PALO ALTO, Calif., and BATON ROUGE, La., JULY 24, 2018—Vynca, a provider of advance care planning solutions, and the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum (Quality Forum) have established a collaboration to help honor end-of-life wishes for residents in Louisiana. The Quality Forum is a not-for-profit health care improvement organization that manages the statewide health information exchange.
The Quality Forum’s partnership with Vynca will allow health care providers across multiple care delivery continuums in Louisiana to electronically complete, store, and access patients’ end-of-life wishes. This collaboration will help enhance the state’s current advance care planning program, which includes the Louisiana Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (LaPOST) form. LaPOST forms are physician orders outlining the medical treatment that patients with serious, life-limiting illnesses wish to receive at the end of life.
“Since LaPOST was approved by the Louisiana legislature in 2010, the Quality Forum has proudly supported this initiative and advance care planning education as a way to empower health care consumers and providers,” said Cindy Munn, CEO of the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum. “With Vynca as our partner, we are confident that the development of the statewide electronic registry will positively impact end-of-life care communication and documentation for consumers and professionals alike.”
“The mission of LaPOST has always been to improve end-of-life care for those with serious, advanced illnesses,” said Susan Nelson, M.D., LaPOST Coalition Chair. “Now, we will have a way to securely complete, submit, query, and access LaPOST documents in real time so that patients’ medical preferences can be honored by their health professionals across the health care continuum.”
Munn said the deciding factors in the Quality Forum’s decision to partner with Vynca included the maturity of the product, its advanced technology, and the company’s experience working with other states to implement statewide advance care planning registries.
According to Ryan Van Wert, CEO and co-founder of Vynca, advance care planning documents have traditionally been paper-based, presenting numerous challenges, as paper forms can be misplaced, misfiled, invalid, or inaccurate.
“Paper documents are frequently unavailable when needed most to direct care and honor patient care preferences,” Van Wert said. “Our electronic platform has built-in logic to ensure that forms are accurately completed and readily available, supporting health care providers and patients during those transitional moments when individuals may not be able to communicate their wishes. Our collaboration with the Quality Forum will improve the quality of care for patients with serious illness in the state of Louisiana.”
Dr. Nelson and Allen Abshire, Health IT Operations Director of the Quality Forum, will be hosting a session titled “LaPOST Registry: How to Improve Care for Those with Life-Limiting and Sudden Illness,” and demonstrating the Vynca platform at the 2018 Leadership Conference of the HomeCare Association of Louisiana and the Louisiana-Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care Organization on July 25 in New Orleans.
About Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum
The Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum is a private, not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing evidence-based initiatives to improve the health and health care of Louisiana residents. Its focus areas include quality measurement and analytics, practice transformation/medical home development, health information technology (IT), advance care planning/Louisiana Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment education, and community outreach/education. The Quality Forum serves as the State-Designated Entity for health IT initiatives in Louisiana, including management of the statewide health information exchange. For more information, visit lhcqf.org.
About Vynca
Vynca, based in Palo Alto, Calif., provides comprehensive advance care planning solutions that enable health care organizations to deliver consistent, high-quality end-of-life care. The company helps patients and health care providers have meaningful conversations about care preferences, document wishes accurately, and provide real-time access to this critical information throughout the care continuum. Vynca offers expertise in building state registries, having partnered with the Oregon POLST Registry. It also was selected as the technology vendor for the California POLST Registry Pilot and the Delaware DMOST Registry. The system is customized to the needs of health care organizations and state agencies, and provides full EHR integration. For more information, visit www.vyncahealth.com.