This interview is brought to you by Forcura. This interview took place during a live Q&A session with Forcura Chief Strategy Officer Annie Erstling at the SNN RETHINK event in Chicago held on September 1, 2021. The interview has been edited for clarity.
Skilled Nursing News: We’re here today with Annie Erstling from Forcura, where she’s been for five years. Tell us what it was like as the company evolved, and talk about where it sits today.
Annie Erstling: If you don’t know who we are, Forcura is a cloud-based technology company. We work with providers across the continuum with workflow, engagement and analytic solutions that support transitions and care coordination. Forcura integrates with an Electronic Health Record (EHR) to facilitate the flow of information in a way that streamlines care processes, reduces costs and optimizes the revenue cycle while improving quality of care.
Forcura started in the home health sector with a solution that helped get orders for home health signed by a referring physician so they could bill. Since then, we’ve grown dramatically, and we’re in 7,000 provider locations across the country today. We’re moving information for about 31 million clinical transactions every year, and we have patient data for about 600,000 patients flowing through the system at any one point in time.
My background’s in health care. Most recently, I worked for René Lerer in Florida Blue. In health care, we think of technology as an enabler. We’re not a provider, we’re not an operator and we’re not a payer, but we can deliver value by equipping the system to do the things that we need. We’ve evolved from document management to data to provide a holistic view of the patient to the provider, regardless of where that patient is coming from or going to. We think that’s a huge leap in the system.
When we think about technology as an enabler, we have to remember that we can’t make as great an impact alone. Technology companies have to partner and work together to do great things. Our philosophy is that we have to work together to solve the challenges for our clients and ultimately, for patients.
Skilled Nursing News: Talk about how you’re leveraging that data and workflow to enable the value-based care model, and how that translates to SNFs.
Erstling: Value-based care is about driving quality and about patient outcomes. It’s about setting up systems that reward us for helping people manage and mitigate chronic disease. That’s what we all want for ourselves, our family members and our patients. In order to do that, we have to change the way that we’re delivering care because value-based care is just good care.
To prepare for that, we have to change the way we deliver care, putting the processes, payment models and technology in place to optimize care coordination. In the skilled nursing sector today, value-based care is not prevalent everywhere, but it’s going to be. I think it’s exciting watching health care evolve into a sustainable system.
Skilled Nursing News: How does interoperability play into that idea of partnership with respect to what [Forcura does]?
Erstling: Our platform’s workflow tools, engagement tools and analytics are all surrounded by connectivity and interoperability. All our clients want is the right data at the right time to be able to take care of the patient.
You can’t deliver value-based care without connectivity, even with the best technology in-house. There is so much interesting innovation out there, but unless the technology talks to one another, it’s irrelevant. The more data flows from one system to another, and the more that you’re able to visualize that data, the better you’ll be able to take care of a patient or a resident from onboarding through discharge.
Skilled Nursing News: Last night we were talking about how referral networks have become a part of the conversation on measuring and reporting outcomes. How is that conversation shaping up in your world, and what are the results from data you’ve collected or seen?
Erstling: I think it’s about making smart decisions around the patients you accept and manage. How do you work with your referral partners to make sure that you’re doing the right care, and how are you sharing data back? How are you talking about outcomes, and really showcasing what’s happening? I think that’s the key.
Skilled Nursing News: One of the things that we talked about with SNF providers across the country is becoming more efficient. Talk about what you’re doing with some of the clients you work with on the SNF side today.
Erstling: I am helping them do more with less. When we talk about staffing, technology is a major focus because it equips teams to work at the top of their license and add the most value. Forcura provides a lot of workflow tools that take much of the manual process out of common workflow processes like managing referrals, managing coordination with referring physicians and providers in other locations, and automating some basic decision-making. That’s one core way that skilled nursing facilities are using Forcura, alongside compliance and managing clinical information in one place.
Organizations are also using the Forcura platform for collaboration and referrals. Having tools that allow care team members in disparate locations to communicate and collaborate in patient care is another big use case for technology like Forcura.
Skilled Nursing News: There’s a lot of new technology coming to market, and there are some amazing technology companies. Talk about what everyone should consider when shopping for a new business solution.
Erstling: I think there are three core categories of technology to look at: foundational workflow technology that simplifies your processes, clinical technology that drives better outcomes, and engagement capabilities that help your staff members and your patients and caregivers change behavior to drive results. At the end of the day, technology is the enabler, so it’s about looking at your key performance indicators (KPIs) and understanding where there are opportunities to improve.
Then, once you’ve made a decision on where technology will be helpful, you have to set up your organization for implementation and adoption. You can have the best technology, but if nobody adopts it, it’s useless. We’ve had the greatest success working with organizations whose business goals we understand. We spend almost as much time understanding our clients’ businesses and their goals as we do setting up and configuring the technology. I think establishing a champion and working with your technology partners to drive adoption is key.
I think culture is also important. We talk about culture internally and with our clients. I think if you’re bringing on a partner, their vision and values should align with your organization because they’re going to be a key part of it.
This article is sponsored by Forcura, a technology company 100% focused on health care, driven to innovate and dedicated to powering your organization through better patient care, improved cash flow and reduced administrative expenses. To find out how, visit forcura.com.
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