ZeOmega Helps Leading Medical Case Management Institute Apply a Powerful Depression-Screening Solution to Improve Overall Wellness of Its Members.
The Challenge
Quality Improvement goals play a key role in the longevity of healthcare organizations. From massive undertakings such cost containment strategies to the more detailed objectives that include implementing targeted approaches to improve health literacy, each organization has its own specific needs. Figuring out how to successfully meet those needs is what divides the leaders from the followers.
Late in 2018, decision makers at Amalgamated Medical Care Management (AMCM)—a national-leading health-care resource offering a comprehensive suite of high-quali-ty care management services—came to ZeOmega with a unique quality-improvement challenge. They identified a need for a more robust depression-screening method that would cover all members enrolled in care management. This specific type of screening would help improve overall health outcomes due to the link between depression and an individual’s general well-being and optimal health, especially those with comorbid conditions.
“Depression causes distressing symptoms that affect how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working,”
National Institute of Mental Health
“Depression causes distressing symptoms that affect how you feel, think, and handle daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, or working,” reports the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). “Beyond a person being more at risk for developing depression if he/she has a personal or family history of the condition, or if a major life change or trauma triggers it, overall health also plays a hand. Depression can co-occur with other serious medical illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and Parkinson’s disease. These conditions often worsen when depression is present. Additionally, sometimes medica-tions taken for these physical illnesses may cause side effects that contribute to depression.” (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.) With the NIMH insights in mind, AMCM determined its Care Managers should consistently conduct depression screenings—along with psycho-social assessments—for all new cases. AMCM reached out to ZeOmega seeking guidance on how to successfully integrate the screening into existing procedures. From there, the project quickly took flight.
Solution
Before partnering with ZeOmega and investing in Jiva—the industry-leading platform for population health management—AMCM had a baseline measurement of depression screening that was not ideal, mainly due to the manual screening process. This meant depression symptoms were sometimes caught, but not always. One major barrier in keeping consistent with a manual process is case volume. The high influx of health information caused certain data to slip through the cracks. Furthermore, the manual process was slow and would sometimes cause confusion by creating care plans for members who were already being treated for depression and therefore didn’t need the screening. AMCM saw an opportunity to automate this process through the use of sophisticated technology that Jiva offers.
Once AMCM partnered with ZeOmeega, all tasks and workflow were efficiently streamlined. ZeOmega’s PHM platform, Jiva, was well positioned and fully capable of supporting AMCM in achieving its goal of conducting depression screening for all members who meet the defined criteria.
Once AMCM partnered with ZeOmega, all tasks and workflow were efficiently streamlined. ZeOmega’s PHM platform, Jiva, was well positioned and fully capable of supporting AMCM in achieving its goal of conducting depression screenings screenings for all members who meet the defined criteria.
The Jiva platform ensured all appropriate health ques-tions—including a depression survey—were automated and embedded into the care management workflow.
This means the care management staff would no longer have to remember to add depression screening to his/her daily process or figure out what to do once a member was flagged for depression. Jiva did it all.
Results
In the fall of 2018 AMCM’s team was thrilled to start using their new depression screening solution. By the second quarter of 2019, AMCM was achieving 100% depression screening of its members enrolled in CM—a huge feat accomplished in such a short time, thanks to the help of Jiva.
“We couldn’t be happier with Jiva and the team at ZeOmega,” says Deborah Largoza, President of Amalgamated Medical Care Management. “We’ve started with a singular focus of completing 100% depression screening for members, but from here, Jiva allows us to do almost anything when it comes to enhancing our value-based care goals.”
“We couldn’t be happier with Jiva and the team at ZeOmega,” says Deborah Largoza, President of Amalgamated Medical Care Management. “We’ve started with a singular focus of completing 100% depression screening for members, but from here, Jiva allows us to do almost anything when it comes to enhancing our value-based care goals.”
“Jiva provides the analytics, complex integration, and deep clinical intelligence we need to conquer major challenges and exciting healthcare goals, says Deborah. Our future goals include optimizing Jiva’s automation to continue to support the work we do. We are fortunate to have Jiva as our care management tool. ”
Deborah Largoza
President of Amalgamated Medical Care Management
Jiva automated the entire process end-to-end, capturing invaluable depression data, creating a holistic care path-way to help remedy the condition, while also addressing each member’s initial health ailment—all with the touch of a few buttons. AMCM was able to achieve its goal of 100%compliance of depression screenings within six months and have since held that level of performance consistently.
