My CurrentCare Story

Kathleen Kristopik

Registered Nurse
The Providence Center

Below are excerpts from a recorded webinar, where Kathy shared how CurrentCare helps her "all the time!" View the full recording.

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I use CurrentCare constantly. It is the first thing I go to when I want to find lab results. This morning, I came in and had a client who had lab work yesterday. At 8am, I didn't have to wait on hold, and the results were in the doctor's hands in a few minutes. It's much, much faster.

I tend to have it open for each client that comes in so that if they have been to somebody since the last time I saw them, I can go over with them exactly what it says in CurrentCare.

What information do you find most useful?
One of the things that I use it for on a very consistent basis (and I've become dependent on it for) is … we have clients on a medication called Clorazil, and they have to have a weekly CBC done for 6 months, then at different timeframes. We cannot provide the medication until we have submitted the CBC. Using CurrentCare avoids having to call the lab again and again, or standing by the fax machine. It has been a real-time saver for me.

We're part of a health home team and we are very holistic in our approach. A lot of my patients have a lot of chronic conditions, diabetes in particular. We work with them around managing their blood sugar. I can go into CurrentCare and graph out for them their Hemoglobin A1C changes over a period of time, in respect to what they've been eating or dietary changes they've made, or changes in their medication or medication adherence.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
If I know someone has gone to the emergency room, being able to look up their results is really helpful. It avoids phone calls and faxes. Or if a client has missed an appointment, we check CurrentCare and often find out that they're in the hospital. We want to be involved in their discharge planning. CurrentCare is great because it briefly shows why they are in the hospital so we can reach out to the family.

I try to get an idea of what they need to do, so I can encourage them and coordinate with their care providers. We frequently see clients more than their primary care doctor does. With CurrentCare, we're able to consistently reinforce the messages as to what is being done and what the plan is, so the clients will hopefully have a better outcome.

Amy Malo

Nurse Care Manager Liaison
The Providence Center

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
In my role as Nurse Care Manager Liaison at The Providence Center, I have always used CurrentCare. It has helped me greatly reduce the amount of time I spend on the phone calling for information about my patients. Previously, when I worked in home care, I did not have access to CurrentCare.  I had to spend time calling for my patients’ records to get the information I needed.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
As a Nurse Care Manager Liaison, we follow patients who are medically hospitalized. It’s very helpful to get preliminary information such as labs, documents, and diagnostic imagining results prior to a patient being discharged from the hospital.  In CurrentCare, I am able to review medication list changes from the hospital upon discharge, so we can go over the changes with the patient and other providers involved in the patient’s care. With the information we find in CurrentCare, I am able to schedule follow-up appointments, help prevent hospital readmissions, and ensure patients receive the proper level of care needed post-discharge.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare is easy to use, and it significantly cuts down the amount of time I spend calling looking for lab results, and other important clinical information on my patients. The data in CurrentCare is updated in almost real-time, so it’s nice to have the information so quickly and readily available when I need it.

Emily Buor

Registered Nurse
The Providence Center

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
As a new nurse working at The Providence Center, I find the use of CurrentCare a valuable tool in the holistic approach to client care. CurrentCare helps me gather the information I need to provide a greater level of care for my patients.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
CurrentCare really helps with painting a whole picture of a client. It helps narrow down my patients’ health needs and provides a more focused understanding of what their critical issues are. Using the CurrentCare Viewer has been particularly beneficial when providing care for patients with complex health problems. For example, for patients with a history of trauma or brain injury, they often suffer from memory loss. When I meet with patients, I need to ask questions such as, “when did you last see your primary care provider or specialist?” I also need to know when they have had injections (such as flu shots and other vaccinations) from their primary care provider. They are frequently unable to remember these important details and have a difficult time providing all the information I need. If they are enrolled in CurrentCare, I can often find the answers to such questions, along with additional details that help to provide a greater understanding of my patients’ health.

CurrentCare is also valuable when finalizing the full head to toe nursing assessment that we complete once a year for our patients at The Providence Center. For these thorough assessments, CurrentCare is an aid in providing accurate and necessary detail.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare makes my experience better as a nurse. When I’m not with a client, I feel I am still able to manage their care and follow their well-being. If I haven’t heard from a particular client for a few months, I can check in CurrentCare to see if they went to the ED or had surgery. When I don’t receive discharge paperwork, CurrentCare helps so I can have the information I need to better coordinate with Primary Care. The discharge summary also helps a lot. Frequently, clients don’t know what to do next after they have been discharged from a hospital but I can provide better support when I get the information I need.

Jade Spliethof

Open MRI, North Smithfield 

Christine Pretto

Open MRI, North Smithfield  

How did things take place before CurrentCare?

For patients who are over 60, as well as patients with diabetes and kidney anomalies, we often need to check their Creatinine levels before they have certain tests. Before we had CurrentCare, we would have to call the lab and wait on hold before we could get the information we needed. If it was after hours and we were unable to get the lab on the line, we would be out of luck: the patient would have to reschedule and have the test at a later time. Also, sometimes elderly patients do not remember having had bloodwork done and we wouldn’t have any way to get this necessary information.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?

Using CurrentCare, we can get the lab information we need and we don’t have to wait on hold. With CurrentCare, we are all set: it has saved us quite a few times! The patient doesn’t lose the time slot and have to reschedule. It’s also helpful because getting everything done on the same day makes the billing process easier, too.

CurrentCare is useful for a number of other situations. For example, when elderly patients don’t remember having had a Creatinine test in the last 6 months, we can check CurrentCare. Sometimes we find they have a result in CurrentCare and the patient does not need to get duplicate testing done. We also use CurrentCare to check to see what other providers they have seen before. Sometimes the patients don’t remember this information, as well. Finally, in some cases, we can use CurrentCare to pull previous imaging reports for comparison.We tell our patients that CurrentCare saves cost and time. In particular, patients can avoid duplicate testing! If a patient has an accident or situation where they are unconscious, the responders can see “this patient has XYZ” in CurrentCare. It can be a lifesaving measure. We include the CurrentCare enrollment form with our sign-in paperwork so all of our patients have the opportunity to sign-up

How does that impact your life/work?

CurrentCare makes our work much easier: it saves time. It also makes our patients happy because they don’t have to reschedule and they avoid having duplicate testing. When patients don’t remember having had their bloodwork done and we find their results in CurrentCare, they are very are happy that they don’t need to get it re-done!

Laurie Bowie

Scheduling
Advanced Radiology, Inc.

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Before I used CurrentCare, I was making a lot of phone calls and faxing information out. I was on the phone a lot! I would have to call doctors’ offices and labs because patients frequently did not know if they had their Creatinine checked. Not having the patient’s Creatinine value was causing patient appointments to get pushed-out because I would have to wait for someone from the doctor’s office to get back to me and see if they had the information we needed. I would sometimes have to chase down the information and call different labs because I wouldn’t know which lab the patient had gone to.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
During my work day, I keep the Viewer log-in page open and ready. When I need to check for a patient’s Creatinine value, I simply go to CurrentCare Viewer, enter in the patient’s date of birth, and see if they are in the system. If I have previously found the patient in CurrentCare, I always enter their CurrentCare number in my notes in the patient chart, so I can make the patient search process even quicker next time I search. Once I open the patient’s CurrentCare record, all I have to do is go to the Patient Summary, hit Ctrl-F, and quickly search for the information I need.  If the Creatinine value is there, most of the time I can get the patient in for their test that day or the next day. While I am checking the patient’s CurrentCare record, I also look for previous diagnostic reports. If I see a previous diagnostic study, I will print it, scan it into our system and have it available for the radiologist to review. I also have patients enroll in CurrentCare. I simply keep the enrollment form on the registration clipboard so patients can sign-up if they are interested.  (*Laurie was the winner of the April 2016 Massage Envy, CurrentCare Enrollment contest!)

