OPAT and the rise of transmural care: integrate home nursing into your care pathway with Remecare
Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy (OPAT) allows patients to leave hospital and continue their intravenous antibiotic treatment at home. This type of hospital-at-home care creates specific challenges for the healthcare professionals involved. Issues that need to be considered include communication between the hospital healthcare professionals and home nursing staff about appropriate catheter care and medication administration, options for monitoring patients at the hospital if there are any complications, and the treating hospital doctor and hospital pharmacist's responsibilities for the quality of care. This is where Remecare comes in: a digital platform that connects all care actors to create better care experiences.
OPAT as a stepping stone towards transmural care
Since 1 July 2023, the Belgian government has provided a legal and financial framework for hospitals to provide certain specialised care in patients' home environments.
This primarily applies to outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy, or OPAT for short. OPAT gives patients the choice of leaving hospital early and continuing their long-term intravenous antibiotic treatment at home with the approval of the attending hospital doctor and in consultation with the general practitioner who has the patient's overall medical records. In such situations, the hospital pharmacy usually provides the necessary medication, and a qualified home nurse administers the antibiotics through a catheter.
It is important to know that OPAT is budget neutral. This means that there are no additional costs for the patient, and the healthcare providers involved receive a flat rate. The hospitals are paid for continuing the care of these patients at home and can use the freed-up beds to admit other patients with more serious needs.
Efficiently monitor OPAT patients in their home environment with Remecare technology
The multidisciplinary OPAT pathway is a first step towards a future in which outpatient care pathways are increasingly becoming the norm. The consultant physician remains responsible for the patient’s follow-up, so of course it is crucial that they have all the right data to monitor the patient efficiently outside the hospital’s walls as well.
Thanks to technological advances, doctors, home nurses and pharmacists can now also exchange structured and secure information other digitally with Remecare. The patients in question can also be actively involved, for example, by keeping them informed online and by giving them the option of entering symptoms themselves.
Remecare is CE-certified medical software (class IIa) and is the right partner to support you in your development of a transmural care pathway. Our digital platform brings together primary and secondary care providers to:
- Automatically generate tasks for the patient and care team according to the agreed care path
- Monitor vital signs, symptoms, side effects and compliance
- Generate smart notifications about the collected data that allow you to focus on the right patients and make sure you are not flooded with data
- Brief home nurses with the e-learning module
- Allow secure communication with the caregivers involved
- Link the planned tasks to the home nurse’s file
- Schedule or rearrange patient visits and sync these with the hospital calendar
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Why choose Remecare
- Encourage efficient collaboration between primary and secondary care
A transmural care path involves the general practitioner, home nurse and other healthcare providers in addition to the hospital team. Such complex collaboration increases the risk of confusion or miscommunication. That is why Remecare has various applications that encourage efficient interaction.
- The Remecare platform brings together all information of the transmural care pathway. Both the patient and all the care team leaders involved can access this information directly online on a transparent patient dashboard.
- Remecare’s process engine reminds and informs everyone involved when a care action or assessment needs to be carried out. The recipient receives a notification in eHealthbox and other applications.
- The fallback systems available stop care requests being left unanswered for too long.
- A handy communication tool makes communication with one or more care team members simple, efficient and secure. Extensive integration opportunities with the software systems of all healthcare providers allow participation in transmural care pathways from all these other software packages.
- Assure OPAT quality
To ensure quality transmural care, the right task has to be performed by the right person at the right time. Register all care and assessment tasks from your own records and create a transparent overview for yourself and the home nurse. The app guides the nurse in question through all tasks on the day of treatment. This ensures that no care steps are ever overlooked.
Remecare has also worked with hospital experts to create pre-programmed care pathways for OPAT. Our library includes templates to measure vital signs, observe symptoms, and prepare medication. Of course, you can adapt this to the local needs in your region.
Finally, this app has an e-learning module for nurses. For OPAT, for example, the online modules cover the care of different catheters and the use of multiple infusion pumps. This ensures that all nurses have the right skills to provide OPAT.
- Increase the efficiency of your outpatient care pathway
Remecare allows you to ensure transparency and peace of mind for all healthcare providers involved in OPAT. The responsible consultant physician can see clearly that the home nurse has correctly administered the antibiotic. Smart notifications inform them if there is a risk of catheter complications, for example.
- Focus on the patients who need your attention
The more patients there are, the more data they produce. To avoid being flooded with patient data, we have implemented a triage system that monitors all the data collected from the home environment for you. You will receive a notification when one or more parameters or a specific combination of parameters deviates from the expected pattern. This allows you to focus on the patients who need your help while you monitor more patients through home care.
Conclusion
While outpatient care pathways such as OPAT contribute to patient comfort, they require efficient and transparent collaboration between the primary and secondary care teams to ensure the quality of the transmural care.
Remecare’s digital platform allows you to integrate such outpatient care pathways seamlessly into the existing workflows of your hospital and the home nurses. In addition, the Remecare technology enables you to monitor patients accurately and efficiently thanks to telemonitoring and secure communication between all healthcare providers involved, e-learning modules for home nurses and other processes. Finally, the smart triage system filters all collected data points, so your clinicians can focus on the patients who need your help.
If you would like to find out how Remecare can make a difference to your OPAT team,
get in touch and we will gladly take the time to discuss this with you.
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