MatrixCare Launches Advanced Communications Platform for Hospice & Palliative Care

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (March 10, 2022)—MatrixCare announced the availability of MatrixCare Link, a new tool within its home health, hospice and palliative care electronic health record (EHR) software that simplifies communication and forms management for increased efficiency and a higher quality care experience for patients, physicians, and caregivers.

MatrixCare Link includes two essential components:

•    MatrixCare Link Messaging—Gives care teams a quick and easy way to communicate with each other in real time to discuss care plans and address issues or concerns to ensure quality and continuity of care through secure text messaging that helps you maintain HIPAA compliance. It also provides caregivers the ability to group broadcast messages and alerts, automate text translations, access an education center with health-related materials, and experience on-call message routing and auto-escalation to improve care coordination, save time and keep stakeholders informed.
•    MatrixCare Link Forms—Allows organizations to create and send their own custom, digital forms directly to patients and/or caregivers in advance of admission or have the patient sign electronically in the home. Because MatrixCare Link Forms is integrated into the EHR, signed documents can be viewed almost immediately, minimizing care disruptions and signature chasing.

Many home-based care providers often work remotely and, therefore, face challenges around communicating and collaborating with key stakeholders inside and outside of their organization. Coupled with the burden of paperwork and time spent chasing down required signatures, these challenges can impact continuity of care and quality of the care experience – especially with today’s labor shortages and increased workloads.

Sangre de Cristo Community Care, Southern Colorado’s leading provider of hospice and palliative care services, has found the electronic forms management particularly helpful in onboarding hospice patients whose healthcare agents (MDPOA) or proxy decision-makers are out of state. With MatrixCare Link, Sangre staff can send a “magic link” that allows individuals to view, sign, and submit necessary forms without having to download a separate application, create a username, or jot down an email address or phone number.

Today, Sangre de Cristo has more than 70 types of electronic forms in its library, including both patient-facing forms and educational materials and internal forms for workflows like compliant investigations and information technology agreements. Currently, 96% of all Sangre de Cristo’s patient admissions forms for home health and hospice have been completed via MatrixCare Link.

“One of the things we love most about this tool is its ease of use. If you can use standard text messaging, you can use this with little to no training,” said Janell Solomon, Sangre de Cristo’s director of compliance.

“My team has found so many creative ways to use MatrixCare Link to communicate and we feel it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Solomon said. “It has made a major a difference for us, eliminating the stress and emotions around obtaining necessary paperwork in trying times so that my team’s great work shines through instead. We’re very excited about this new tool that will further enhance our MatrixCare EHR experience and help bring our organization to the next level.”

“Patients and caregivers today want the ability to communicate with their providers in real time and their providers require a better way to share important documentation and collaborate while remote,” said Navin Gupta, senior vice president of MatrixCare’s home and hospice division. “MatrixCare Link allows home-based care organizations to satisfy each parties’ needs and remove friction quickly and easily from every home health, hospice, and palliative care interaction. The result is increased provider efficiencies, a better care experience for all stakeholders, and potentially even improved ratings and referrals by reducing hospitalizations and giving patients and families easy access to caregivers.”

MatrixCare Link is now available for home health, hospice, and palliative care customers. To learn more, visit matrixcare.com/link.