Credit For Caring

Monica Stynchula is the Founder & CEO of REUNIONCare, Inc. a health information technology company REUNIONCare, Inc. an SBA certified Women-owned small business. Monica received her MSW and MPH from the University of Pittsburgh.

Why We Built REUNIONCare

REUNIONCare is the direct result of my father’s medical journey more than a decade ago. After retirement as he and my mother settled into what was supposed to be the golden years. He began suffering what appeared to be unrelated aches and pains.  They changed their diet.  He would visit his local doctor who would treat him one symptom at a time. You know his story; it happens every day to millions of people.  Then the one practitioner who then starts to look deeper, finds the underlying disease, cancer.

Enterprise Electronic Health Record

My father was treated at one of the nation’s top medical centers. Back then, the university had already invested well over a billion dollars on a state-of-the-art  enterprise health information system. My father moved between hospitals and departments in the system without a piece of paper or redundant intake.  In fact, his name and vitals were listed on his patient whiteboard before we could get from one inpatient room to another.

Transitions of Care Failure

The day arrived when my father was released from the hospital.  My mother would retrieve her car from the large parking garage and wind her way around to the hospital entrance where my father would be waiting in a wheelchair. He was loaded into the car along with his belongings and new bag of drugs. Slam goes the door.  Now it is my mother’s job to make him whole again.

Good-bye and Good Luck

Remember that well-oiled information system? That ended when the car door slammed shut. My mother was now the doctor, nurse, and aide for his recovery.  Dad had a bag full of cancer drugs each with their own unique regime, some with food and others without.  Imagine her confusion since she had no education on drug side effects.  Next, it was the task of ‘selecting’ a home health company to visit him and monitor his progress.  My mother was lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

The problem we set out to solve  How can we extend the technology that happens inside a very expensive and powerful health information system that hospitals have to our families and communities?  From there we began with a wireframe and specifications.

Social Determinants of Health

It has taken over a decade since the Office of National Coordination began to get progress.  Today we are experiencing an honest effort to tear down the information siloes to feed into community-based care. The community care hubs, Medicare Advantage, and delivery models are showing real promise in building collaborations in whole person care. Most importantly, our nation cannot afford to continue to finance healthcare with an open checkbook.  Social determinants of health play the leading role in determining what treatments succeed and those that fail so focus on the root causes with social and behavioral health interventions. Addressing health inequities and the related social determinants of health to curb medical cost and improve the nation’s quality of life should not have been this long and hard.  REUNIONCare was built for this moment.

REUNIONCare 2.0

REUNIONCare 2.0 is much needed “last mile” of access for your community. The goal is to connect healthcare and social care in a care continuum without digital barriers or hoarding data. Reflecting the findings by Dr. Burnight, we strive to improve REUNIONCare to best address SDOH and meaningful engagement of all people. Our mission is to fix a broken care system, make tech that solves problems, and bring dignity and autonomy for our consumers.

REUNIONCare Circle of Care

Our solution is two systems in one. We have the consumer Circle of Care accounts and a Provider Portal for business. Consumers build their Circle of Care using their name and email account. The software is certified at the fourth grade reading level. The site is easily translated for non-English speaking users. New user orientation comes via email with super easy lessons on each site feature. Circle of Care is not a remote patient monitoring or telehealth solution that targets medical issues. The circle account is about living and connecting with other to improve the aging and caregiving journey of the user.

REUNIONCare Provider Portal

The provider portal is a social care tool every home and community-based organization should have. Best of all, the provider portal’s permission and role-based structure enables organizations to invite sister businesses to connect and collaborate. Organizations and client’s goals and activities are based on a single unified care plan using a wraparound care approach. In addition, the consumer (client) Circle of Care accounts are accessible from the Provider Portal. Now your organization has a 360-degree care management solution.

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