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ALTOONA, PA  – Delta Health Technologies (“Delta”) continues to transform Care-at-Home with the release of CrescendoConnect. Available for iOS and Android devices, CrescendoConnect is designed to help Care-at-Home providers facilitate communications between caregivers, physicians, patients, and families; leading to better patient outcomes, improved quality of care, and cost reduction.

Features include Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) through GPS-based visit verification; secure communications for better coordination of care and communication between healthcare professionals, patients, and families; and collaborative care with physicians, caregivers, families, and others.

“Delta prides itself on continually improving its products and solutions. We believe CrescendoConnect continues that legacy and enhances the collaboration of care and communications between caregivers, physicians, and patients,” said Keith Crownover, President of Delta Health Technologies. “We are proud to offer CrescendoConnect, which is at the cutting edge of care coordination and communication.”

Compliant with Federal and State EVV requirements, CrescendoConnect allows caregivers to clock in/out and document tasks from their smartphone/mobile device. Caregivers can view and document care plan tasks assigned to appointments, easily access upcoming schedules, and review important appointment information in advance.  CrescendoConnect verifies caregiver location and can improve care plan compliance when used for task documentation throughout each visit.

CrescendoConnect users can easily, and securely, communicate with multiple disciplines, agency personnel, and the patient (or designated patient representative) and share photos and files related to the patient.  Patient-related communications may then be included as part of the clinical record in Delta’s Crescendo EMR.  All communications are compliant with Home Health Conditions of Participation and HIPAA regulations.

CrescendoConnect removes the barriers that prevent physicians from signing orders.  With CrescendoConnect, physicians can easily view and sign orders via an email containing a secure link and pin.  No portal or application for them to access.

Patients, and/or their designated family members, can view the patient’s schedule, medications, nursing documentation, and physician orders using CrescendoConnect via their smartphone/mobile device.

CrescendoConnect integrates with Delta’s Crescendo EMR, which is a single solution for home health, hospice, and private duty home care service lines that are integrated at the patient level across an agency.

Acquisition Expands Reach and Capabilities in Home Healthcare Technology Services

COLUMBUS, OH – Salo Solutions, Inc. (Salo), a Columbus-based, healthcare-focused IT consultancy and systems integrator, today announced their purchase of Delta Health Technologies (Delta), an Altoona-based leading software provider for home health, hospice and private duty agencies. This acquisition will unite Delta’s software expertise with Salo’s business intelligence capabilities to provide business-driven solutions for care-at-home organizations.

Salo CEO Tony Ott will serve as CEO of Delta, and Keith Crownover will remain at Delta as President.

“We are honored and excited to unite Delta’s strong team with our experts in home health analysis, accounting, process improvement, and technology,” said Tony Ott, CEO, Delta. “Combining Delta’s advanced care-at-home software with our technical and operational consulting team will allow us to make an even greater positive impact on home health, hospice, and home care operations and assure continued access to their strong proprietary software.”

Salo will continue to be headquartered in Columbus and Delta will remain in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The company anticipates a largely seamless transition for customers and employees.

“Salo’s business expertise and extensive care-at-home connections fit perfectly with Delta’s customer base, strong brand equity and a half-century of industry experience,” said Keith Crownover, President of Delta. “We look forward to joining our strong companies for future growth as we help customers maximize efficiency, productivity, and profitability so that our customers can focus on delivering the best possible patient care.”

July 1, 2017 will arrive before you know it. On that date, Healthcare at Home organizations that participate in the Medicare program will be under new Conditions of Participation. According to the rules, the new CoPs become law six months after they were published in the Federal Register, which happened on January 13.

Between now and July, providers need to prepare operational adaptations with two central goals: interdisciplinary cooperation and patient independence. Software systems must evolve as well but protocols and practices must change more. We spoke with some software developers to learn the extent of the required changes. The consensus is that provider adjustments are the more extensive but that EMR vendors will help where they are able.