How does that impact your life/work?
Having access to CurrentCare takes a lot of stress out of my life. I don’t have to worry about making phone calls and calling doctors’ offices. It’s like a ‘little bible’ on my desktop. It makes it so much easier: no more phone calls- I love it! Also, I can rely on getting information about diagnostic reports right from the source, rather than from the patient, so, it can make the radiologist’s job easier as well.

Claire Melley

Lead CIM (Clinical Information Manager)
Our Lady of Fatima Hospital

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
“I have enjoyed using Current Care. It has been helpful in several circumstances, especially people who are unable to provide their own history. Also, it is a very fast process.”

 What information do you find most useful?
“The tool I use the most is old EKGs, which can be very useful especially if there is an abnormality. ”

Denise Beauchamp

Lead Medical Assistant
Thundermist Health Center - South County

Denise was the winner of the “CurrentCare On the Spot Award” - Highest Viewer Use - July 2015!

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I think CurrentCare is the BEST resource healthcare providers can have access to in Rhode Island! CurrentCare is really good for when you need something quick that you're having trouble finding somewhere else. It's good for large quantities of patient data that you need to go through, and it reports from all over the state. It's really convenient and helpful when you're trying to treat somebody that you haven't seen in a while or who is just getting out of the hospital. You have everything right there at your fingertips!

Using CurrentCare allows me to access all of our patients who have signed up, whether they come to our facility or not. It allows me to see the information if they've been for specific visits or if they've changed a provider and we don't know

What information do you find most useful?
CurrentCare has been very helpful in allowing me to go in to all of our female patients in a certain demographic age group to see if they've had a pap, as long as they've signed up with CurrentCare in the last 3 years or so. All we have to do is pull the report, and it's very easy to print. We put it in their chart and we've satisfied our goal for that patient.

Usually we have quality measures that we are working on for a particular quarter. I print a list for each provider of all their patients missing that information within whatever demographic we're looking for. I go patient by patient to see if they are in CurrentCare, and pull out the appropriate information.

It is very helpful for certain hospitals that we don't have quick access to. It gives us a starting point on where to look for more information, or who to call more quickly. We recently had a patient where the provider needed information right then and there to do a follow up hospitalization. The only place we could find anything on them was through CurrentCare. The provider could see that the patient had X-rays and lab work and it was all printed out … very helpful!

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
I use CurrentCare to find when patients have changed PCPs and then we can mark them as inactive in our EHR (which removes them from our data and saves us time). I happened to notice a trend when I was trying to find information about a pap for a particular patient. She had three or four visits with a specific provider. I called the patient who confirmed she transferred her care to the provider listed in CurrentCare encounter screen and ultimately, the patient was inactivated in our system. Why do work you don't have to?

Where I find it's the most helpful is when you have a large quantity of data that you want to go through and you're looking for something specific. You can just zip right through! For cleanup of different reports, it's very helpful! It absolutely helps (by far and away) save a lot of time!

Karen Brunetti

Medical Assistant
Coastal Medical - Health and Education Center

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
It allows me to see recent vaccines (under medications), and whether a patient has had a more recent mammogram than what is in their chart. It also helps us to see if they have had a recent mammogram or colonoscopy at Lifespan hospitals (under encounters). Occasionally you can also find pathology under labs and of course, labwork ordered by other providers at Lifespan or East Side.

What information do you find most useful? 
I find the imaging and medications most useful as you can locate vaccinations they may have had at CVS/Rite Aid/Walgreens without having to call the pharmacy or the imaging center.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
I do not believe most people are aware that you can locate vaccines on CurrentCare under medications. They are usually located within all of the medications for a patient and can save a lot of time from calling pharmacies for flu and pneumonia vaccines.

Brenda Claudio

Medical Assistant
Anchor Medical Associates- Providence

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Before I had access to CurrentCare, I needed my patients to sign a release form in order to get access to their most recent Pap smear and Mammogram results. This meant I had to wait until my patients came in for their appointments to sign a release form. Once the release was signed, I had to wait an additional 2 weeks before I could get the results. I was not able to review my patients’ Pap smear and Mammogram results ahead of time, therefore I could not discuss the results with patients at their appointment. This proved to be very challenging and frustrating to me. I also spent a lot of time on the phone calling for additional labs and information.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
With CurrentCare, I am now able to get access to Pap smear and Mammogram results for my CurrentCare enrolled patients. In just a few clicks I am able to access lab results, discharge documents, and other important clinical data very quickly. I’m also able to find new providers that my patients are seeing. This helps me get the information I need before my patients come in for their appointment.

How does that impact your life/work?
Now that I have access to my patients’ Pap smear and Mammogram results in CurrentCare, I don’t have to wait to for my patients to come in to sign a release form. It has drastically reduced the amount of time I spend on the phone calling and waiting for lab results to come in. I am able to review the results with my patients when they come in for their appointments, as well as complete the patients’ health records with the most up-to-date information. I encourage all of my patients to enroll in CurrentCare!

Alison Delano

Medical Assistant
Thundermist Health Center - West Warwick

Alison was the winner of the “CurrentCare On the Spot Award” - Highest Viewer Use - May 2015!

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
Monthly, we get reports of who needs a pap, or I ask patients at the time of the visit about when they last had one. Then I'll look them up on CurrentCare. It's easy!

If a patient has seen a specialist and they're not sure who it was, or if they've had a colonoscopy and they don't know who did it, I'll check in CurrentCare to see where they went. We need that for our records.

When we talk with patients about enrolling, I think some might not realize how helpful CurrentCare is. Instead of having to repeat a test, their caregivers could look up the results!

What information do you find most useful? 
We have to report on quality measures like mammograms or paps, to make sure patients are up to date. I use CurrentCare to check for results.  

And I look up imaging results that they might have had in another doctor's office. Or if somebody is not really sure where they went, I'll look to see what I can find, because it might say what doctor they saw. There is a lot of information on there for some of the patients!

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
I use a lot of different systems to find patient information. I look on hospital systems such as Cerner and Lifespan, and also CurrentCare. I try to find as much as possible to help our providers and our quality reporting.

I would say always check CurrentCare because there is a lot of information. Even if it's something you don't need right now, you can look and maybe they went for some imaging that you didn't know about. It can be really helpful!

Anabel Garcia

Administrative Medical Assistant
BVCHC Central Falls

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Before I had CurrentCare, I found it difficult because I had to make a lot of calls requesting medical records for patients who had been to the ER. Sometimes it was hard to get through to someone, so I would have to call for the same patient several times. Even If I got through, they wouldn’t fax the information right to me when I needed it. Also, sometimes a patient would report that they had labs or radiology testing done at the ED. In these cases, I would often have to verify what was done and call back again to specifically request this additional information be faxed.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
With CurrentCare, it’s much easier to get the information I need. As long as the patient is enrolled and went to a hospital that is a data sharing partner, everything I need is at the tip of my fingers with just a click of a button. I don’t have to call anyone and be put on hold. In less than 5 minutes, I can get the information I am looking for in the Viewer and take care of the patient right then and there. This prevents us from having an incomplete visit with a patient (and having to get information after), which is very important.

