The Foundation of Agency Management 
MedShare HC is a comprehensive business platform designed specifically for the home health care sector. MedShare HC includes client management, scheduling, billing, payroll, advanced reporting features and unlike older systems, it includes full electronic medical record (EMR) support. With MedShare HC, your agency will immediately reduce paperwork, spend less time on administration, produce more accurate information, and enhance communication and collaboration among agency staff and health care workers.
 Key Features |
Clients
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EMR
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Scheduling
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eCharting
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Billing
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Payroll
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Reports
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Care Plans
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Usability
Easy Install and Setup:
Although MedShare HC is a Windows-based application, it is deployed via the Internet. ClickOnce installation downloads and installs all the components needed to run MedShare HC in your agency.
No more searching for updates, downloading and re-installing patches or upgrades -- all new releases, updates and enhancements to the software are quickly deployed and automatically installed each time you launch MedShare HC.
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Familiar Windows™ Application Style Interface:
MedShare HC's user interface is modeled after many of the leading Windows-based applications you use on a day-to-day basis. Navigating MedShare HC is as easy as using Microsoft Outlook, Word, PowerPoint or Excel.
Menu systems, terminology, pop-up windows, toolbars, application settings, right-click functionality -- all the functions you use in other popular Windows™ applications are available to you in MedShare HC. From the very first time you launch MedShare HC you will feel comfortable with our familiar, intuitive interface.
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Industry Terminology:
MedShare HC has been created from the ground up for the home health care industry, by home health care professionals. Familiar language and terminology make MedShare HC that much easier to use.
When it comes time to create, edit or find relevant data quickly, you'll be delighted that MedShare HC speaks your language.
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Workflow Power Tools to Streamline Complex Tasks:
There are many complex data relationships and business processes that exist in the management of a home health care agency. For users of older agency management systems, it can be tedious and time-consuming to perform these tasks repetitively on a daily basis. That's where MedShare HC's Power Tools come in -- relieving the burden of paperwork and repetition.
For example, the Client Intake Power Tool streamlines and simplifies the process of creating and associating a client, their referrals, service orders, service units or visits, all in one easy step-by-step wizard.
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Customizable Dashboard for Quick Access to Current Data:
MedShare HC features a number of Dashboard "widgets" that give users quick and easy access to their most recent and relevant items within the Suite, saving time and enhancing ease-of-use.
These "widgets" are essentially a collection of links to current data, recently accessed data, or specific workflow items throughout MedShare HC, and are customizable and modifiable based on parameters such as roles, date ranges, types of work items,status, etc.
For example, HR personnel who spend much of their time maintaining payroll items for agency staff may enable a "Payroll Widget" that displays outstanding payment requests. Or, an administrator who is responsible for HCW scheduling may wish to display an alert list of conflicts or unclaimed cases.
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Functionality
Role Based Functionality:
Via role-based functionality different user groups within MedShare HC, clerical staff, office/clinical supervisors, executives and Health Care workers, gain access to their own data. An intuitive role management interface lets system administrators create users and assign roles based on user requirements.
This concept also creates a more secure system, granting access only to those users with permissions to sensitive information, as well as eliminating irrelevant data and functions for general users.
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Configurable to Fit Your Agency's Needs:
Many business processes within the home health care industry differ from one Agency to another. Payroll, expenses and other financial information may be handled differently across agencies.
MedShare HC allows each agency to configure all of this information, and much more, to fit their specific workflow and requirements. Many clinical, financial, and HR codes and values can be configured in the software and instantly become available to all users across the system.
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Powerful Search, Filter and Sorting Capabilities:
With MedShare HC managing all aspects of your business processes and staff workflow, there is no doubt the amount of information in the system will grow to a substantial size. Searching for a specific record in the system and then being able to filter and sort those results will become imperative for the efficiency of your agency and staff.
MedShare HC empowers users with an advanced set of contextual searching and filtering capabilities. Relevant filtering criteria are presented in an intuitive interface depending on the type of content the user is working on. (e.g. clients, service units, invoices, etc). The search engine also allows you to identify health care workers that are available to service a visit and/or a series of planned visits based on availability, skills required and geographic criteria.
The combination of these functions in MedShare HC is a huge efficiency booster for anyone using the system, agency wide.
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Supports HCW Team Concepts:
Not only can MedShare HC help in the assignment and scheduling of health care workers to specific clients and the service units for that client, but it also supports a team concept. The team concept allows groups of health care workers to be assigned to one client and distribute the service units among the team. This is very useful when a client requires different treatments, but the services are included
on one service order.
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Powerful "Out-of-the-Box" and Customizable Reports:
Reporting services within MedShare HC are provided using Reporting tools from Microsoft. MS Reporting offers some great benefits to HC's reporting functionality:
- Interactive features in MS Reporting services that include: drill down, drill through reports, dynamic filtering, sorting and grouping
- Powerful tools for end user to create customer reports on the fly
- A variety of report output formats (TIFF, HTML, PDF, XML, Excel)
- Report delivery based on a secure subscription service
MedShare HC offers an extensive set of pre-built reports, accessible from an easy to use dashboard, specially designed to provide health care agency management with the tools needed to measure service delivery performance, health outcomes, financial summaries and numerous other issues that confront the agency and require detailed reporting so as to make informed and appropriate decisions.
