UMass Memorial Medical Center Goes Live On InterSystems Ensemble-based NDoc® Home Care & Hospice System

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--InterSystems Corporation, the global leader in software for connected healthcare, today announced that the UMass Memorial Medical Center has rolled out the NDoc® home care & hospice system from its application partner, Thornberry Ltd. NDoc is built on the InterSystems Ensemble® rapid integration and development platform.

“The software is very intuitive … it provides logic that guides clinicians as they create the patient’s care plan.”

More than 130 end-users, including clinicians in the field and office-based staff, are using the application, which went live in April. Information entered by clinicians during each patient visit is stored in an InterSystems CACHÉ® high-performance database that resides on a laptop PC. This information flows via Ensemble to the data server in the home office. Automated data synchronization is handled through a bidirectional interface and can be performed any time at the convenience of the clinician.

Just weeks after the NDoc rollout, Mary Stone, Director of Operations for UMass Memorial Home Health and Hospice, is reporting significant benefits. “Almost immediately, we began to see the elimination of redundant data capture,” she said. Formerly, the workflow process required paper documentation of visit activity which was developed by the clinicians during the patient visits and then keyed in by other personnel. The process involved extensive supervisory time and expense to identify and correct information inconsistencies. “NDoc provides real-time validation as information is entered on the laptops at the point of care while also automating the entire entry process,” Stone explained. “Once the staff has some experience with the system, we expect productivity to increase significantly while overtime utilization is measurably reduced.”

The clinicians are reacting very positively as they transition to Ensemble-based NDoc, according to Stone. “The software is very intuitive … it provides logic that guides clinicians as they create the patient’s care plan.”

In addition, Stone is pleased with the response and performance of the Ensemble-based application. “We relied on our IT department to help us make the right software choice,” she said. The product architecture, which includes NDoc running with CACHÉ on the laptop, information transfer via Ensemble to the back office database, and a shadow server for recovery in a disaster scenario, received a positive vote from the organization’s technologists. “We never want to have to revert to paper again.”

Integration Critical as Home Health Care Evolves

The decision by UMass Memorial Home Health and Hospice to transition from a paper-bound care plan and documentation process to Ensemble-based NDoc illustrates the growing movement towards information and application connectivity among home healthcare providers, according to Tom Peth, Thornberry President. “Health information exchange among disparate systems hasn’t been a priority in home health until now,” he said. “However, initiatives are coming out of the federal government that will effectively require that provider payments be bundled rather than being managed individually. As a result, home health agencies will become more visible players as hospitals focus on keeping post-acute patients from being re-admitted for additional treatment. All of the skilled disciplines will be brought to bear on improving care and outcomes and the patient’s medical record will be accessible to everyone who is involved in treatment. A care coordinator will receive the bundled reimbursement and distribute payment to all of the post-acute providers.

“Success in this type of bundled payment environment makes seamless integration and information flow essential,” Peth continued. “With Ensemble, we provide NDoc users with the HL7 connectivity they need to effectively connect with laboratories, clinics, hospitals, physicians…all of the providers involved in the care delivery process. The combination of Ensemble’s connected healthcare capabilities with the performance, scalability and reliability of the CACHÉ database provide an optimal technology platform for NDoc in the highly competitive home healthcare market.”

“It’s a pleasure to work with Thornberry to deliver a product that directly addresses the unique requirements of home healthcare providers,” said Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems Vice President of Strategic Planning. “Their use of Ensemble to deliver the benefits of connected healthcare technology to this industry sector typifies the breakthroughs coming from InterSystems application partners worldwide.”

About InterSystems

InterSystems is the worldwide leader in software for connected healthcare. With headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 24 countries, InterSystems provides advanced software technologies for breakthrough applications. InterSystems CACHÉ® is a high performance object database that makes applications faster and more scalable. InterSystems Ensemble® is a seamless platform for integration and the development of connectable applications. InterSystems HealthShare™ is a platform that enables the fastest creation of an Electronic Health Record for regional or national health information exchange. InterSystems DeepSee™ is software that makes it possible to embed real-time business intelligence capabilities in transactional applications.

InterSystems is the world’s #1 vendor of database and integration technologies for healthcare applications. InterSystems products are used by thousands of hospitals and labs, including all 21 hospitals on the Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals as rated by U.S. News and World Report. For more information, visit InterSystems.com.

About Thornberry Ltd.

Thornberry Ltd provides a strategic connected care technology platform to home health and hospice agencies. NDoc®, Thornberry's point of care and billing software for the hospice and home health industry, increases efficiency and effectiveness of clinical, clerical and executive staff, which improves patient outcomes, and enhances employee morale and agency profitability. Thornberry offers a proven solution to the challenges facing the healthcare industry. Challenges met by Thornberry’s connected care technology and by Thornberry’s broad network of partners that provide fully integrated telemedicine, mobile technology, benchmarking and other essential services. www.thornberryltd.com or 717.283.0980.

About UMass Memorial Home Health and Hospice

Fully accredited by the Joint Commission and certified by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, UMass Memorial Home Health supports patients in remaining independent at home. The UMass Memorial Home Health staff members provide patients with quality health care assistance, including skilled nursing, therapy and health education programs that help prevent future hospitalizations and offer patients an opportunity for early hospital discharge. UMass Memorial Home Health was recently named to the 2009 HomeCare Elite. The agency ranked in the top 25 percent of home health providers nationally for quality performance in outcomes and improvement by HomeCare Elite in each of the past four years.