I think we need to continue to encourage patients- both adults and pediatric- to enroll. It’s really beneficial and helps us to provide the best care we can. A patient’s primary care doctor can know what was done during their ER visit, which can really help make it a great visit.

How does that impact your life/work?
Having CurrentCare makes me feel like I have one less “click” in my day. Instead of having to pick-up the phone and wait for someone to fax the information I need, I save time and get it right away from the CurrentCare database. At BVCHC Central Falls, we also appreciate the support and feedback we have gotten from the staff at RIQI. Alex has been really helpful and provided answers and support when I needed it.

Cathy Lopes

Medical Assistant
Coastal Medical - Garden City

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I use Current Care on a regular basis with my pre-visit planning, or for tracking mammograms, labwork and flu shots.

What information do you find most useful?
We track a lot of things for meaningful use and of course so that we do not repeat a test that has already been done:  mammograms, labwork, bone density, flu shots, hospital visits, etc.

I like the fact that I can look up diagnostic imaging now. I find a lot of mammogram results there.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
CurrentCare is a great way to make sure there are no gaps in our patient’s care. Rather than having to call the patient, lab or pharmacy, I can very easily go to CurrentCare and look for the information I need

Jocelyn Magno

Medical Assistant
Thundermist Health Center – Woonsocket

Below are excerpts from a recorded webinar, where Jocelyn shared how she uses CurrentCare "on a daily basis!" View the full recording.

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I use CurrentCare on a daily basis. If the provider needs a lab or a diagnostic result, I can just login to CurrentCare and I can see if that's available. Instead of me calling all the facilities trying to track down the record, I'm able to just login and see if right from there.

I find it useful because you can see a lot of information so I don't have to go through a lot of steps to obtain reports. I'm able to go into CurrentCare and can see if the patient had a pap done. I can print that out, give it to the provider, the provider signs off on it, and it goes right into the patient's chart. It saves me a lot of time.

What information do you find most useful?
Most of time, I use the Patient Summary report because that shows me every lab, every emergency visit, all their medications. It's especially good because there are a lot of providers working here, and they all need the reports. So instead of me calling everywhere trying to obtain all the records, I can go on CurrentCare and I can see what information is available to me and to the provider. If the information they are looking for is not there, I can go to other sources.

I find a lot of colonoscopies, pathology reports, and pap reports that the provider may need. It's easier for me to go into CurrentCare instead of going through all the emergency portals and digging through those files.

A lot of the time a patient will tell the provider that they have been to the emergency room or hospital or urgent care, and we don't have any documentation of that. I am able to go into CurrentCare and look up to see when their last hospital visit was, to see if any new meds were prescribed, and if any imaging or labs were done. I can then call the facility to get the full record.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
The first thing I do when I get in is login and check my reports from the day before. I also go in frequently throughout the day to see if there is anything (colonoscopy, pap) that the doctor might need. That way when they go in with the patient, they are able to have the information in front of them and they don't have to send me a message to obtain the reports.

Fallon Arcand

Medical Assistant
Cardiovascular Institute of NE

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
In my role as a Medical Assistant, I regularly prepare patient charts for scheduled appointments. Before I used CurrentCare, it was hectic and time consuming to find the data I needed. I had to use multiple web-based hospital resources to find the information I was looking for about my patients. With having to log-in and find data in numerous places, it wasn’t easy to access. Often, I couldn’t print what I needed. Also, sometimes I would have to make phone calls when I couldn’t find the information on-line.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now, I use CurrentCare on a daily basis for chart prep. It’s really a great asset to chart prepping! With CurrentCare, the hospital encounter information, laboratory results and medication lists I need are very accessible for my patients who are enrolled. It’s easy for the doctor to access, too! There have been times when I search a hospital site and don’t see the information I am looking for. But, when I log into CurrentCare, the lab that I need is there. Also, being able to access other doctor’s reports and find information when a patient’s prescriptions are changed is extremely helpful.

How does that impact your life/work?
Having access to CurrentCare impacts my work because it really helps get the prepping done in a timely manner. It’s faster, and gives me more information verses having to go on different sites and checking around for information. When patients are enrolled in CurrentCare, everything I need is all in one place.

Jessica Godena

Medical Assistant
Asthma & Allergy Physicians of RI

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
At Asthma and Allergy Physicians of RI, Medical Assistants complete chart prep and rooming tasks to help make patient visits as thorough and efficient as possible. Before we had CurrentCare, we would have to rely on our patients’ knowledge of their own medications, which wasn’t always completely accurate and detailed. As far as getting other important information, such as lab results and x-rays, often we could not get this data until the day of the appointment.  We would need to ask the patient where they went to get the test done and then call the facility to have the results faxed to us. This was time consuming - we would have to wait for the results and this would slow down our schedule for the day.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now that we are using CurrentCare for patients who are enrolled we can complete a medication reconciliation that is more accurate as far as documenting dosages and strengths of the medications being taken. (Patients often don’t know or specifically remember this information). In CurrentCare, we are able to look at the prescription details as they are written by the prescribing physician. Additionally, we can expedite lab results and other clinically relevant information. We can get the data we need before the patient even arrives, so the visit can be smoother and no one has to wait.

How does that impact your life/work?
Having CurrentCare makes our lives easier and keeps our schedule moving efficiently throughout the day. We are able to manage our time better and often have the information we need in advance of a patient’s visit. When we can provide a better medication reconciliation along with the lab and x-ray data that is needed, the providers are appreciative and happy. This dynamic keeps all staff positive and improves satisfaction in the patient care we provide.

Jake Mello

Registered Medical Assistant
University Gastroenterology

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Before I had CurrentCare, in advance of patient appointments, I used to send out letters requesting records from primary care physicians. If we didn’t get the records in time (prior to a patient’s appointment), I would have to call and have the records sent to our main fax. Before CurrentCare, most of the records came in through our fax servers. For a last minute appointment, I would typically have to call the provider’s office and verbally request the information be sent.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now, I’m able to get between 50-80% of the patient data we need from CurrentCare. While there is some additional work involved for me in this process, it is better for the practice, as we have guaranteed access to the records (rather than having to rely on another practice to send them). Since I am the one pulling the records, I have to put them into the patient charts (an extra step that I didn’t have as often before, as faxes are handled by other staff) but we can more reliably get the data we need with CurrentCare. This is also more efficient for the other practices, as I don’t have to call them and ask them to take the time to send the information to us.

How does that impact your life/work?
The doctors are glad that I am able to get the data they need from CurrentCare. When the patient records are in the charts, the doctors are happy and everything runs on time. With this process in place, things are more efficient and patients have their appointments on time. While there is more work for me, the data is better and we don’t have as many last minute issues when we don’t receive data.

Andrea (Andi) Lamont

Nurse Care Manager
Rhode Island Primary Care Physicians Corporation (RIPCPC)

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
First, as I am in several different practices, getting the CurrentCare Hospital Alerts on a daily basis keeps me informed of what is happening at the other practices when I am not there, or if they fall behind on keeping a log of the ER/IP visits.

I use CurrentCare Viewer to find out everything I can glean.

The most general way that I use them is:

• First, for notification of the visit and for the most part the reason for the visit.
• While looking at this I also check to see the encounter flow for ER/IP and outpatient contacts by the patient for frequency and additional problems since I last saw the patient.
• I then look at the medications and see what new medication was ordered and if it was picked up or not by looking at the medication list.
• I may look at the labs that were done at that visit or recent to the visit.
• I also look at the bottom of the summary report to see who the emergency contact is and if it is different from the one that we have, as they often forget to tell the office staff of the change but do change it when at the hospital.

