Using technology to align incentives across the care continuum 

Photo: Courtesy of Russell Graney

Care coordination is key in acute care as well as for patients making the transition from hospital to home, or to an assisted living facility, or even back to the primary care provider for follow-up.

Aidin referral management software was developed by CEO and founder Russell Graney in 2012 as a home for critical transitions, a space for providers to work together on post-acute-care referrals, documentation and workflows. 

The big value is in replacing old referral systems, Graney said. But the automated system does more than replace paper documents sent by fax with clicks on a computer, he said.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which adopted the software, has shown results in saving time and money, such as getting patients out of the hospital .86 days faster.

Graney and Marcia Colone, vice president of Care Coordination and Transition Management at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, will talk about how the system works at HIMSS22 in "Aligning Incentives Across Healthcare Providers in Your Community," from 3-3:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 15, Room 209C at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

Vanderbilt will be using the system for its hospital at home program, Graney said.

The next generation of healthcare technology is to move beyond replacing legacy systems to fundamentally restructure the workflow.

"It should make something more efficient, by rethinking the order of operations," Graney said. "It's putting together workflow to unlock not just efficiency and savings, but massive transformation." 

It also helps patients make decisions for the most appropriate care. For instance, patients often make decisions on the best nursing home care after making calls and going with the one that calls back first. The patient never sees all of their options, Graney said.

Aidin provides a quality rating system based on such metrics as star ratings and patient satisfaction scores. Nationwide, fewer than 16% of families choose a quality nursing home, compared to the 85% using Aidin's digital badge system to view responsiveness, reliability and care quality, according to Graney. 

Graney founded Aidin in 2012 based on personal experience working in healthcare and caring for a loved one with Alzhiemer's. Before Aidin, Graney was a consultant at Bain & Company, and the director of operations at Leadership Prep Bedford-Stuyvesant. 

Twitter: @SusanJMorse
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org