FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 13, 2023
RESPECTING CHOICES JOINS WISERCARE, CREATING FIRST FULL-SERVICE PLATFORM FOR PATIENT DECISION SUPPORT AND ADVANCE CARE PLANNING
WiserCare, the leading digital health platform for personalized patient decision support and Advance Care Planning (ACP), and Respecting Choices, the leading provider of facilitator training and program implementation for ACP and serious illness conversations, are joining together to create the first comprehensive solution for person-centered decision making, including support for serious illnesses and end-of-life care.
The move recognizes increasing demand from the healthcare marketplace – both from individuals and from provider groups, health plans, and other organizations responsible for care – for solutions that ensure that an individual’s preferences and decisions are documented and aligned with the care they receive. The combined solution will meet a pressing need for healthcare organizations that want to provide more personalized care to their patients but have been limited by workforce shortages and capacity constraints.
Dr. Arul Thangavel, WiserCare’s CEO, notes, “This development grew out of our organizations’ four-year partnership creating integrated solutions for ACP. Our customers have consistently pointed to a shortage of staff trained in these types of conversations as a key limitation to scaling their ACP programs. Joining with Respecting Choices meets this challenge head-on by providing flexible, on-demand access to a vast network of professionals that will extend our customers’ reach in supporting a full range of healthcare decisions with high-quality consultations, along with best-in-class training and implementation capabilities for their own staff.”
Dr. Stephanie Anderson, DNP, RN, and Executive Director of Respecting Choices, adds, “Our partners – from health systems and community organizations to certified facilitators – have long expressed the need for a digital solution that doesn’t simply focus on documents but rather supports high-quality, efficient conversations, which the evidence shows is what drives true value in ACP. We are thrilled to join WiserCare, as it will allow us to meet this need.”
Expanding Reach and Access to Personalized Care, Starting with Advance Care Planning
The integrated organization will continue to offer WiserCare’s portfolio of clinically integrated patient decision support and ACP modules, as well as Respecting Choices’ training, implementation, and capacity-building programs. This comprehensive approach will support organizations to quickly and easily expand the scale of their ACP programs and services.
The initial enterprise ACP solution will provide individuals with a level of ACP support that matches their needs, recognizing that some people will prefer to complete the process independently while others may need the high-touch virtual or in-person support that can be provided by Respecting Choices-certified facilitators. The solution will also support clinicians and facilitators with a broad range of tools, from integrated documentation and billing features to digital signature capabilities to solve the ‘last mile’ challenge of document execution.
About WiserCare
WiserCare has long led the way in digital patient decision support, with a patented approach that combines goals, preferences, and evidence-based outcomes models to provide personalized guidance to patients and care teams and to automate the next steps in care.
This approach has proven to drive higher quality and satisfaction with decisions, while also saving care teams time, improving access, and reducing the total cost of care. The company has applied this model to help health systems, plans, and other organizations scale their ACP programs. Individuals can use WiserCare independently to complete ACP, as well as to prepare for sessions with their doctors or facilitators, during which they will express and document important goals and wishes for their care.
About Respecting Choices
For almost 30 years, Respecting Choices has focused on the human touch that personalized care requires, making the organization the longstanding leader in personalized decision-making, particularly for ACP and serious illness care. The organization works directly with healthcare and community organizations to redesign systems and provide interprofessional training so that individuals can get care tailored to what matters most to them.
Respecting Choices has certified thousands of multidisciplinary professionals to facilitate conversations, and consulted with hundreds of organizations, communities, and states on the development of systems to support ACP. Respecting Choices programs have a robust foundation of practical experience and proven effectiveness at improving outcomes, satisfaction, and cost, built through use in over 400 organizations worldwide and validation in 33 research publications.
Media Contact:
Laurie Smith | 310.625.6688 | lauriesmith@wisercare.com