Today, ONC is posting the Long-Term and Post-Acute Care (LTPAC) Roundtable Summary Report of Findings [PDF – 352 KB], which reflects LTPAC stakeholder comments and recommendations from a day-long meeting held in May 2012. The roundtable was held to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to discuss the information needs of LTPAC providers and how these needs could be supported through electronic health record (EHR) adoption and health information exchange.

Long-Term and Post-Acute Care Roundtable

During the roundtable, stakeholders identified three priorities to support LTPAC in subsequent EHR certification and Stage 3 Meaningful Use requirements:

• Person-centric longitudinal care plans
• Transitions of care (TOC)
• Federally required patient assessments

At a high level, stakeholders recommended taking a patient-centered view to transitions of care and support for a broader range of TOC data elements and use cases to support LTPAC.  Stakeholders also noted the need for a dynamic, longitudinal care plan that could be shared among care team members, including patients, families, and caregivers, and across care settings. Finally, stakeholders noted the need to capture and exchange patient assessment content, including cognitive status, functional status, and pressure ulcer content, to support care coordination, delivery, and planning.

Better Care Coordination Between Acute Care and LTPAC Providers

Better care coordination between acute care and LTPAC providers will improve the quality of care provided in LTPAC facilities and help to reduce costs. Individuals receiving LTPAC services today frequently have chronic conditions and co‐morbidities; transitions between care settings are common and create known risks for complications and result in hospital readmissions. Health IT will play a key role in advancing care coordination by decreasing the fragmentation of care and improving the availability of patient information through EHRs and health information exchange. The modernization of the nation’s health IT infrastructure can enable a range of solutions for transitions that are problematic today. An important step in improving care coordination and transitions across the health care system is understanding the information needs of LTPAC providers that can be supported by health IT and impact care delivery and patient outcomes. 

Learn More

More information regarding each of the three stakeholder-identified priorities and common themes from the meeting are provided in the summary of findings. Feedback from the LTPAC community, such as that received via the roundtable, provides valuable insight as we develop our LTPAC strategy. ONC appreciates the contributions of roundtable participants and invites you to provide comment on the Long-Term and Post-Acute Care (LTPAC) Roundtable Summary Report [PDF – 352 KB]!

For more information on health information technology, visit HealthIT.gov.