Overview
Before Decatur County Memorial Hospital engaged in a partnership with Outpatient Integrated Strategies, the healthcare provider identified several touchpoints by which they might measure the success of their evolving wound care program. DCMH wanted to deliver the highest quality of care to their patients, access to cutting-edge research, and the confidence to know they were managing costs in a fiscally responsible way. Regardless of the choices they made for their program, they recognized the need for a seamless transition, as well.
In the initial conversation, DCMH sought transparency regarding the benefits of OIS and its alignment with the hospital’s objectives. Integrating the wound care program—to ensure it matched the hospital’s existing professionalism, continuity of care, and quality standards—was essential. Team building played a vital role in bringing medical, clinical, nursing, and administrative staff together to achieve shared goals. During this phase, OIS introduced a new version of their software program, piloted by DCMH, to improve documentation and billing practices. The IT, quality assurance, and regional teams provided dedicated support, ensuring that sought-after seamless transition. DCMH’s existing team fully embraced the integration, resulting in a cohesive approach to patient care and shared outcomes.
Approach
“The beauty of the program itself is the way in which we partnered with them,” says Cathy Wichman, Chief Nursing Officer at Decatur County Memorial Hospital at the time of the partnership agreement. Now the CEO of the Indiana Organization for Nursing Leadership (IONL), Wichman has only one regret regarding DCMH’s partnership with OIS: Not recognizing sooner the transformative impact of bringing OIS into a supervisory role. “Initially, [the agreement focused on] management services,” she says, “but not long after we realized that we really needed to bring [OIS] in for that supervisory role, as well, so that there could be that true connection between the program, OIS, and Decatur staff.”
Because they were asked to optimize an existing program, one that already had a solid foundation, OIS focused on improving standardization efforts and best practices within the wound care program.
By providing the necessary oversight and systems, OIS embodied their promise of “Our Expertise, Your Program.”
Wichman notes the number of resources and training opportunities OIS provided to the Decatur staff, addressing “the gaps they may have had in their knowledge related to either wound care supplies or hyperbaric oxygen therapy in general.” Decatur Memorial soon recognized their partnership with OIS was impacting their other value service lines, as well, including surgical services and the podiatry and physical therapy programs. “We were able to enhance a lot of those services through the wound care program,” Wichman says.
Conclusion
With a focus on quality care initiatives—including healing rates, days to heal, successful in-office procedures, and hyperbaric success rates—and secondary emphasis on the positive financial impact of working with OIS, it became clear that DCMH’s wound care program benefited most when it operated as a unified entity with OIS, prioritizing mutual objectives and successful outcomes.
“We looked at healing rates. We looked at days to heal. We looked at different kinds of procedures that were done in office with success. We looked at our hyperbaric success rates,” WIchman says. “Those quality of care initiatives are really our first priority. And then secondarily, the financial impact to the organization, making sure it is positive—and it has always been positive when working with OIS.”
Wichman recommends that family and friends find out if their go-to wound care option is an OIS-affiliated facility. “I think it does make a difference,” she says. “[An OIS-affiliated facility] signifies the level of quality of care a patient receives.”