Tracking Vendor Nails Patent

Home health software vendor HealthWyse has secured a patent for its remote personnel tracking program. The software is designed to help home health agencies keep track of their staff to prevent Medicare fraud. To use the technology, homecare agencies place a security token in a patient’s home. They may also assign a token to each field-based employee. Upon arrival, the employee calls in and enters a six-digit code generated every 60 seconds by the security token in the patient’s home. That identifies the location of the employee. If the employee is assigned a token, they will be prompted to enter the six digit code generated by their own security token to identify themselves.

Users of the system include Danvers, Mass.-based Northeast Clinical Services. The home health agency wanted to “establish clear and specific documentation of employee time spent caring for our patients,” according to a statement from Robert Wilson, chief operating officer. “Our services are largely paid for by the Medicare and Medicaid programs and we wanted to be certain that our rapid growth would not erode the integrity of our services. We needed to find a time and attendance system that would also give us employee location.”