Loyola University of Chicago

Home health care is an important component of New York State’s health care system. To make the best use of their home health providers, home care agencies must have a strategic and clear process to deliver care and services efficiently.

Past approaches to scheduling and routing home care visits have often been manual, inefficient, and cumbersome. Developed software is expensive and difficult to integrate with other software systems, and previous tools were unable to take into account the needs and preferences of patients and caregivers. In 2011, NYHealth awarded Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) a grant to develop and test an intelligent routing software system to help New York’s home health agencies improve their process for assigning and scheduling home health visits.

During the grant period, the lead developer of the project moved from RIT to Loyola University of Chicago, where the project was continued. In collaboration with home health care agency test sites and related organizations, Loyola developed a practical software tailored for home health agencies. Accompanying test sites helped the project team define what characteristics the software should have, served as beta testers during software development, and piloted the software to test its effectiveness. The final version was made available to all health home agencies in New York State, and provided hands-on support as agencies adopted the software.