VITAS Healthcare improves patient care and saves a million pieces of paper using Microsoft Power Platform

Providing high-quality, compassionate hospice care to patients with life-limiting illnesses is what VITAS Healthcare is all about. For more than 40 years, VITAS has advocated for the rights of terminally ill patients and their families and offered them the personal care they deserve.

In recent years, VITAS has seized the opportunity to make its internal practices more efficient using technology. This has allowed it to provide patients and their families with better experiences and to help VITAS nurses and aides improve hospice care.

In 2021, VITAS launched a suite of Microsoft Power Apps in Microsoft Teams. These applications, collectively named Emmy in honor of VITAS’s first patient, helped VITAS save time on scheduling, provide direct communication among employees, and simplify patient care plans.

Modernizing care and maintaining compliance with Microsoft technology

In 2022, VITAS saw further opportunity for modernization using Microsoft Power Platform. With scheduling and communication now easier, VITAS wanted to improve collaboration among nurses and hospice aides to ensure that patients and families receive consistent care that aligns with patients’ care plans.

While providing better patient experiences, VITAS also sought to ensure compliant and accurate reporting from hospice aides, the team members tasked with following a plan created by registered nurses. “We wanted an electronic record and proof for auditors that the aides were following the care plan,” says Julio Rodriguez, Vice President of Software Engineering and Senior Data Officer at VITAS. “With Microsoft technology, we gain agility from a compliance obligation standpoint.”

In 2022, aides still used paper forms to track patient care plans and document visits. They submitted multiple pieces of paperwork that took time to process and could be compromised in transit from home visits to the central office. Office staff also found that reconciling paper notes with payroll was time-consuming and sometimes confusing. “When aides did a field visit, they were writing it on paper, then scanning it into the system and also submitting it in the office,” says Karen Peterson, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at VITAS. “Once it was received in the office, someone tracked it against payroll, so there were a lot of moving parts and pieces of paper.”

Using Power Apps to save a million pieces of paper and thousands of hours a year in payroll reconciliation

In December 2022, VITAS deployed a new documentation system based on Emmy. Built using the apps available on Power Platform, this tool helps VITAS nurses create comprehensive care plans that are easy for hospice aides to follow. “The nurse creates the hospice aide plan of care so that when aides go into patients’ homes, they have a clear guide about what to expect and complete at the visit,” says Emily Hill, Vice President of Strategy and Analytics at VITAS. “To complement that, we created a digital note where the aide can document what they did.”

Nurses use this tool on mobile devices so that they can take feedback from patients and caregivers and instantly update the plan within the app. This way, aides see updates in near real time and provide better services for patients while fulfilling responsibilities such as communicating with family members and optimizing care resources.

Documenting hours worked, work completed, and payment due are also time-consuming tasks. VITAS payroll employees were running into delays when they had to double-check that aides had completed the tasks that they entered into payroll.

With quicker access to the care plan and patient history, aides can more easily report the completion of each task and notate any patient requests. “We increase the accuracy, availability, and speed of documentation,” says Peterson. “We create the aides’ notes with the tasks we asked them to do, and they tell us if they did them and note the patient’s or caregiver’s response to the care provided.”

With its documentation online, the VITAS team has improved its speed of operation. Today, VITAS office employees are saving up to 100,000 hours per year that they had been spending on payroll reconciliation. In addition, registered nurses can now update the care plans that aides see and follow in real time to avoid documentation errors.

This streamlined process has allowed VITAS employees to save time—and paper. “We’ve created about a million electronic notes so far,” says Hill. “That’s a million pieces of paper we haven’t had to track down or reconcile.” In turn, office staff has more time to devote to further improving the services VITAS provides to patients and families.

Fostering greater collaboration with intuitive tools

VITAS has also improved collaboration among its more than 7,000 providers, including after-hours and weekend workers. The new documentation solution makes it easier for individual clinicians to provide consistent care because they have the care plan and notes about patient requests at their fingertips.

Care plans and notes in Emmy are popular with VITAS hospice aides. “The intuitive nature of the tool was well received and understood,” says Peterson. Aides easily adapted their practices with the new tool for a more efficient process. “We’ve had good adoption,” says Hill. “On average, aides get documentation done within eight hours of the visit.”

Ultimately, aides are happy to use less paper and more intuitive technology to complete care plans, payroll entry, and other tasks. Employees report greater job satisfaction and are staying with VITAS longer, reducing employee turnover and lowering the need to train new employees and constantly shift team assignments.

Creating better experiences for patients and families

With a more efficient documentation process using Power Apps, VITAS is improving the patient experience. Because the entire care team has quick access to the same information, patients receive services and attention from a unified team with a deep knowledge of their individual needs.

Nurses and aides are spending more time focusing on patients without the need to manage so many paper forms. “Nurses and aides are hired to take care of patients and families,” says Peterson. “With this technology, they get to spend more time with patients because they’re not shuffling pieces of paper.”