What information do you find most useful?
In general I find the summary report most useful because it has everything.

However I have started to use the side tabs in order to quickly scan what I need.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?

1. Don’t be afraid to use it, as it has a wealth of information and doesn’t take long to get used to finding the necessary information.
2. I suggest that they highlight, copy and paste the CurrentCare id number (from the Hospital Alert) as it will only bring up that individual and is easier than typing in the name and birthdate.
3. If using Epic, keep the CurrentCare information regarding that patient up, as it has the birthdate and address there for easy reference-everyone knows that there are hundreds of Maria Gomes and even Rumplestiltskin would probably have two or three entries that live nearby. This is much quicker than referring to the old electronic chart to find the correct person.

Deborah Andrade

Nurse Care Manager
CharterCARE Cranston

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
I started implementing CurrentCare last summer when I began my work as Nurse Care Manager at CharterCARE Medical Associates. I had heard about CurrentCare in my previous job and immediately recognized the benefits, but had not had the opportunity to use it. It was comforting to know that I might now have a back-up search tool to use when I had exhausted my usual EHR Review methods.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
My greatest need for accessing patient data in CurrentCare is when I am following a hospital discharge. Answers I seek usually include: Were there any last minute labs that I’m not seeing in my EHR? Were there any consults or medication changes? Were there any other ER or inpatient visits that we missed? Sometimes just looking for a suspected abnormal lab leads me to find that a patient was admitted to a hospital over the weekend. This is a huge plus for me as a Nurse Care Manager. I can now engage the patient during their transition of care and serve as a patient advocate and liaison between the PCP office and hospital system. This intervention can improve patient outcomes and possibly minimize unnecessary risks upon discharge. The patient is always so appreciative to know someone took the time to call... They feel secure and comfortable knowing they can rely on a voice of care and concern who will address health-care issues during their time of need. When I initiate communication with patients during such times, I can support them simply by helping them decipher their discharge instructions, medication changes, and what to do in an emergency. Because of this engagement, we often see improved compliance with their follow-up appointments and greater adherence to their treatment plans going forward.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare proved to not only be a simple back-up tool, but rather a faster, stream-lined method for retrieving patient records. Getting immediate patient data on my high risk patients often serves to avert more serious complications, and keeps the PCP up-to-date. From a Nurse Care Manager perspective, being able to provide the necessary services proactively rather than reactively is extremely rewarding. Overall, just knowing that the use of data can positively impact someone’s life provides peace of mind while greatly enhancing patient/provider communication.

Donna Needham

Nurse Care Manager
Thundermist Health Center - Woonsocket

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
For me, using CurrentCare before a patient visit is crucial. Especially related to children with asthma. There is almost always confusion around medications. By using CurrentCare ahead, my visit will be more efficient because I already have everything at my fingertips.

Before CurrentCare, I would need to call pharmacy and it would take up too much time for the pharmacist to review all of this information, especially on as many patients as I see in a day.

What information do you find most useful?
If I find that the controller medications are being picked up sporadically, this opens up dialogue related to why these meds need to be given as prescribed. I will often see albuterol being picked up with the controller medication. When I ask the patient or family if they re using this much albuterol, the answer is almost always, no. The family believes that they are supposed to pick up the controller and rescue med every month. Another educational opportunity.

Can you share a patient story?
I did a Home Asthma Visit with a 4 year old asthmatic and his family. When I was at the home reviewing the child's medications, there was confusion on which controller medicine he was supposed to be taking. … I was able to go to CurrentCare and saw all of the medications and prescribers. I was able to sort through his medication puzzle and educate the mother on correct meds and dosages.

Sherral Crown

Nurse Care Manager
Providence Community Health Centers – Main Office

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
CurrentCare has been amazing! If it weren't for CurrentCare, we would not have known that a new patient had previously been to a local hospital for an abdominal aneurism. The patient neglected to tell the PCP about it, and we don't have access to that hospital system to help with new patient planning. If we didn't check CurrentCare for recent encounters, her cardiac issue might have been untreated.

What information do you find most useful?
Med Lists, Provider Encounters (IP, ER &/or OP). I have numerous patients that do not disclose Specialist, ER and/or IP visits and because they do not identify their PCHC PCP – we do not receive this information. Access to CurrentCare enables me to collaborate with all providers, and ensure that our patients’ care is seamless.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
The information in CurrentCare is invaluable for NCMs, whether it’s being used for New Patient Pre-Visit Planning and/or ongoing for Active Patients on NCMs Panel.

There are still some members who are not enrolled in CurrentCare, and I would recommend bringing enrollment forms to their visits.

Theodore Kaiser

Nurse Care Manager
Providence Community Health Center

“In healthcare, data drives everything that we do. CurrentCare takes the burden of providing accurate details off the patient and off of us. The care we provide can then be more patient centered and we can focus on helping them take care of themselves. CurrentCare helps with this process.”

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Colleen Printer

Registered Nurse
PopHealthCare

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
At PopHealthCare, we provide care management for patients and often meet with them in home based settings. Before we had CurrentCare, we typically went into people’s houses “blind” with little clinical history and information about their health concerns. When we would meet with patients, we tried to get as much information from them as we could. We would then work to teach them about their A1C results and other health issues. It was difficult because we had to rely completely on what they told us.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
With CurrentCare, we can receive information in real time and share it with our patients. When we show them their labs in CurrentCare, they feel more involved and validated. Sometimes, their doctors tell them that their labs are “normal,” but they don’t know what “normal” is. Also, with our patients with Dementia, it helps us confirm for them what providers they saw at recent appointments. They might report that they had gone to see their “memory doctor,” but I can verify the provider’s name and explain that it was their cardiologist. So we are able to help clarify information for them.

One example of how CurrentCare has been extremely helpful was with a patient with Diabetes that was sharing his insulin with his partner. He told me his A1C was 6. When I shared his CurrentCare information with him, he was very surprised that his A1C was actually 16! We looked in the computer together and he realized that 16 was really high because he could see the normal range for the lab value. We could also look at his trending A1C values over time and we were able to observe that when he started sharing his insulin with his partner was when his A1C value started going up.

CurrentCare was also extremely useful for another patient with Congestive Heart Failure. Her doctor had her stop taking Lasix because he found her Potassium level was 6 mmol/L. After 2 months of being off Lasix, she started to have problems with her CHF. At that time, I looked in CurrentCare and found that her Potassium level was 2.4. The doctor who had ordered the test hadn’t been alerted of the change because the result of the lab work was normal. I was able to communicate with the provider and make sure her Lasix prescription was reinstated.

How does that impact your life/work?
With CurrentCare, our care is more focused and we are able to better engage with our patients. Because I have concrete evidence, I feel like the health education I can provide for my patients is improved. I am better able to communicate about their condition and teach them how they can make lifestyle changes that specifically target health improvements.

Julia Manning

Pharmacist
South County Hospital - Coumadin Clinic & South County Family Medicine

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I find CurrentCare really, really helpful and I use it often. I can generally get lab results the same day the patient has done the lab, and it saves me a lot of time. I use it in a few different offices that I work in, including a Coumadin clinic and a family practice.

There is sometimes a lag in getting results from labs, and it's a lot quicker to look them up in CurrentCare to see if the results are available, rather than calling a lab such as Lifespan or East Side Labs. If the lab goes through South County Hospital, I usually look them up in our system, but if I'm working from home, I've found that CurrentCare is actually faster.

