Case Study: Align

CHALLENGE

Create a tool to effectively manage the short stay nursing home patient transition process and ensure patient outcomes once the individual is home.

Align, a post-accute care product development company is revolutionizing what is often the fragmented and difficult to evaluate process of transitioning short-stay patients back to their homes. Instead of a haphazard or rushed transition, Align wants to help facilities adopt a standardized method of preparing patients to leave the nursing home and reduce rates of emergency re-admissions.

Working with Earthling Interactive, Align set out to build a patient engagement tool that would…

• Encourage and support a collaborative relationship between patients and their caregivers.
• Give patients an actionable forum to give feedback on their experience at the facility.
• Provide caregivers with an easy to use, standardized method for preparing patients for transition.

SOLUTION

A survey, dashboard, and reporting system that facilitates a collaborative transition process between patient and facility caregivers.

Align and Earthling Interactive worked closely to design, develop and implement Engage™, a web-based product that is changing how providers manage each patient’s transition and discharge process. The Engage dashboard creates a transparent view of patients’ progress as they move from admission to ultimate transition and beyond. With a click of the mouse, caregivers can determine what the status is of patient education, who is close to discharge and still has sections of the discharge plan incomplete, how a patient felt about their admission experience, how prepared they feel they are to go home, and other key aspects of the transition planning process. The transparent, easily accessible dashboard takes the guesswork out of transition planning and provides actionable data rather than anecdotal information.

The Engage™ application offers rehabilitation centers a systematic program that will:

• Monitor and manage the patient experience.
• Trigger relevant patient education.
• Track progress to ensure that the patient is on course for a successful transition.
• Populate a post-transition follow-up process.
• Deliver a comprehensive, easy to understand set of post-transition instructions to the patient.

RESULTS

Align is introducing this powerful new tool to the marketplace. Along with the application itself, Engage™ is leading a shift in the paradigm of transition planning within short stay rehabilitation centers. Providers understand that they need to find straightforward, replicable ways to manage patient transition and are looking to Align to provide the best and easiest strategy to adopt that will help them meet their goals.

Align earned the inaugural 2014 LINK Conference Innovation Competition Award for new products introduced to the senior living marketplace for the Engage™ application.