Easier for accredited agencies
Many of the new conditions will be familiar to agencies that are accredited by the Joint Commission, CHAP or ACHC, we were told. New forms to track infection surveillance, completing discharge documents in seven days and transfer documents in two days, emergency disaster plans and new documents to show that patients with Low English Proficiency were adequately informed of certain rights are already in place in accredited agencies. “The new conditions emphasize interdisciplinary cooperation and will call for changes in operational practices more than software adaptations,” explained Bonnie Yingling, a Senior Product Manager for Delta Health Technologies. “Other changes are already in place in other software, such as hospice QAPI, and easily added to home health software.”

As an example of an operational change, she described how the new CoPs encourage therapists to speak with patients about wounds and medications and nurses to talk with patients about the importance of the exercises the physical therapist gave them. In other words, all disciplines are being asked to more often say, “How can we support each other?” rather than, “That’s not my job.”

Care planning as well will have to be more patient-centered and interdisciplinary. These requirements will not require developers to reformat plan of care screens in your EMR. They will have more of an impact on how providers manage planning for patient care, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary cooperation aimed at teaching self-care to encourage patient ownership over their chronic conditions.

Supervisory visits
You may see revisions in your software in the way it formats home health aide assessments. CMS wants to see nurses comment about quality of care more than about whether specific tasks were completed. “A patient may be served by different individual aides during an episode of care,” we were told by Donna Baldwin, Delta’s Hospice Product Manager and Compliance Consultant. “CMS is interested in how the patient was taken care of, not in how an individual caregiver behaved.”

One of the elements will be a standardized format for recording aide assessments, another relatively easy requirement for software developers to meet, though perhaps a little more work for supervisors. “They can no longer just click the box for ‘supervision done,'” Ms. Baldwin added.

“The 5-star agencies are already doing most of this,” Ms. Yingling concluded, “either at the behest of accrediting agencies or contracts with Medicare Advantage firms. Adapting EMR software systems for OASIS updates is much more complex than this will be.”

©2017 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

ALTOONA, PA – Delta Health Technologies® continues to modernize Care-at-Home with the release of Crescendo 2.0. This release builds upon the software solutions’ great success with new features that provide even more accuracy and enhanced simplicity to the clinical documentation process. Clinicians are able to leverage their expertise in combination with intuitive guidance, regulatory compliant workflows, automated process prompts and alerts, patient education, and other time-saving tools improving the pace of documentation. Using Crescendo 2.0, clinical staff satisfaction is greatly improved by increasing the amount of documentation completed in the patient’s home and allowing clinicians to provide more attention to patient care.

“Crescendo 2.0 greatly improves the ability for accurate clinical documentation to be completed at a faster rate. The software includes several new features that improve clinical guidance while helping clinicians tap into their wealth of experience,” stated, Keith Crownover, President & CEO, Delta Health Technologies. “Clinical staff are empowered with Crescendo 2.0 to improve the speed and accuracy of their documentation, helping them focus on delivering patient care in the manner they prefer. Recently, we heard from a clinician who said they have never liked their job more than they do now since using our software. This clinician said now they didn’t have to chart late into the night and their family life has greatly improved as well.”

Crescendo 2.0 continues to be the best software solution for those agencies that manage multiple service lines, or are looking to expand in the future, and want a single solution to simplify their processes. Coordinated, value-based, IDT, private, and emerging care models are supported with consistent, accurate patient documentation. The patient information is accessible real-time in the financial, billing and scheduling modules of Crescendo 2 – facilitating back office operations, financial throughput, and the interoperability needs of payers and partners.”

“The product design philosophy in Crescendo 2.0 empowers the agency and the clinical staff to excel at providing great patient care in the world of ever-changing regulations and compliance concerns. The new functions reduce the redundant busy work found in all other software tools,” said Bill Bassett, VP Product Management and Marketing at Delta Health Technologies.  “Crescendo 2.0 removes the barriers that prevent clinicians from spending more time with patients. The software supports their ability to confidently produce complete and accurate documentation that supports the care being provided for each service line an agency provides.”