What information do you find most useful?
I use mostly use CurrentCare for Coumadin dosing, because patients need their blood tested frequently to see how fast the blood is clotting. Our process tracks lists of patients who are due for lab work that day, and also a list of patients who are overdue. Rather than waiting for the fax from the lab, it's a lot easier to look up the results in CurrentCare. If the number isn't where it's supposed to be, we call the patient and can change their Coumadin dosing that day! Then we tell them how soon they need to go back to the lab to get checked again.

Another reason I use CurrentCare is to help me determine where a patient currently is. I use the Summary Report to see where their labs have been drawn (in a hospital, have been discharged, is now in rehab/outpatient) and piece together where they are now.

I also use the Cumulative lab view. It's helpful to view their Coumadin levels over time, especially while they were in a hospital. This cumulative view is also helpful for seeing the trend of Creatinine levels.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
I have been encouraging others in my area to get access to CurrentCare because I find it to be proactive, rather than waiting for results.

When I have a new patient, I ask them if they are enrolled, and if not, I tell them what CurrentCare is.

Melissa O’Donnell

Director of the Transition Home Plus Program
W&I Neonatal Follow-up Program

Andrea Knoll

Senior Administrative Coordinator
W&I Neonatal Follow-up Program

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
At the Neonatal Follow-up Program, we have a goal of reducing emergency room visits and readmissions. Prior to our partnership with CurrentCare, the only means of determining if a patient went to an emergency room or was admitted to the hospital was via the collection of a patient history at the next office visit. Often this led to significant delays prior to our receiving this important information. Depending on an infant’s age, we typically see them over intervals of several months; therefore, significant time could pass before we would hear about what happened. In addition, we were at times challenged by patient-reported information not always being reliable. We would not always get the level of detail we needed to fully understand the circumstances around the event and could potentially miss real time and accurate information.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
With CurrentCare Hospital Alerts, we get real time notifications stating our CurrentCare-enrolled patients have gone to the emergency room or have been admitted to the hospital. These Alerts allow us to know what is happening with our patients as soon as possible and enable us to troubleshoot real time problems our patients and families may encounter so we may provide support to them regarding the admission. As soon as we get the Alert, we are able to outreach the family and provide immediate support. Depending on the timing, we have the opportunity to contact the family and ask them, “are you okay? Do you need anything? Do you understand what is going on?” If a baby is acutely ill, our physicians can consult the care team and be part of the inpatient process. Along with allowing us to provide immediate assistance and support for our families, having the Alerts helps with tracking our patients. With data we have from the Alerts, we can develop plans to prevent readmissions and provide additional educational and support opportunities. We can reiterate that we have an on-call service they can access and we can reinforce other education for them, as well.

How does that impact your life/work?
Having CurrentCare Alerts, we can provide better support for our families. It’s easier to help prevent subsequent illnesses and it makes our data management more accurate. For our purposes, enrolling patients in CurrentCare is a really “easy sell” as it clearly helps. Having a system that provides information to providers about what happened with an infant in different care settings is valuable for parents.  They know they don’t have to worry about remembering the details and clinical terms. It gives them peace of mind. If their baby has a certain condition and needs specific care, information about their child will be in CurrentCare.

Ann-Marie Peters

Patient Care Coordinator
Pediatric Associates

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
When we learn that one of our patients has gone to the Emergency Room, it is very important for us to get information about what happened when they were there. Before we had CurrentCare, we had to call the Emergency Department at the hospital to get the report(s) we needed. If we were missing other pieces of data, such as lab results and x-ray reports, we would need to make calls to get that information, too.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now that we have CurrentCare, if we need information, we can log right in to the Viewer and find it (if the patient is enrolled in CurrentCare). In the Viewer, I look for Continuity of Care documents as well as Medical Record Summaries that provide information about my patent’s treatment at the hospital. I can also find the labs and x-rays that we need, as well.

How does that impact your life/work?
It’s much easier to find the patient information I need in the CurrentCare Viewer than having to call the Hospitals and Medical Records Offices. Before CurrentCare, I would spend more time on the phone calling people to request records. Sometimes I would have to leave messages and wait for a response. At times, they would request that a consent form be signed by the parents before I could get the information I needed. With CurrentCare, getting what I need for our patient care is much easier and faster.

Emily Collier

Pediatric Nurse Practitioner
Thundermist Health Center – Woonsocket

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
For new patients, we’re able to quickly get a history of patients without waiting for records from the previous PCP.

What information do you find most useful?
Medications: I use CurrentCare to avoid calling the pharmacy for a med list.
Labs/Images: I use Viewer instead of chasing or repeating lab or image reports.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
For others in primary care, I recommend having all of your support staff trained in CurrentCare because they can quickly look up information on medications, recent lab work, and ER visits if you are in the room with a patient. It saves everyone a lot of time since all of that information is in one place.

Lynn Ho, MD

North Kingstown Family Practice

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I am just adoring CurrentCare! I am checking every patient who comes in and enrolling them on the spot, if not enrolled.

I use it to avoid ordering duplicative tests, cover for other providers, track down measures for quality projects, and also when my EMR is down.

What information do you find most useful?
Labs: A patient with leukemia wanted his CBC from RIH (they send consult notes, but it takes a few days). I pulled it up in CurrentCare and was able to share this with the patient in a timely fashion.

Meds: Track down that “blue triangular” med from the walk in or specialist.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?

• Early – check the entire next day’s schedule from the Viewer log in page.
• End game – get list of people enrolled and non-enrolled in your practice. At check in, work the list of people not enrolled yet.

Meghan Martorana

Outpatient Registered Dietitian
Evolution Nutrition

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Prior to using CurrentCare, we would contact the patient’s primary care physician or other specialty doctor’s office to request lab work or list of current medications. The process would either be calling or faxing a request to the physician’s office. Alternatively, we could also ask the patient to get their lab results and bring them to their next appointment. Common lab work we might request include lipid levels, glucose, Hemoglobin A1C and vitamin D levels.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now, for our patients who are enrolled in CurrentCare, our process is more efficient. We don’t have to wait to get their lab results or current list of medications, we are able to look in the Viewer and find this information. With CurrentCare, we have the information we need during the visit and we can share this with our patients. Through a review of results and information in the CurrentCare patient record, the patient may ask questions like “what is cholesterol?” and “what does my A1C mean?” This promotes education and discussion during the visit.

How does that impact your life/work?
Using CurrentCare helps us provide better patient care. We are able to share information we find in CurrentCare with our patients. Having this information promotes education and discussion during the visit.

Evan Gallo

Director of Social Services
Grand Islander Center

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Sometimes, during the admission process, we receive a scant amount of information for incoming patients. In some cases, we receive contact and insurance information, but it is not accurate (or there is simply no data provided). Typically, the referring nurse from the hospital reaches out and provides a report. We also receive discharge paperwork from the hospital. But, at times, there is not a great deal of information available in these documents. We might receive a few notes from a surgeon, but the paperwork may be lacking a patient history and recent labs. Often we only receive a list of discharge medications but do not know what medications they were on prior to hospitalization.

