges related to time, education, and experience. Their goal was to raise advance directive completion rates across populations while improving the care experience for all involved.
Challenge
A homegrown end of life care technology solution no longer provided the efficiencies and experience desired by leadership. Besides the obvious costs of maintaining technology, the deployment of technology failed to scale and make meaningful impact on patient and provider experience and total cost of care.
Solution
Support Primary Care Providers: PCP refer patients to Thanacare nurses, social workers, and community health workers to complete advance directives and other end of life care directives, which are then delivered to PCP for review and signature resulting in a better, more cohesive conversation between PCP and patient.
EMR Integration: The integrated tool allowed providers to easily access and manage end-of-life care scenarios without creating new and unfamiliar workflows. Providers in the ER, ICU, and other areas that require quick decision-making have immediate access and confidence in a patient's wishes and desired experience. The integration of Thanacare's platform into the EMR resulted in raising ACP completion rates from 4.9% to 91% in targeted populations.
Outcomes
Personalized EoL Experience: By using Thanacare across disciplines, an interdisciplinary team made up of PCP, Palliative and Hospice, Chaplain and Death Doula, is aligned around patient's personal end of life care wishes
Scalable ACP: Meeting the patient where they are is crucial to providing the best end of life experience. Whether that is in the home, on the road, or in the hospital, the provider is confident that the correct and culturally relevant forms and conversations are being had and documented appropriately, allowing the organization to reach diverse populations.
Too often it is easier to say "yes" to additional treatment, rather than "no, let's not do anything more" when it may mean preserving quality of life. Planning and thoughtfully discussing and documenting wishes will make the end-of-life process better, softer, more peaceful, and less stressful for patients and their loved ones.
The platform helps achieve Quintuple Aim goals by giving healthcare professionals and patients a tool in which they can leverage ACP to have a better user experience. This improved control over end-of-life medical decisions results in reduced stress and more confidence for all stakeholders.
