Home Care Data Management System

Can a home care system be complete without being complex to its users? Can it follow your workflow, accelerating your tasks, guiding you toward your goals, without getting in your way? Can one system serve the needs of a tightly focused, one-office organization as well as a multi-tiered corporation?

Not only do we think that it can, we feel that it must. Patron was designed to accomplish complex, system-demanding tasks, while remaining simple to its users. This is a very different approach to home care software. Our research tells us that the majority of agencies use only 25%-30% of their current software. Why are agencies only using a third of their software? Agencies say, “Because the software is complex and difficult to use.” It’s hard to get a decent return on your investment when you are only using a
third of your software. The Patron system is complete without being complex, and it’s easy to use.

Patron is easy

We have been producing home care software for over 20 years. We understand what makes a home care agency run efficiently. We know that in most agencies time is a precious commodity, training is a luxury, and the competence of your staff is not tied directly to their computer proficiency. So we designed a system that is inviting— a system with a friendly, non-intimidating face. A system that understands there will be human error and that it is the system’s job to eliminate as many errors as possible up front— catching everything else on the back end.

Being easy isn't simple

The concept of making our system easy runs much deeper than Patron’s friendly user interface. In fact, the easy concept supports every process, system-wide.

We compiled extensive research into how good agencies run efficiently, asking at every turn, “What information would you want to have at your disposal at this point? What could make this task easier? How does this function relate to other functions?” The result is a program that is almost instinctive in use; a system that seems to sense what you want to know, or do, next.

Being easy also requires that the system understand what processes take procedural precedence. Sometimes Patron requires that certain processes be done up front, saving hours of tedium and frustration in the remaining procedure. It’s this holistic view of the mission of software in a home care setting that results in a better way to manage the business of home care.

 

Patron is complete

The software that you choose has to be complete. No one can predict the future in any industry, but it is especially true in our industry. In home care, mandates can change seemingly overnight, rendering your software obsolete. In over 20 years that we have been in business, we have never missed a mandate. We are very proud of this achievement and we are committed to maintaining our reputation for being first in mandates. But, being complete is more than adapting quickly to change. Being complete means that your software has what you need today, and will have what you will need tomorrow.

Patron, unquestionably, has what your agency needs today. It covers your entire patient cycle of care from OASIS, through Orders, Authorizations, Scheduling, and Patient Management, to Billing Management. Patron is a complete system built on a rock-solid SQL foundation. Information that is collected in one area of Patron flows seamlessly into all other areas. And Lewis’ history of home care innovation gives you the confidence that Patron will have what you need tomorrow.

Patron features, A better way

Longtime Patron users rave about its “nice touches.” Patron is filled with user-friendly features that we term, “A better way.”

Features that empower, like the ability to quickly see all your private patients that haven’t been billed, then move quickly to see all your Medicare patients that are unbilled. This makes it easy to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks.

Another empowering feature is the part of Patron that we call Attributes. Attributes lets you track any data that is important to your agency. With Attributes you can customize your reporting in a way that other systems can’t touch. Attributes also drives Patron’s best-fit scheduling that matches your clinicians’ skills to the appropriate patients.

 

Patron also has features that help you sleep well at night, like full HIPAA compliance and exhaustive validation checking to stop inappropriate OASIS responses before they enter the system.

Patron delivers features that make you a hero with your staff while ensuring consistency, like Patron’s Clauses. Clauses stores frequently used passages of text and allows you to insert these text segments into your patient narrative.

Clarity is a statistical analysis program that resides within the Patron program. Who were your top ten referral sources last month? What type of patient is most profitable for your agency? Clarity holds the answers to these and hundreds of the statistical-based questions that you can use to get a better handle on your business.

A Patron user put it best, “It amazes me how well this program is thought through. No matter what part of the program you are working in you’ll find nice touches that make it easier to get the job done.” We call these nice touches "A better way."