Given the number of problems we run into, we end up spending time double and triple checking for information. In some cases, we do not receive any paperwork or handoff report at all. In these emergency situations, we would rely on a report from the patients themselves. Given the fact that patients are often understandably debilitated, they may not be able to accurately provide all the details of their condition. We would also look to the family to provide a report on the patient so we might be able to get more specifics. Having to ask this would sometimes create mistrust because we don’t have the information we need and have to rely on a layperson’s report.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Using CurrentCare, we can be proactive. If a patient is enrolled in CurrentCare, we can check the record to see what history the patient has and if there are any specific needs to accommodate. For example, sometimes we can see if someone had a PICO Vac ordered while at the hospital or if they were prescribed Oxygen or a specific IV medication. When we find this information in CurrentCare, we can better prepare for the patient and ensure that we have appropriate staff and resources ready. We can still get the patient’s report and talk to them about their care, but these discussions create trust because we already have the medical history and can focus on getting their perspective.

If the patient went to the emergency room by themselves, there may not be any contacts in the limited hospital record we receive. It’s helpful to find information in CurrentCare about additional contacts (next of kin) that I can call, if needed.

CurrentCare was uniquely helpful for a situation in which we needed to be particularly sensitive to interpersonal complications that a family was experiencing. The family was estranged and had not been speaking to the patient due to resentment regarding the patient’s care. Through using CurrentCare, we were able to reduce the amount of calling, pressure and stress being put on the family as the patient declined. We did not get the information from the hospital, but we were able to see what we needed for post-discharge follow-up in CurrentCare without having to disturb the family with additional questions.

How does that impact your life/work?
It’s always less of a headache when we are not surprised by something, such as a patient who had a PICO Vac ordered at the hospital. It can also be difficult to get information about IV medication prescribed at the hospital in order to best assess the needs of a patient and their required level of care (and associated insurance coverage). When we can get this information for CurrentCare enrolled patients, it can be extremely helpful so we can plan accordingly and best meet the needs of our patients.

At one point, we had a cherished, longer term resident who end up in the ICU. Without bothering the family, we were able to use CurrentCare to follow-up and get an idea of when she was coming back so we could be prepared. This is the kind of value that CurrentCare provides.

Stacy Prisco

Director of Admissions and Marketing
Greenwood Center

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Before we had CurrentCare, we spent a lot of time tracking down important health information for our residents. When they come to our facility, we need to confirm their Primary Care Provider, get accurate medication details and lab results along with other critical information from hospitals (particularly if the patient is coming from an acute care setting). I was always trying to track this information down using archaic systems. For example, I frequently had to call doctor’s offices to request that information be faxed. Sometimes they were not available when I called. Often, we would not receive information in a timely manner and we would have to have to wait for faxes. A lot of times we were not able to get information that is crucial for our residents.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
When a resident is enrolled in CurrentCare, it makes things so much smoother. We are able to get information quickly to help improve the care we provide. We find a variety of helpful data in CurrentCare, including history and physical details, lab work, medications and information from visits to hospitals. When a patient is coming from a hospital setting, we are able to look at the patient record in the Viewer to improve our coordination of care to make sure we will be able to care for them properly. Additionally, when a patient is coming to our facility from home, it is much easier to complete an intake. Sometimes, families don’t have information about a patient who is not able to communicate well. In these circumstances, we can often find what we need in CurrentCare. Also, during a resident’s stay at our facility we use the Viewer a lot to check for information, such as radiology results. We can check for previous CT scans so we don’t have to put them through any unnecessary testing. The doctors ask me to pull up tests and records all the time for this purpose.

In one instance, we had an individual in short-term care who was having a change in mental status. We wanted to confirm this person was on the correct medications and check if there had been some previous medication adjustments that would be impacting the change we were observing. In CurrentCare, we were able to pull up the records from the hospital and compare with the pre-hospitalization records. There were some differences and we were able to track down what we thought was the issue. We were then able to update the active medication list accordingly. For the same resident, we also learned there was a follow-up appointment with a specialist that we were not aware of as it had been scheduled prior to their admission. Once we learned this, we were able to make sure the resident would be able to keep this important appointment.

Finally, being able to see a resident’s medical history from so many sources all in one place helps us better assess and plan if they need additional assistance when they are discharged. In CurrentCare, we often see what prescriptions they were filling at home. We can also evaluate if they regularly follow-up with their PCPs and specialists. We can find out where they go and their provider’s names. This helps us to provide better support at discharge so we can be sure they have the appointments they need with the providers who regularly provide their care.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare enhances patient relationships and supports us in taking better care of our long-term and short-term residents. With the information we find in the Viewer, we work toward improving our follow-up and preventing re-hospitalizations. We can get patients home safely and have improved continuity of care.

In the end, the reality is that we all need to talk to each other now. CurrentCare helps with this communication.

Holly Johanson

Admissions Director
Riverview Healthcare Community

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
One of the most important roles of an Admissions Director is to collect information about patients as they come into a facility. I try to collect as much data as possible before a resident comes into our building, particularly when we have an intake for a new resident that we have not seen before. Before I had access to the CurrentCare Viewer (when I was an Admissions Assistant) I would spend a lot of time on the phone getting medication lists and test results I needed from pharmacies and laboratories. When I was looking to get information from the hospitals, such as lab results, it could get particularly time consuming. I would often need to get a consent before I could get critical data needed for an admission.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
With CurrentCare, I can simply log in and all the data I need is there. When a resident’s information is available in CurrentCare, I can avoid having to make phone calls and I don’t have to wait for people to get back to us. Particularly when we need to complete a medication reconciliation, CurrentCare is a big piece of our process. We can do a really good medication reconciliation that includes the medications that were taken at home as well as those prescribed in the hospital. This is particularly helpful when someone is really sick and has a complex medication list. It’s a huge time saver in these situations!

There are certain cases when CurrentCare can be particularly beneficial. For residents with limited family or community support or for those who have a difficult time providing their medical history, CurrentCare can be a great resource. We can go in to get their medication list and find important information about what happened in the hospital. We can also find their most recent lab results so we can avoid unnecessary or duplicate testing.

Just this morning I went on to the Viewer because I needed lab results for tests completed 2 days ago. It took approximately 3 minutes to find the information I needed. I didn’t have to call the hospital or spend time signing a release to access the results I needed. Once I had the information, we were able to move the patient out of a private room, as precautions were no longer needed for this individual.

We are also finding that CurrentCare can be helpful for tracking vaccinations. Often family members and/or residents don’t remember exactly when they last had them. For our residents enrolled in CurrentCare, this information will sometimes be available.

How does that impact your life/work?
The biggest thing is that CurrentCare can really save time. As an Admissions Director, there are times when you may have 16 referrals coming in to your facility and you need to get the clinical staff the information they need for each admission. It can really make a difference to be able to find this information quickly. We can also get additional details in CurrentCare that help us fill in missing pieces of their medical history that we otherwise would not have had.

Because CurrentCare is a great tool that benefits both us and the patient, I wish more people were already enrolled before they come to our facility! I have made it part of my process to provide information to residents when they are not enrolled so that they may have their data in CurrentCare in the future.

