“ Would you say you are feeling the same, better or worse since I last called you?”“ Do you know your personal asthma triggers and how to avoid them?”
“ What is your peak flow today? If you have not taken a measure, please take a moment to measure it now and enter the number using your telephone keypad. If you need to put me on hold, press‘ zero’ and I will wait for you.”
“ Respiratory infections may worsen asthma symptoms. It is very important to keep your vaccinations up to date. Would you like help scheduling your vaccinations for this year?”
In addition to querying patients about their specific disease or procedure, every survey asks a series of questions designed to assess compliance, behavior and quality of life. These questions are derived from the Coleman Model, a research-driven form of intervention designed specifically for patients with complex medical needs who are transitioning to a new care environment.
Dr. Eric Coleman’ s pioneering studies into care transition interventions have identified the four main reasons patients are readmitted to the hospital. They represent four pillars of care essential for keeping patients healthy during a transition:
• Pillar 1 – Signs and Symptoms( patients need help recognizing or reporting early signs of complications).
• Pillar 2 – Medication Management( patients need help managing their medications).
• Pillar 3 – Follow-up Care( patients encountered barriers when trying to access followup care with their primary care physician or specialist).
• Pillar 4 – Behaviors( patients need guidance related to proper nutrition, physical activity, smoking cessation or other behaviors).
Not only do all of our surveys address these four pillars of care, but patients are also assigned a risk level for each pillar after every call. For example, a patient may be identified as low-risk in the Medication Management pillar if they indicate they do not need support with their medication and high-risk within Signs and Symptoms if their responses reflect a possible health concern.
In addition to providing care teams an invaluable way to monitor patients and provide intervention, CTS offers robust reporting capabilities. Survey responses can be filtered in a variety of ways to allow for both individual- and population-level reporting that incorporates demographic information and patient-reported outcomes. By using this tool for all patients – not just high-risk patients – the differences between those who did well during their transition and those who required intervention can be analyzed, allowing for process improvements or other quality-related changes.
Finally, while we’ ve already highlighted various reasons that CTS is user-friendly, it’ s important to note that our IVR surveys are also warm and friendly. Our surveys are pre-recorded by voice
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