Tag: acplus

Breathing New Life into Respiratory Care: NHC's Success with ACPlus® Respiratory Assessment

Breathing New Life into Respiratory Care: NHC’s Success with ACPlus® Respiratory Assessment 

Key highlights:  

  • NHC’s pilot of ACPlus® Respiratory Assessment (ARA) in 3 centers since June 2023 has significantly improved respiratory care. 
  • ARA has helped reduce rehospitalization rates by 36% and has ensured that Medicare and Medicaid submissions reflect the medical complexity of the patient population, enhancing patient care and financial performance. 
  • NHC plans to expand ARA to all 11 facilities, emphasizing staff buy-in, systematic implementation, and patient-focused benefits for success. 

Respiratory care is a critical, often challenging, aspect of patient health in skilled nursing facilities. The ACPlus Respiratory Assessment (ARA) is changing this landscape, offering an innovative approach to identifying and managing respiratory issues. National Healthcare Corporation (NHC) recently piloted ARA in three of its facilities, with results that are transforming patient care and operational efficiency. 

Sarah Ison, Regional Therapy Director for NHC's central region
Sarah Ison, Regional Therapy Director, NHC

We spoke with Sarah Ison, Regional Therapy Director for NHC’s central region, to learn more about their experience with ARA, how they have been using it across their pilot facilities, and the results they have seen since implementing it in June 2023.

Implementing ARA

Various staff members, from nurses to therapists, can perform an assessment with ARA, allowing for flexibility in implementation. “Most of the buildings have three or four people doing the assessment,” Ison notes. “We have therapists doing it, nurses, and some nurse practitioners and respiratory therapists.” 

After some trial and error, they found a sustainable workflow to ensure each new admission was assessed in a timely manner. “We test every new admission within the first three days,” said Ison. “For our long-term care population, we test quarterly and as needed if someone notices a change.”

Uncovering Hidden Health Issues 

Ison reveals one of the biggest surprises they have encountered since adopting ARA is the volume of patients experiencing respiratory deficits who show no obvious symptoms. She estimates that of the patients they have assessed, 95% return results indicating a respiratory deficit. “It has really helped us to identify patients who would benefit from respiratory therapy, whom we might not have typically provided that service to,” said Ison.

Strengthening Documentation 

In an era of frequent healthcare audits, ARA provides robust documentation and objective data that has been invaluable for NHC’s staff. “Our documentation is constantly being reviewed, so we have found it was extremely beneficial having those ARA results and the documentation of those deficits to support what we were capturing on the MDS,” said Ison.

ARA’s Impact by the Numbers 

One of NHC’s inpatient facilities saw significant year-over-year improvement, which Ison attributes in part to their use of ARA starting in June 2023: 

  • Rehospitalization rates dropped 36% from May 2023 vs May 2024
  • Average daily Medicare Part A reimbursement increased by 4%  
  • Medicaid reimbursement rose 7.4% 

These numbers reflect not just financial value but also improved patient care and better outcomes. 

Finding Success with ARA

For those interested in implementing ARA in their facility, Ison offers the following framework to extract the most value from the tool: 

  1. Secure buy-in from leadership and key staff members 
  2. Develop a systematic approach to conducting assessments 
  3. Remain flexible and willing to adjust processes 
  4. Focus on the patient benefits to motivate staff

Looking Ahead

As a testament to ARA’s success, NHC plans to roll out ARA across all 11 facilities in Ison’s region. NHC’s experience with ARA emphasizes how early detection of respiratory deficits can transform patient care. By providing precise data and robust documentation, ARA is helping facilities like NHC deliver more comprehensive, targeted care for better patient outcomes. 

National Healthcare Corporation’s (NHC) experience does not represent a claim made by Accelerated Care plus. Your results with ACPlus® Respiratory Assessment may vary. 

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Respiratory care is a critical, often challenging, aspect of patient health in skilled nursing facilities. The ACPlus Respiratory Assessment (ARA) is changing this landscape, offering an innovative approach to identifying and managing respiratory issues. National Healthcare Corporation (NHC) recently piloted ARA in three of its facilities, with results that are transforming patient care and operational efficiency.

Transform Respiratory Outcomes with ACPlus Respiratory Assessment

Transform Respiratory Outcomes with ACPlus Respiratory Assessment (ARA)

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our newest product, ACPlus® Respiratory Assessment, or ARA. ARA is an innovative software enabling skilled nursing operators to proactively identify patients with pulmonary dysfunction and provide them with the care they need. ARA’s objective data helps clinicians build an effective treatment plan while providing robust documentation needed to justify respiratory care and support reimbursement. 

ARA Features & Results

ARA makes respiratory assessment easier than ever. Here are just a few of the key features that make it a powerful tool to enhance your respiratory care: 

  • Data-Driven Care: ARA identifies patients with pulmonary dysfunction and automatically suggests possible lung disease patterns and severity levels to deliver the precise data needed to build an individualized treatment plan.  
  • Early Patient Identification: ARA helps capture potential respiratory concerns during the initial assessment, which is more critical than ever with higher acuity patient populations and today’s PDPM requirements. 
  • Robust Documentation: ARA’s objective data provides documentation required to justify respiratory care, helping you get reimbursed for the true complexity of your patient population. 

Don’t just take our word for it – we implemented ARA in skilled nursing facilities and found that ARA helped operators:1 

  • Conduct efficient, standardized respiratory assessment 
  • Identify undiagnosed respiratory deficits 
  • Establish baseline respiratory deficits upon admission 
  • Eliminate external spirometry Pulmonary Function Test wait time 
  • Justify respiratory services  
  • Enhance treatment planning  

Explore our study to learn how inpatient, outpatient, and contract rehab providers within skilled nursing have used ARA and see their results.

How ARA Works

ARA is designed to be simple and easy to use, seamlessly integrating respiratory assessment into clinical workflows. 

  1. Using an iPad and Bluetooth spirometer, a clinician can select a patient in the app, enter their demographics, and conduct breathing tests that capture baseline metrics.  
  1. ARA interprets the data to suggest possible lung disease patterns and severity levels the clinical team can use to tailor the best treatment plan for that patient.  
  1. If a re-assessment is needed, the clinician can access the patient’s record and easily conduct a follow-up. 

Unlock Efficiencies with EHR Integration

You can get even more out of ARA through EHR integration with PointClickCare. By enabling EHR integration, ACPlus can instantly sync ARA results, reports, and notes with your EHR at the point of service, proactively identifying patients who may benefit from respiratory therapy upon admission.  

  1. Based on ACPlus Respiratory Assessment Pilot Study data.  ↩︎

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