Pharmerica's New Life Cycles Software Helps Long-Term Care Facilities Manage Costs and Clinical Outcomes
BusinessWire, Monday, October 19, 1998 at 14:30
TAMPA, Fla.--(BW HealthWire)--Oct. 19, 1998--
Use of Multi-Faceted Family of Software Can Be Key
to the Improvement of Operations and Clinical Outcomes
A new family of software designed to help long-term care and
assisted living facilities better manage resident care costs and
clinical outcomes in a rapidly changing healthcare environment is
being introduced by PharMerica (NASDAQ:DOSE), one of the nation's
leading providers of long-term care pharmacy services, announced
R. Scott Jones, PharMerica's senior vice president of marketing and
sales.
"Life Cycles software can have an immediate positive impact on
the ways facilities admit residents, coordinate resident care on a
daily basis and analyze the costs associated with managing care
properly in a changing regulatory world," said Jones.
Life Cycles, a comprehensive, interdisciplinary family of
software, features six programs that range from pre-admission
screenings, to daily case management, to cost assessments and overall
financial management. The programs help facilities work with
Medicare's Prospective Payment System (PPS) and plan for future
growth, while managing costs and clinical outcomes, said Jones. Some
programs also help facilities develop care plans and monitor
medications.
Life Cycles is the combination of software products that already
are being offered by PharMerica plus several new software programs
created specifically for long-term care and assisted living
facilities.
Developed with input from long-term care facility administrators
and directors of nursing, Life Cycles' various programs complement
each other when used as a complete package, Jones added. However, the
programs are equally effective when purchased and used individually.
All Life Cycles' software programs are user-friendly, which means
facility staff members need minimal computer experience to operate or
use them.
"Life Cycles provides a forward-looking approach to health care
management, offering facilities a framework in which to maneuver
within PPS and manage day-to-day business with greater efficiency,"
said Jones. "Over time, Life Cycles helps a facility collect and
analyze data that provides the knowledge base which enables facilities
to excel in a time of rapid change."
The various components of PharMerica's Life Cycles software
include:
Pursuit Pre-Admission Software. Pursuit outlines the costs and
revenues associated with providing care for a prospective resident
before the resident is admitted and helps analyze a facility's
resident case mix to determine the financial benefits of accepting a
new resident. Pursuit also allows for online documentation of
payor-negotiated exclusions and reasons for admission denials, as well
as customization at the facility level to accommodate local payor
requests.
Pursuit CM. PharMerica's unique daily case manager program,
Pursuit CM, uses information generated by Pursuit to recalculate care
costs whenever a resident's condition changes - allowing care costs to
be calculated on a daily basis. Pursuit CM's maintenance of accurate,
daily and retrospective cost profiles of resident care allows
facilities the time needed to adjust treatment if necessary, reducing
the possibility that treatment costs will exceed reimbursement rates.
Pursuit CM is expected to be available this winter.
LifeStory. With LifeStory, an integrated, clinically advanced
software program, facilities can comply with federal requirements for
computerization and minimum data set (MDS) transmission. LifeStory
organizes resident information and automatically forwards it to all
other LifeStory modules for facility use. LifeStory enables facilities
to customize programs at the facility or resident level; develop care
plans using MDS and resident assessment protocol (RAP) information;
create comprehensive reports; and track quality indicators. LifeStory
also double-checks data and ensures accuracy before MDS transmission.
LifeStory-Financials. Completely integrated with all long-term
care LifeStory modules, LifeStory-Financials automatically calculates
room and board billing based on census information. It also assists
long-term care facilities with accounts receivable and payable,
including invoices, payroll and general ledger. LifeStory-Financials
is expected to be available this fall.
LifeStory-Assisted Living. The only care management software
developed specifically for the assisted living market,
LifeStory-Assisted Living reduces paperwork and manages resident
information and service plans electronically - saving time and
reducing the risk of errors. LifeStory-Assisted Living's features
include inquiry tracking and move-in, RAPS, service plans with
comprehensive libraries and medication observation sheets with
physician's orders.
MediQuick Plus. This interactive, facility-based data management
system features an online formulary that alerts facilities to
potential medical problems or non-formulary medications before
prescriptions are filled. An invaluable tool for PPS and managed care,
MediQuick Plus increases resident safety, contains costs associated
with drug-related problems, streamlines documentation, provides
quality assurance and expedites the readmission process.
PharMerica is one of the nation's foremost providers of quality,
cost-effective pharmacy products and services to the long-term care,
assisted living, subacute and skilled nursing industries, as well as
online pharmacy and mail-service workers' compensation, including the
catastrophically injured population.
Headquartered in Tampa, Fla., PharMerica operates more than 190
pharmacy facilities located in 41 states. For more information about
PharMerica, please call 1-800/237-7676, ext. 6788, or visit
PharMerica's corporate Web site at www.pharmerica.com.
CONTACT: PharMerica
Charles O'Neill, 800/237-7676
Lee Wood, Investor Relations, 800/237-7676
or
JohnstonWells
Jeannette Moninger, 303/623-3366
KEYWORD: FLORIDA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: MEDICINE PHARMACEUTICAL COMED
COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS PRODUCT
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