TechCare ® EHR from NaphCare: Facilitating Comprehensive Correctional Healthcare

TechCare® EHR from NaphCare: Facilitating Comprehensive Correctional Healthcare

Byron Harrison, Director of Information Systems, NaphCareByron Harrison, Director of Information Systems, NaphCare
Rights are the markup of what humankind has achieved over time. The right to life, self-improvement, and health are all hallmarks in the pursuit of a better life. And yet, many still languish under a subpar quality of care, while paying the price for the crimes they committed. Over 80 percent of U.S. correctional facilities and prisons are home to people with debilitating physio-psychological or drug dependency related illnesses. With most reliant on state-funded healthcare programs during incarceration, a patient’s state of health depends on the established care process and its execution. NaphCare brings both the experience and understanding necessary to operate within correctional facilities to deliver the desired care. This healthcare solution provider renders advanced solutions that focus specifically on detoxification, opioid overuse rehabilitation, and interoperability aimed at reducing recidivism.

“We are moving beyond the traditional capabilities of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) toward a more advanced protocol that deals with the issues which are affecting the correctional systems of our country,” states Byron Harrison, Director of Information Systems at NaphCare. The company’s solution—TechCare®— largely came about by listening to customers and identifying the problems caregivers deal with every day in correctional facilities. While it is always the people who provide care at the top echelon the cycle of facilitating the healthcare processes—including the documentation, adherence to policy, and accountability—are the tools forged in NaphCare’s crucible. One of the biggest obstacles for caregivers is the circumstance where inmates are kept in custody versus the phase when they are released.

We are moving away from the traditional capabilities of an EHR, toward a more advanced protocol that deals with the issues affecting the correctional systems

While most patients are stable during their stay in a facility, the moment they are released, they fail to continue their medication therapies or go see a doctor for follow-up even though there are resources available to them in the community. NaphCare ensures that patients are connected to their respective healthcare department when they are discharged, helping them set up appointments in the community and providing them with prescriptions for the medication they need as they leave the jail facility. The key function of NaphCare and their EHR is to maintain a high standard of healthcare during incarceration and enable that same level of care following release, ultimately reducing the likelihood they will be incarcerated again.

In a single jail facility in the northeast United States, caregivers and patients commonly received negative outcomes in terms of maintaining the standard of healthcare upon the latter’s release. To handle the situation, the facility needed a solution that could adapt to their workflows and ensure that staff followed policy to keep inmate patients healthy. NaphCare spent three months analyzing those workflows, processes, and policies, documenting them from the top down, in order to implement their software TechCare®. This ensured that the software will fit client processes while rendering data conversion training. Subsequently, the facility regained the NCCHC accreditation they lost prior to teaming up with the solution provider.

Today, NaphCare is pursuing the expansion of TechCare®’s role in behavioral risk analysis, to expedite fairer bail policy and reforms, irrespective of inmates’ financial state. “We are committed to correctional facilities, where our expertise lies. We aim to ultimately reduce the jail population and make our community safer while improving care provided to inmates and the reformed,” concludes Harrison.