Taking care of your elderly – SigmaCare

The human society faced it a long time ago: the average lifespan has dramatically increased. More and more people are living longer, despite all the illnesses the new age still has no cure for. Senior living, for example, looks like this: some of the elders are living in nursing homes or facilities specifically designed for their age group, and some with their family members. But the issue with the latter is the fact that the family members are generally just that, not medical professionals. The need for transfer of the patient to the hospital for treating the current deterioration of chronical state, or diagnosis and medical care of acute illnesses is also present, and numerous studies show that on the way to the hospital medical stuff has problems with obtaining information about previous medications (specific time, dosage, etc.) taken by the patient. All of these problems can be resolved using electronic health records (EHR), and they can be utilized with, for instance, this clinical platform: SigmaCare.

Preface

When SigmaCare was first presented back in 2005, it was one of the few EHR tools available in the then pioneer field of long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC). The properties of SigmaCare were built around the main idea of tracking the records of patients who are in need of assisted living or are simply forgettable due to their age. Apart from obvious benefit for the patients and enhancement in provided care, SigmaCare claims to reduce the medical costs in general, mostly from avoiding re-hospitalizations and prescribing errors, but also thanks to increased reimbursement. The process of providing SigmaCare’s services in one’s organization is meticulous: the initial meeting to get to know the need and understand the ways of functioning of their customer is followed by the phase of adaptation and optimization of the software for particular working environment, and finalized with the training provided both live and on the online learning center. The latter contains instructive animations and an option for self-assessment.

First and foremost, electronic medical records are meant to prevent overmedication, possible mistakes in changes in types of medications, as well as changes in dosage and timing – all relevant parameters for the right treatment of the patient. SigmaCare software is designed particularly for this purpose. Cloud-based service enables the medical personnel to access the needed data at any time and place. The records are previously entered into the software by healthcare providers in the long-term facility objects or hospital where patient was treated. As stated on their website, SigmaCare technology allows your organization to stay Mobile, Informed and Connected®. The presence of EHR proved to be especially convenient in the moments of patient transfer from one facility to another, even if the destination is just a part of the same institution.

SigmaCare features

Sigma care provides multiple solutions. As stated before, the package can be and usually is individually tailored, with options of computer physician order entry, medication management, complete electronic health records, as well as financials. One of the greatest improvements comparing to previous versions is fully integrated clinical decision support (CDS) and analytics, based on the resident data, interoperability, best practices and clinical intelligence, all of which is then also available to the caregiver. The real-time dashboard makes the information plain for all the members of the care-giving team. The contents also include automated electronic medical administration records (eMAR) and electronic treatment administration record (eTAR) updates, so some of the paperwork is in fact done by the software itself.

Electronic health records give long-term care providers and post-acute care providers real time data that is accessible in matter of minutes and, even more important, can be relied on. It helps track medication type, dosage, clinical assessment of the patient, electronic prescribing of the medications, along with the resident-specific alerts.

Get more information about SigmaCare by visiting SigmaCare’s profile on DiscoverCloud.com

Read more on about SigmaCare on DiscoverCloud’s knowledge base.