OUTCOME, REACH Call partner to integrate stroke-telemedicine data into Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program

Feb 23 2010

Outcome Sciences, Inc. (OUTCOME), the leading provider of patient registries, studies, and technologies for evaluating real-world outcomes, and REACH Call, the leading provider of web-based telemedicine services, today announced a partnership to integrate stroke-telemedicine data into the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines^®–Stroke program.

“We are excited about this partnership and the ability to help our customers simplify the operational complexities around stroke care: compliance, certification, and reimbursement”

The goals of this collaboration are to:

• Share knowledge between rural emergency departments and specialists at major medical centers;
• Gain new insights into the continuum of care for stroke patients treated via telemedicine;
• Streamline data collection for hospitals participating in the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke quality program and Joint Commission certification;
• Support reimbursement by helping hospitals achieve Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recommendations for stroke registry participation and;
• Support reimbursement by helping hospitals collect stroke measures for the CMS Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) program.

The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke program, for which OUTCOME serves as the data collection and coordination center and provides the Patient Management Tool^® application, is a continuous quality improvement initiative designed to track and improve outcomes for stroke patients. Over 1,400 hospitals and thousands of physicians participating in the program are able to compare their performance with national benchmarks for key elements of stroke care such as timeliness of diagnosis, use of thrombolytic therapy, and initiation of rehabilitation. Peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated significant improvement in composite care quality as a result of this program.

As part of this collaboration, REACH Call will automatically integrate data collected from a stroke telemedicine consult into the Get With The Guidelines–Stroke registry. This integration will save customers time in both data collection and reporting, enhancing overall compliance with their quality initiatives. REACH’s total solution includes a user-friendly interface with integrated decision support tools, automatic data collection, advanced video conferencing, and assistance in building and growing telemedicine networks.

“There is currently a discontinuity of information when tracking stroke patients throughout the continuum of care, and this problem is overwhelmingly seen in rural and underserved emergency departments,” said Dr. Richard Gliklich, President and CEO of Outcome. “This integration of programs will enhance our ability to assess the full continuum of stroke care, identify opportunities for improvement, and increase the visibility of outcomes to clinical leaders, payors and patients. We look forward to working with REACH Call to integrate stroke telemedicine data into The American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines–Stroke Program to address this unmet medical need, which is expected to be exacerbated by the aging baby boomers and younger adults.”

“We are excited about this partnership and the ability to help our customers simplify the operational complexities around stroke care: compliance, certification, and reimbursement,” said Sandeep Agate, CEO of REACH Call. “Collaborations like these are a win for everyone involved.”