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 Concerted Care Group/Harwood Labs Interoperability Pilot
Pilot Overview
The Interoperability Pilot, with pilot participants Topline Healthcare, Concerted Care Group (CCG) and Harwood Labs, was designed around efficiency in interoperability, improved communication with providers, and increased patient care with focus on the Opioid Crisis.
Addiction is a disease. The first step to understanding this problem is to determine how it can be successfully treated while maximizing outcomes. Part of the treatment is education on the use of medications. In many cases, prescriptions for these medications are being over prescribed due to the healthcare’s emphasis on believing that pain is individual.
In this study, we found that by using more intensive treatment, 98% of people in Intensive Out Patient (IOP) were successful in transitioning to outpatient care and successfully moved from addiction to treatment. Those patients not in IOP that were in regular outpatient care were 30% more likely to have a positive lab result than those in IOP. We found that the patients dealing with the underlying issues did better in the program. The revision rate difference was substantial and supports the need for more intensive treatment of these patients. This success rate was based on a multidisciplinary approach to care. Harwood Labs electronically added drug testing result with direct access to the provider for any results. Whether there was a positive result and the provider was flagged for intervention on a negative lab, all the results were available to the providers in an electronic format. This allowed better care.
The ability of systems to effectively, efficiently and properly exchange information via electronic submission of testing, results and patients care notes is highly important and key to the overall success of change in healthcare today. In this Interoperability Pilot, along with two other studies, Topline Healthcare and their partners have shown that better communication leads to better outcomes of care. And, as proven in many studies, better communication between providers leads to better care of patients.