Wendy Rocha, Dale Caswell & Erin Robinson

Nurse Manager, Unit Secretary and Admissions Coordinator
Coventry Center

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
At the Coventry Center, there are many times when we require information about our residents from hospitals, practices and other facilities. During the admissions process, phone calls would need to be made to hospitals to confirm admission dates and get other information critical to the care transition. Once our residents are at our facility, we would also have to make multiple calls to request additional information during the resident’s course of care. We needed to inquire about details regarding the resident’s medical history, such as vaccination information, PPD skin test results, and medication doses. When we have to make phone calls to get information, it can be very time consuming. Sometimes we needed to make a number of calls because the facility we are trying to reach is not open or they may not have anyone available to take our call. Along with calling Primary Care Provider’s offices, we often had to speak to pharmacies to confirm medication lists. In some cases it is difficult to track down which pharmacy has the patient information we need. For example, we may call one CVS and then have to call the CVS Corporate office to track down which of their other locations can provide data for a particular resident. We also realize that, when we have to ask for information from another facility, this puts a burden on them, as well. When we make a request, someone from the other facility often needs to take multiple steps to find the data and then take the time to fax it to us. They are busy, too, so it’s a burden on everyone.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
When a resident is enrolled in CurrentCare, it is much quicker and easier to log-in to the Viewer to get the information we need. During the admissions process, we can fill gaps in the information we have from the hospitalization and from the patient’s pre-hospitalization history. We can find key pieces of data, such as dates of a resident’s hospitalization and their insurance type. When residents are coming from Roger Williams and Fatima Hospitals, it is great that we can access their discharge summaries! Our doctors are constantly asking for discharge summaries so they can have all details they need to provide the best care.

There are many instances when the CurrentCare patient record is helpful in providing care for our current residents at the Coventry Center. When we have a new resident, it can be valuable to get an overview of the resident’s history. We can see how long they have had specific conditions and get a better understanding of their overall health history. We can save time using the Viewer to look for test results for MRSA or VRE so we can quickly be aware of, and address, infection control issues. Sometimes, when we have a resident who needs a stool analysis, CurrentCare is helpful to check to see if they have relevant history, such as a colonoscopy.

CurrentCare has been particular helpful in a number of specific instances. For example, one of our residents was experiencing some back pain. In CurrentCare, we found that she had had an MRI within the past year. The MRI report provided the information we needed and we were able to avoid duplicate testing. We had another patient who was diagnosed with a heart murmur. In the Viewer, we were able to see a record of EKGs that had been previously completed. There had been around 5 EKGs, and you could see a development of the issue that we were assessing. We confirmed the murmur wasn’t new and there was a cardiologist who had been addressing it.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare is all-around efficient and quick. Before we had CurrentCare, it wasn’t as easy to find information as it is now that we can simply sign on to the Viewer. It saves time and money. It’s a significant cost when there is duplicate testing. For patients who are enrolled, if test results are already in their CurrentCare record, we can use this information rather than order a new test. We have an opportunity to avoid duplicate testing and also get medical history that allows us to avoid additional assessments, workups and referrals that are not necessary. Having CurrentCare makes things a lot easier: we can get the information we need and we don’t have to waste time calling the hospitals and other facilities.

Laura Wischnowsky

Administrator
Woodpecker Hill Health Center

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Prior to CurrentCare, when coordinating an admission to our facility directly from home, it was difficult to track down the information we needed. We only had what the family provided, and it was difficult to get a thorough medical history. Often, we were lucky to get an accurate list of diagnoses and current medications from the primary care doctor! It was also very time consuming to verify recent hospital stays and to determine if the stays were inpatient or observation level of care. Some hospitals require signed authorization forms from the patient prior to giving any such information.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now, once the patient/family enrolls, I can log into CurrentCare and get the information I need. I can pull an encounter note, receive information about the individual’s clinical history, and compile a more accurate medication list. In the encounters list, I can look for hospital visits to see how frequently the patient is in the hospital or emergency room, and I can verify whether or not a recent hospitalization met the criteria for a Medicare patient to be covered in the nursing home for skilled care. I use the encounter information a great deal, and it saves a lot of time coordinating an admission.

How does that impact your life/work?
With CurrentCare, I don’t have to spend as much time on the phone trying to verify information with family members, physician offices, and hospitals. The entire admissions process is much smoother and more efficient!

Christine Cabral

Office Manager
Centerville Podiatry

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
Prior to having CurrentCare, there were a number of pieces of information that we had to take time to find for our patient’s appointments. In particular, for our patients with Diabetes, we had to ask what laboratory they used. Then we needed to call the labs to get our patients’ A1C and lipid panel results. That took up a lot of time – particularly when patients didn’t know what lab they used or if they used multiple labs. We also never knew when patients had their flu or pneumonia shots. They would typically recall that it was “in the fall” but they wouldn’t have specific dates. Finally, patients often do not have updated medication lists when they come for their appointments. They would tell us “nothing has changed.” But often things had changed. In these cases, we wouldn’t have all the information that we needed to complete a full medication reconciliation.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
Now, we don’t have to make phone calls to laboratories to find out what our patients’ A1C and Lipid Panel results are: we simply look it up in CurrentCare. Additionally, we can access other helpful lab results, such as a Creatinine level if we send them for imaging. In CurrentCare, we are able to get our patients’ medication information to use when completing the medication reconciliation process. Sometimes, we print the medication list and provide patients with this information, too.

CurrentCare is helpful in several other ways, as well. We now have a better record of the flu and pneumonia vaccinations that our patients have received. Also, when patients don’t provide a height and weight, I am sometimes able to pull this important data from encounter information in a Medical Record Summary.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare has made things at our practice much easier. It has taken the place of a lot of steps that we had to do in the past. With CurrentCare, a lot of stress at our office has been alleviated: now we are able to have the data we need quickly, when we need it. It has also helped with our quality measures and making sure we have important information entered into the patient record.

Amber Johnson

Quality and Compliance Admin
Comprehensive Community Action Program

Lois Teitz

Director of Quality and Compliance
Comprehensive Community Action Program

Amber was the winner of the “CurrentCare On the Spot Award” - Highest Viewer Use - November 2015!

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
Lois: We use CurrentCare Viewer when working on our UDS reports and insurance company lists, especially for Pap results. With all this movement towards a value-based payment model approach, the primary care providers are responsible for the whole scope of care for the patient. We try to make it as easy as possible for the providers, nurse care managers, and patients. We get as much information as we can in the record, to support the morning huddle meeting and reduce duplication of services.

We get a lot of lists from the various insurance companies so Amber responds specifically to those by trying to fill those gaps in care. Also, annually we complete UDS reports that look at key indicators.

What information do you find most useful?
Amber: The biggest thing I find is Paps! I do find some A1Cs, but colonoscopies are scarce [because only the pathology reports are currently in Viewer]. I'm hoping for more colonoscopies to be added, and eye exams for our diabetics would be great. I find a lot of imaging reports from XRA!

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
Amber: Use it. It's great!I like it because I can find results that we don't have in our own system.

Lois: The front desk receptionists do a lot of work getting people enrolled in CurrentCare, so that helps our process as well.

Patty Kelly-Flis

Director of Quality
WellOne Primary Medical & Dental Care

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I use it whenever I need to gather data to meet requirements! I use it for quality reporting for multiple programs (Hedis, CTC, federal, RIPCPC, etc). I regularly review our cardiac and diabetic patient databases. If a patient has old LDL/A1C results, then I go into CurrentCare. I am quite often able to see lab reports ordered by other providers.

What information do you find most useful?
Information from specialists:

• LDL (especially from cardiologists)
• A1C, Creatinine
• Specialist Names

We also use it to identify patients who may have left our practice. We can view their new PCP in CurrentCare, which saves our staff time.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
Getting labs from CurrentCare can be faster than getting hospital records!

Sophia Kreyssig

Quality Assistant
Coastal Medical - Corporate Office

Winner of the “CurrentCare On the Spot Award” - Highest Viewer Use - June 2015!

How has CurrentCare helped you do your job?
I'm able to find information when I have a long list of patients missing a test (flu vaccine, mammogram, or recent lab results, such as annual cardiac risk panels for our diabetic patients).

