Vynca, a provider of advance care planning solutions, and Delaware Health Information Network have established a partnership.
Vynca, Palo Alto, CA, offers a software solution to capture, store, and access medical orders for Scope of Treatment forms, which are vital in ensuring that patients’ end-of-life wishes are met.
The organizations will collaborate to create an electronic registry that provides a single source of advance care planning documentation instantly accessible online to authorized health care providers in any care setting.
Work on the project commenced earlier this month, and the registry is expected to be operating by the end of the year.
“We are excited to support DHIN and its commitment to helping providers in Delaware to honor patients’ end-of-life choices,” said Maria Siambekos, CEO of Vynca. “The impact on patients and families when their wishes aren’t met can be devastating. We are hearing from an increasing number of healthcare organizations that this is a critical and high-priority issue. Vynca’s Advance Care Planning technology solution is flexible to support healthcare organizations across the care continuum to meet the needs of their patients at such an important time.”
End-of-life medical orders allow people with serious, life-limiting illnesses to document their care preferences.
However, the lack of infrastructure to support and sustain an electronic registry can make it difficult for providers to find and access patients’ documents, especially during emergencies. In addition, patients’ end-of-life wishes are accurately documented only about 30 percent of the time, and about 25 percent of paper forms have an avoidable error that renders them unusable.
“In an effort to close any gaps in making a patient’s end-of-life wishes known to his or her physician, the Delaware legislature earlier this year mandated these wishes be standardized through the Delaware Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment Act,” said Jan Lee, MD, CEO of DHIN. “DHIN is committed to partnering with the Goals of Care Delaware Steering Committee in making this critical information easily accessible to healthcare providers through Delaware’s Community Health Record.”
DHIN, the Delaware Health Information Network, was the first live, statewide health information network in the nation. Launched in 2007, today it serves all of Delaware’s acute care hospitals and approaching 100 percent of the state’s medical providers.
