Mobile Care Coordination App for an HIE Provider to Increase Patient Engagement

Customer

The Customer is a US leading health information exchange (HIE) vendor.

Challenge

The Customer's business challenge was in limited HIE capabilities, unable to ensure streamlined cooperation between patients and their caregivers. The Customer decided to introduce a mobile care coordination application to evolve their HIE platform by putting patients in charge of their health data and allowing them to control the process of sharing it with their providers and close ones. Apart of that, the Customer wanted to equip the caregivers with a mobile tool to communicate with each other on the go in case of need.

Solution

The app created by our healthcare app development team is designed to support the needs of both patients and care team members, including providers, relatives and close ones. Since one person can be both a patient and a care team member at the same time, we enabled an easy patient/caregiver account toggle through the password input or fingerprint validation.

Patient account

For patients, an app is divided into two main modules – health status and care team management.

Within the health status module, the patient can view their aggregated health information from one or many providers, including:

• Diagnoses
• Vitals (including height, weight, SpO2, temperature, respiration, etc.)
• Allergies
• Medications
• Immunizations
• Payers
• Documents (including medical images, CCDs, lab results, etc.)

Here, the patient can manage data visibility and allow or deny access to certain information (e.g. medications) to a particular care team member. Moreover, if any information requires update or change (e.g., new allergy), the patient can request this change from a provider within the app and, if needed, share the update with other providers.

In the care team management module, the patient can view their care team members and invite new ones. In case the patient wants to invite a provider, he or she can pick a health specialist from the list of available providers. Besides, an invitation to providers, family and friends can be sent via email or within the app, if a future member has installed it already. Moreover, the patient can contact their caregivers using one or more channels, such as calls, video chats and secure messaging.

Caregiver account

Caregivers can access various information about their patients, including the health data they choose to share and the information about other care team members within and outside the organization, if allowed by the patient.

In case other care team members are visible to a caregiver, he or she can contact them via calls, video chats and secure messages.

They also have access to events, occurred with patients, such as:

• ADT encounter
• ER visit
• Adverse reaction to medications
• Accident requiring treatment
• Change in behavior
• Signs of depression and more

Care team members can manage their event notification preferences to get data about the events they choose via a particular channel, e.g., push notifications, fax, email, text message or secure message. Caregivers can also create events within the app, if needed.

If a provider wants to become a care team member without an invitation, he or she can send a request through the app and fill in the form with the information about their education, board of certifications, specialties, hospital, in-network health plan and more. After this information is validated, the request is either approved or rejected by the HIE specialists. In case of approval, the provider gets into the list of available providers for patients to add.

Results

ScienceSoft delivered a mobile solution to create an interconnected circle for patients and their care team members. Now, patients are in charge of their health information, aggregated from different sources, platforms and organizations, with the ability to share it with chosen caregivers. They can pick the most convenient channel and reach out to care team members, gathered in one place.

Providers, in their turn, get visibility over all their patients, their vitals, health status changes, events, emerging conditions and more. They can contact patients and other care team members in case of need. With the mobility added to care coordination, providers can ensure timely intervention and proactive approach to any condition, be it a complex chronic disease or a post-surgery recovery.

Technologies and Tools

React Native, Spring Boot.