Delta has led the development of solutions that ensure agencies are able to deliver outstanding care for 42 years. Crescendo 2.0 continues that legacy and bridges the gap between the need to support proper documentation processes with a solution that improves the experience and speed of the process. As has been shown many times, there is a very high correlation between the level of documentation completed in-home and the accuracy of the patient information. With Crescendo 2.0 making the proper processes easier to accomplish, agencies will dramatically improve the quality of care, leading to faster claims submission and revenue while reducing audits.

ALTOONA, PA  –  Delta Health Technologies® is proud to announce that it has earned an ‘Elite Supplier’ distinction for 2016 Post-Acute LINK Conference. This award is given to the companies that ranked in the top 10% of suppliers based on provider scores for their ability to be consultative, innovative, and the overall value of each supplier meeting.

“This seal identifies Delta Health Technologies as a progressive thought leader in the post-acute arena, and as an organization that understands how to build partnerships with clients,” said Meredith Anastasio, Post-Acute LINK Managing Director.

Post-Acute LINK brings together providers and vendors from across the continuum to conduct meetings, share industry knowledge and experiences and fulfill sourcing needs. LINK suppliers represent more than 40 product/service categories, with participation from innovative industry leaders and emerging companies.

Registration Now Open

Post-Acute LINK is exclusively for provider organizations in the Home Care, Hospice, Long Term Care, Transitional Care and Senior Living space with revenue over $20M and the supplier/vendor organizations that work with them.

Space is limited to 80 provider companies and spots are swiftly being filled. For registration information, please visit www.postacutelink.com or contact Miriam Adams at (203) 644-1734.

About Lincoln Healthcare Group

Lincoln Healthcare Leadership is an education and relationship networking company serving top-tier executives in four healthcare provider sectors.

Our mission is to advance and inspire excellence in leadership, strategy, innovation and best practices across leading healthcare providers, and to be a catalyst for change as providers move from a fee for service reimbursement system to a value-based system.

Our core product is conferences. Lincoln conferences are known for their outstanding quality: visionary educational programs, exceptional peer networking, authentic customer service and memorable experiences.

ALTOONA, PA  –  Delta Health Technologies® is excited to announce AppointMate Academy – a blog specifically for its AppointMate customers.

AppointMate Academy will specifically assist users of the AppointMate application with a single place to review insightful tips, useful product options, learn about the newest features, and read about forthcoming product enhancements.  AppointMate Academy is also designed to ensure users get the most productivity and efficiency out of their agency.

“Delta continues its long-standing commitment to ensuring our 5,000+ customers – providing personal care services using AppointMate – have the best productivity tools at their disposal.” said Keith Crownover, President & CEO of Delta Health Technologies.  “In today’s busy world, our AppointMate users are looking for a quick, easy way to find information to ensure their operations are working at maximum efficiency. We know the AppointMate Academy will do just that.”

ALTOONA, PA  –  Delta Health Technologies® continues their excellence in clinical documentation optimization.  Home health and hospice clinicians using Delta’s clinical solutions complete their documentation in the patient’s home two times more than the industry average. By facilitating in-home documentation completion, clinicians optimize coordinated care, reduce the number of documentation errors, and improve their satisfaction.

“Delta originated patient-centered SaaS applications that seamlessly integrate real-time patient information across the agency from a single electronic record for each patient,” said Keith Crownover, President & CEO of Delta Health Technologies. “Our solutions ensure the proper documentation processes will be followed and any effort to the contrary will be hard to accomplish. By making the proper processes easier to accomplish, providers will dramatically improve patient care, outcomes, and satisfaction (employee and patient) – leading to faster claims submission and revenue.”

Delta’s Crescendo™ solution starts by leveraging a single electronic patient record that is seamlessly integrated across the agency and accessible by all departments. This provides real-time access to patient data across all service lines, payers, and agency operations – ensuring consistency in documentation, compliance, and coordination of care. By empowering the clinical and care efforts of an agency, our patient-centered solutions help improve outcomes, increase patient and employee satisfaction, increase operational efficiency, facilitate billing, build referrals and strengthen revenue.  Our Crescendo SaaS application may be customized via role-based controls and customizable workflows to optimize the unique processes that are most successful for an agency’s teams.