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Technology
Smart Client Technology:
MedShare HC is built on Microsoft’s Smart Client technology which allows users to access real-time data while working in remote locations. A Smart Client gives users the ability to have robust, traditional client software applications installed on their local computer and the flexibility and speed of accessing information online. Applications created using Smart Client technology can easily interact and integrate with other Windows software. This adds to the versatility of MedShare HC.
Key benefits of the Smart Client technology include:
- Utilize the MedShare HC Suite anywhere, anytime. No need for continuous access to the network
- Increase productivity
- Reduce training requirements
- Expand access
- Reduce operating costs
- Create better user experiences
Learn more about Smart Client Technology.
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Windows-based Application:
A Windows-based application, such as MedShare HC, offers many advantages over Web-based applications. A Windows-based application is installed on a local computer. This means that the software is able to use the local processing power that the computer offers. A Web-based application will only use a very small percentage of that power.
Having the application locally installed allows users to work in a stable environment offline. A Web-based program will become unavailable once the computer is disconnected from the network.
Traditional issues with having a Windows-based application such as large volume deployment and downtime for updates are eliminated with the implementation of ClickOnce Technology.
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ClickOnce Deployment:
ClickOnce Deployment is a Microsoft tool used to ease the deployment process and updating processes for Windows-based applications. With this technology, the software application only needs to be deployed once onto the user’s machine. The deployment strategy chosen for MedShare HC is to install from the Web or install from a network share. One of the great advantages to this deployment strategy is the ability to efficiently install this software in a large number of computers within a short time. This will help streamline the deployment process because the technician does not need to physically manipulate each computer. The user can access the application from a web site or a network share and install it with a simple click of a button.
Another advantage to a ClickOnce deployment is the ability for a Windows-based application to self-update. The ClickOnce technology provides updates automatically. The application checks for updates before startup, and will prompt the user to download any available updates at the start of the program. Unlike the traditional Windows Installer deployment, ClickOnce technology will only download and install the portions of the application that have changed, which means the user does not need to manually reinstall the entire application again, saving time.
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Occasionally Disconnected Mode:
MedShare HC was designed with the freedom of working offline in mind. If for any reason the client application loses connectivity with the server, the application has a local database containing all the data necessary for the user to work in a disconnected mode. Users can download the portion of data specific to their needs from the central server onto their local computer. Once connectivity is re-established, the data on both databases will be synchronized automatically. This is accomplished through the use of the 2005 SQL Everywhere technology supporting the local database, which works in conjunction with the central database that uses the 2005 SQL Server technology.
This technology gives you the peace of mind when using MedShare HC, because any disconnections will not disrupt your user experience. You can also be sure that your databases are up to date with the most current information.
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Standards
Meeting Industry Security Requirements:
In the home health care industry, protecting personal health information of clients is extremely important. According to the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) all health information custodians are required to ensure that health records are retained, transferred and disposed of in a secure manner.
The MedShare HC suite is built to meet and exceed these government regulations to protect the privacy of the clients. Individuals using this software are all assigned User IDs and Passwords, which will identify them in specific roles. Based on their role, each user is only given access to the information they need to perform their service.
In addition, MedShare HC maintains an audit trail that records the date, time, and user name when changes are made to any record in the system. This audit trail allows your agency to identify who is responsible for specific changes to a client’s files.
For more information on PHIPA, visit:
Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario Web site: www.ipc.on.ca
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Data Transfer Security:
Most electronic security breaches occur during the transfer process. Extra precautions have been taken by MedShare when designing MedShare HC to ensure that personal health information is secure during transfer between the agency, the central server, the customers’ offices and any other institution.
Information transferred from the MedShare HC suite is equipped with double layered security. The first layer of security is a bit SSL secure pathway. In addition to that, the package of information has a second layer of Triple DES encryption. In short, your agency’s data is transferred in a secured package through a secure network connection.
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HL7 Standards:
HL7, also known as Health Level Seven, is an ANSI approved Standards Development Organization (SDO) focused on the health care industry. The purpose of HL7 is to develop specifications that are standardized in the industry to allow health care applications to exchange important set of clinical and administrative data. HL7 supports functions such as security checks, participant identification, availability checks, exchange mechanism negotiations and data exchange structuring.
HL7 Mission Statement
“HL7 is an international community of healthcare subject matter experts and information scientists collaborating to create standards for the exchange, management and integration of electronic healthcare information. HL7 promotes the use of such standards within and among healthcare organizations to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare delivery for the benefit of all.”
MedShare is prepared for the future of the health care industry. Currently we have an ongoing project with the Ontario Ministry of Health to develop a Common Intake Assessment Tool that utilizes the latest version HL7 standards, HL7 version 3.0. Not only are we leaders in implementing the HL7 standards in our products, our top management participate in meetings where HL7 members contribute to the development and advancement of the clinical and administrative standards for health care.
Other standards development efforts do exist, but HL7 is a singular focus that covers the requirements for the entire health care industry. Most other efforts only focus on requirements for certain sectors.
Do not be left out in this cost-effective approach to system connectivity. Invest in an application that is strong enough to take care of your agency’s present and future.
For more information about HL7, visit www.hl7.org
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Agency Management Solution Outline
