The Heritage Group Selects AccuNurse(R) to Improve Efficiency and Deliver Proactive Care

PITTSBURGH, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Vocollect Healthcare Systems, Inc. announces that Heritage Ministries Management Company, Inc, with headquarters in Jamestown, New York, will deploy AccuNurse voice-assisted care across their enterprise, which includes three skilled nursing facilities with more than 400 beds in Chautauqua County, New York; Heritage Green, located in Greenhurst; Heritage Park, located in Jamestown; and Heritage Village, located in Gerry. Heritage expects the investment in voice-assisted care to take quality of care to new levels by enabling more proactive care and providing more direct care staff time with residents.

By giving care staff the capability to access resident care needs on-demand, complete paperwork simply by talking, enhance care-team collaboration with Silent Paging(TM) and respond faster to resident needs with nurse call integration, Heritage expects to achieve numerous performance and reimbursement gains throughout their facilities. According to David Smeltzer, executive director for Heritage Ministries, "The premier focus for our organization is providing the highest quality resident-specific care; along with being the best employer for our highly valued staff. AccuNurse will help us achieve these goals. We also expect to prepare for the RUG III system coming to New York this year by increasing accuracy of documentation and ultimately maximizing our reimbursements."

Voice-assisted care became particularly attractive due to a state Medicaid program which enables organizations to be reimbursed for capital investments that improve the quality of care, like the one Heritage will be making in AccuNurse. Subscription-based pricing also offered a way of making payments over time. "We anticipate AccuNurse becoming self-funding in just a few months," said Smeltzer. "When you add it all up: dramatic improvements to quality of care, similar return on investment seen by other skilled nursing facilities around the country, our transition to RUG III, our Medicaid reimbursement benefit, and affordable subscription-based pricing -- we expect to benefit from our investment in AccuNurse in many dimensions."

As part of its deployment, AccuNurse will integrate with the facility's AOD Elite Clinical & Financial software from Answers on Demand (AOD), Inc. The interface between AOD Elite and AccuNurse reduces the information overlap between AOD Elite and resident plans of care. "The Heritage Group will benefit from improved admissions efficiencies, higher accuracy and more efficient MDS reporting," said Aric Agmon, president and CEO of Answers on Demand. "That's why the interface with AccuNurse is especially beneficial -- it's much easier to complete MDS's and it makes coding more accurate, backed by thorough documentation to support the coding."

AccuNurse voice-assisted care will replace paper-based printouts for managing care needs and documentation; as well as walkie-talkies team members use to communicate, which often require the organization to deal with lost or damaged equipment.

According to Smeltzer, "Our goal is to completely replace our paper-driven, manual care and reporting processes and become fully automated with voice-assisted care. Right now, we are spending 30 minutes at the end of every shift documenting our care initiatives. That additional time will be eliminated with voice, enabling us to direct it back where it belongs -- with our residents." Continuous charting throughout a shift will also enable Heritage to take accuracy to new levels. "We expect to be very well positioned to align our care documentation processes with RUG III when it hits later this year, helping us secure our organization financially to make continued investments to improve life for our residents. This all adds up to a better place for our residents to live and a better place for caregivers to work."

According to James Quasey, president of Vocollect Healthcare Systems, "Voice-assisted care will enable much better collaboration, as well as enabling the direct care team to compress competing tasks and direct this saved time back to resident care. This, combined with New York State's Medicaid reimbursement policy for capital investments and subscription-based pricing, provides a unique, affordable means of taking the quality of resident care and work life for caregivers to new levels. And, Heritage will be ready to maximize reimbursements when RUG III goes live this year."

About Vocollect Healthcare Systems

In long-term care settings, care teams use simple spoken dialog to hear personalized resident care needs, chart activities as they are completed, silent page others for help, and hear reminders simply by talking to AccuNurse. As a result, communities benefit from higher accuracy and efficiency, maximized reimbursements and more proactive care. Vocollect Healthcare Systems is a subsidiary of Vocollect, Inc., which helps hundreds of thousands of workers in supply chain operations on six continents maximize accuracy and productivity through the power of voice.

Vocollect(R) is a registered trademark of Vocollect, Inc.; AccuNurse(R) is a registered trademark of Vocollect Healthcare Systems. http:///www.healthcare.vocollect.com

SOURCE Vocollect Healthcare Systems, Inc.