Castell reduces average daily chart time from four hours to one hour
How the value-based care health services company is using intelligent automation to review charts and identify opportunities for care gap closure.
Castell is a comprehensive health services company that was created by Intermountain Healthcare in 2019 to expand its value-based care management programs. Castell’s mission is to make healthcare more accessible with a focus on improving patient outcomes and affordability.
Core to its unique care delivery model, Castell embraces innovative technology to accelerate the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care (VBC). Intelligent automation, widely implemented at Intermountain Healthcare, is also being adopted at Castell to transform population health initiatives like care gap closure.
“Notable’s intelligent automation platform enables us to utilize data in a meaningful, actionable way. For example, we now have a streamlined way to collect and report patient information, which is typically a major barrier for operationalizing VBC. For so long, our care coordinators were mired in paperwork and data entry. Now, Notable surfaces the right data at the right time to eliminate the many minutes per patient they would normally spend fact-finding in the EHR.”
reduction in chart time
minutes saved per chart
equivalent of FTE saved
weeks to go-live
The challenge
Like many health systems, Castell grappled with how to manage its own staffing shortage amidst growing administrative workloads. Rising administrative costs and workflow inefficiencies can jeopardize the ability of health systems to deliver timely, quality care. These challenges exist for VBC organizations like Castell, who rely on highly-trained care coordinators to provide ongoing support to providers for tasks like chart review and member outreach.
Prior to Notable, Castell Care Coordinators would start their day by logging into iCentra Cerner EHR, and clicking into each patient chart to determine if the patient’s insurance was considered a VBC payer. Depending on the recommended time frame of a service or procedure (for example a colonoscopy should be done every 10 years), the care coordinators search for that documentation, toggling between different filters to locate keywords, dates and repeat recommendations for care.
At times, they would have to request records from other health systems which can take hours or days to fulfill. On average, Castell care coordinators were reviewing approximately 100 charts per day to validate the presence of care gaps. Each chart review required around three minutes of manual point-and-clicking in the EHR, not including the review of scanned reports, faxes, and attachment uploads within each chart, or the phone calls needed for outreach to each patient.
The solution
Since deploying Notable’s Intelligent Population Health solution, Castell care coordinators are able to review the charts of 3,362 additional patients each day. How? Notable’s bots or “digital assistants” are able to perform the work that would otherwise require an additional 34 full time care coordinators and take more than 190 hours to complete.
By leveraging intelligent automation to correctly identify interval follow-ups and reconcile missing data, Castell’s care teams can be more proactive in the way they engage with patients and as a result, save more lives. In addition to improving care for patients, care coordinators can avoid excessive outbound calls, and reduce the data entry required from staff before and after every visit.
