Patients First Act: New Ontario Legislation Will Dramatically Affect Community Care

A new legislation was introduced in Ontario today called The Patients First Act that, if passed, would improve access to care, and help strengthen patient-centric healthcare in Ontario overall.

The Act would give Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) increased capacity and responsibility with hopes that they will improve and integrate the planning and delivery of front-line services. Additional changes would be easier access to care, improved technological integration, better coordination and continuity of care, and increased patient empowerment.

The Patients First proposal highlighted four key priorities in their engagement plan:

1. Effective Integration of Services and Greater Equity Through Sub-Regions
2. Timely Access to and Better Integration of Primary Care
3. More Consistent and Accessible Home & Community Care
4. Stronger Links to Population & Public Health

This legislation represents an outline for healthcare transformation in Ontario and could mean big changes for the home care industry come April 2017.

As the industry changes, your home health software solution needs to stay updated in order to meet these challenges. Here are the some of the AlayaCare features we believe you need in order to thrive in the Patient First environment:

Encourages interoperability and data sharing

The Patients First Act proposes improved information sharing through the expansion of technology infrastructures.

In order to operate efficiently, health organizations need full visibility into all organizational and clinical data in order to improve processes and client outcomes. This information should also easily float across the continuum of care. AlayaCare is a cloud-based platform equipped with restful APIs and the ability to support third party integrations; it is the closest thing to a true platform in home care and provides a combination of functionality, flexibility and efficiency.

Equipped with custom reporting decision support

The Act also proposes measuring success by monitoring performance results, including system, health and equity outcomes, through a sub-region dashboard and public reporting.

The AlayaCare platform comes equipped with configurable key performance indicators (KPIs), filters, and a drag and drop report building feature to help providers quickly and easily pull the information they need to the forefront. The platform also offers configurable optimization and machine learning decision support to help providers more efficiently improve client outcomes.

Patient-centric features and capabilities

With patients and their families at the core of this potential new health system, care providers need the appropriate tools to support increased effective, evidence-based care across the province. AlayaCare provides innovative technologies such as a Mobile Care App, Telehealth Dashboard, Family Portal, Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) software, Electronic Visit Verification System and Machine Learning algorithm-based clinical support tools, which allow for better coordination and quality of care across the healthcare continuum.

These characteristics will give providers the tools they need to embrace the shifting home care landscape, and allow them to get the most out of technology in order to improve client care. Request a demo of the AlayaCare platform today, and one of our reps will walk you through our truly flexible solution in way that is tailored to your current processes.