What information do you find most useful?
I can find flu vaccines in the list of CurrentCare medications, or Mammograms under Diagnostic Imaging but sometimes I gather other helpful information that allows me to track down the results. As an example, if I don't find mammogram results, I can often find the name of the Ob/Gyn in CurrentCare, and then I contact the provider to ask for mammogram results.

Do you have recommendations for others in similar roles?
Yes, I definitely recommend it. I have had conversations with others in similar roles to share how CurrentCare has helped me find patient information.

It will be even more helpful to me as even more Coastal patients are enrolled in CurrentCare!

Nayat Ortiz

Document Management
Coastal Medical - Corporate Office

How did things take place before CurrentCare?

In my role in Document Management (and previously as a Quality Assistant) I frequently need to search for patient test results, including colonoscopies, mammograms, pap smears and other labs. Before I had access to CurrentCare, finding this information was very time consuming. I had to either fax or call to request the records. Sometimes, as a last resort, I would have to contact the patient directly to get the information I needed.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?

With CurrentCare, it is quicker and easier for me to get the information I am looking for. While I am authorized to access other health system’s records, I always go to CurrentCare first because I usually find that data is available in CurrentCare sooner than I can get it from my other sources. In CurrentCare, the results are often available on the same day as the procedure. Also, it often takes longer to find information in the other systems because I frequently have to read through consult notes to search for data. In CurrentCare, I usually find what I need right in the Diagnostic Imaging or Labs Results sections of the Viewer. It is particularly great for finding Pap smear results.

How does that impact your life/work?

Patient care is my number one priority. CurrentCare helps improve patient care, as I am better able to find the data I need and send reports to our providers in a timely manner- often on the same day of a procedure! In the past, we would sometimes have to wait weeks for this information, so it is a great improvement. Also, occasionally patients call me directly and I am quickly able to get them the information they need, too.

Corrine Robinson

Quality Improvement Coordinator
Comprehensive Community Action Program (CCAP)

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
I have been using CurrentCare for about 5 to 6 years- pretty much since it became available to clinical staff in Rhode Island. During this time, I have been in various roles at 3 different heath centers in the state. I have found that CurrentCare has consistently been a helpful tool for work I do.

When I first started using CurrentCare, many patients weren’t enrolled. Because of this, we had a constant push to enroll patients so that we would have their data available in the system in the future. Nobody wants go out of their EHR to get data, but, now that approximately 1 out of every 2 patients is enrolled, it can really be worth it to log in to the Viewer. At CCAP, we have a link to the CurrentCare Viewer right in our EHR so it’s even easier to access it now.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
There are a number of ways that I use the CurrentCare Viewer. A main reason is to test and support specific workflows that are being employed by our staff. Basically, I run time studies to assess processes that include using the CurrentCare Viewer. For example, we have a front desk pre-visit planning workflow that includes checking for CurrentCare ID numbers in our record. It is part of our process for front desk staff to ask patients about CurrentCare enrollment when they know the individual is not already enrolled. The front desk staff needs to be looking in CurrentCare to see if the patient record is there. When they find their information, they enter the CurrentCare ID number into our EHR so our clinical staff can easily access this data. For new patients, I sometimes help check to make sure we have their CurrentCare number in our system. When we find that a patient is not already enrolled, it is easy for our staff to print the CurrentCare enrollment form because it is available directly out of our EHR as a prepopulated document.

Here at CCAP, we have it as part of our protocol that our staff uses CurrentCare for chart prep, particularly for new patients. With data from CurrentCare, we can get important background and medical record history- there is so much information there! Our Medical Assistants are directed to support pre-visit planning by making sure to find CurrentCare ID numbers in advance of a patient’s arrival. MAs should be using CurrentCare for checking for key pieces of health information for all patients, such as Pap and colonoscopy results. In CurrentCare, they can check to see if a procedure has been done and they can get the reports, as well. Since we primarily use Fatima labs, the information is available right in the Viewer. My time studies are looking at how long it should take for our MAs to look up the information so we can best gauge the needs of our staff. As part of our effort to optimize our processes, we are also currently looking to develop an improved, centralized method to complete chart prep for patient appointments. How can we set up the best workflow to get key patient data? When we are missing information, how can we use CurrentCare to efficiently find what we need? As we look to be more efficient and streamline our processes, CurrentCare is part of our plan to get the data we need.

I can also add that, as CCAP is a Federally Qualified Health Center, I work on Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting. In particular, I have been focusing on finding results for Pap test results. When patients are enrolled, we can go into the CurrentCare Viewer to get the important information. I can look at lists of patients we have seen per month and then check in the Viewer for how many Pap test results I can find.

How does that impact your life/work?
CurrentCare is the only place I need to go to for the quality data I need. If I want result information, and I need it quickly, I go to CurrentCare and I can get it. It’s quick and it’s easy. By retrieving this information from CurrentCare, I can improve our CCAP quality metrics in a day. A great example of this is our use of CurrentCare to get information about Pap and colonoscopy results. For a recent project with the Rhode Island Department of Health, we needed to make sure screenings were happening. At the end of 2016, we were at 40% for our Colon Cancer screening rate. We are now ending 2017 at 49%. In one year we have raised the screening rate of our patients by 9%. We improved this metric, in part, by finding the data in CurrentCare. In the Viewer, we found records of pathology reports from colonoscopies. With this information, we can call to get the full consultant report that we need to have included in our record. This is really helping us to have the information we need to provide improved, informed care.

Christine Ben

Nurse
BVCHC Notre Dame Express

How did things take place before CurrentCare?
When patients come into our urgent care center, it is vital that we get an accurate medical history. But many times patients don’t have the critical information we need. They “think” they are on a certain medication or they don’t tell us about significant medical conditions they have. Often, they don’t remember what tests they’ve already had.

Before I had CurrentCare, I would have to get on the phone and call pharmacies and doctors’ offices to request the information we need. If a patient tells us they recently had testing done, we try to get the result or report to prevent repeating anything unnecessarily. Making calls was very time consuming for everyone – both for me and for the person who would have to fax me the data.

How do things take place with CurrentCare?
With CurrentCare, it is easy to get critical information about patients’ medications, problems, lab tests and imaging results. This information helps us to provide better care for the patients that come to our center.

For example, having an accurate medication list from CurrentCare helps avoid having the doctor order the wrong medication or order a duplicate medication from a previous treatment. Recently, I had a patient who was on an antibiotic, but didn’t remember if it was Augmentin or Cipro. I was able to check CurrentCare and let the doctor know specifically which antibiotic it was. Because of this information, the doctor was better able to prescribe the correct medication to best treat the patient.

Similarly, in CurrentCare, I can get a current list of problems that have been documented for the patient. This really helps when a patient has a complicated history and does not remember important details.

CurrentCare helps us avoid duplicate testing. When a patient does not have information about lab test results or imaging, I can check CurrentCare. We don’t want to repeat testing, but sometimes we need to see what things look like. X-ray reports in CurrentCare may have all the information needed to make decisions about treatment, or help us make an informed decision about the need for another test.

Finally, I have started to use CurrentCare to get information about vaccinations. By checking if a patient has previously received a vaccination, we can avoid wasting time and giving a patient something they don’t necessarily need.

How does that impact your life/work?
With CurrentCare, I can get all the information we need in one spot. I don’t have to spend as much time searching for information and calling pharmacies and hospitals. It really helps save time. CurrentCare also helps us avoid ordering duplicate testing of labs and x-rays, which can be costly. Overall, with CurrentCare, we get accurate information and there is a cost savings for everyone.