ALTOONA, PA  – Delta Health Technologies®, the post-acute care industry’s most experienced vendor focused on clinical point-of-care, billing and home health operations solutions, released a ‘A Guide to the Growing LTPAC Market’ infographic today.

Home health is poised to be the care setting of choice as it’s more affordable and delivers more positive patient outcomes. Care-at-home providers need to capture this healthcare sector growth with business service line expansion, connection with other healthcare providers, while proving the value they bring to the population.

“We think this concise and informative infographic is a helpful tool to allow care-at-home providers to visualize how they can grow their business and have the quantitative data needed to change their business model to be more successful.” stated Keith Crownover, President and CEO of Delta Health Technologies. “We recognize that patients want to remain in the comfort of their own home with familiar surroundings. We also know that receiving care in their home leads to better outcomes.”

According to the Pew Research Center, around 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day and by 2030, 18% of the nation will have reached at least that age. This report estimates that by 2050, 27 million people will need some form of paid care service, doubling from 13 million in 2000.

LTPAC services cover a wide range of conditions and more complex, chronic care needs that result in frequent transitions for patients between their homes as well as acute, post-acute and long-term care settings. The range of LTPAC providers and care settings with frequent movement of patients amongst them necessitates the exchange of relevant and accurate care documentation. Coordination of care is essential as is the need for systems to support the capturing, use and exchange of patient information.

To create the infographic, Delta Health Technologies collected industry data including statistics from the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Triple Tree Report and the National State of the Industry Report for Home Health and Hospice.

SANTA BARBARA, CA – November 12, 2014 – Strategic Healthcare Programs (SHP), the leading data analytics and benchmarking company for home health and hospice, announces the addition of “integrated alerting” within Delta Health Technologies’ Crescendo™ EMR platform.

Home health agencies using the Delta Crescendo software now benefit from a new type of SHP interface where both the transmission of data and retrieval of SHP’s real-time alerts and reports takes place directly within the Crescendo application, including at the point-of-care.

A host of real-time alerts ranging from documentation coding (OASIS scrubbing) to identification of patients at risk for hospitalization or falls are displayed to all authorized staff within the Crescendo application, bringing additional workflow efficiency at a time when streamlined processes are essential.

Other SHP reports available through the interface include detailed clinical and financial analysis, hospitalization and readmission data, and staff scorecards.  Patient satisfaction scores from CMS’ HHCAHPS survey are provided directly within these SHP reports, providing a full picture of all aspects of quality care. This functionality allows managers to be proactive in addressing issues before they become problems, an essential strategy in the value-based payment environment.

“Technology leaders recognize the value this sort of streamlined interface brings to their clients, and so it’s no surprise that Delta partnered with SHP to help their clients achieve greater efficiency and better outcomes. The timing couldn’t be better as the new OASIS-C1 standard assessment and ICD-10 draw near,” said Barbara Rosenblum, Founder and CEO of SHP.

“Delta is extremely pleased to bring this additional SHP integration to our Crescendo customers,” said Keith Crownover, President and CEO of Delta Health Technologies. “The best way for us to continue to provide outstanding service to our customers is to be responsive to their needs. Many of our customers use SHP for their data analysis and we are pleased this enhanced integration will enable them to continue to increase efficiencies while still providing excellent patient care.”

With SHP, clients have access to a comprehensive suite of online, real-time interactive analytic tools and benchmarks that improve documentation accuracy and payment, predict at-risk situations, highlight problematic staff, and improve outcomes, and keep patients from readmitting to the hospital.

Delta’s Crescendo software is an integrated solution for home health, hospice, and private duty and provides end-to-end coverage for all care-at-home business needs. From clinical point-of-care to resource management, billing and regulatory compliance; Crescendo provides accurate and real-time visibility into what it takes to run a care-at-home business more profitably.

Learn more about SHP’s data analytics and benchmarking dashboards.