Someone has to build the group
A referral is accepted, and a coordinator opens a chat, types the patient's name, and adds people from memory. Done forty times a week, it is a job. Done once wrong, it is the wrong clinician in a patient's thread.
How a stream behaves
Pick a source. Watch the channel assemble.
A stream carries a record out of a source system and into Buzz, where it opens the channel the care team will actually use. Pick a source to see it run.
Source
What the stream carries in
Epic · referral accepted
- Patient
- Alvarez, Maria
- Episode
- Start of care, skilled nursing
- Assigned
- RN case manager, PT, scheduler
What opens in Buzz
MA
Alvarez, Maria · DOB 03/14/1948Patient channel · opened by stream
JRRN case manager
TKPhysical therapy
DSScheduler
MPDirector of nursing
First post in the channelStart of care accepted. First visit to be scheduled within the admission window.
The other direction
What returns to the chart, and whether it returns at all, is scoped with your implementation team for your system. Nothing below is switched on by default.- Thread summaries
- Event logs
- Signed documents
Kestrel Hollow is a demonstration agency. Patient details are made up. The source systems named are real; the record shown is an illustration.
The problem
Your system of record stores the chart. It does not run the day.
Every agency has the same gap. The EHR knows the patient. The team knows what is actually happening. Neither one tells the other without a person in the middle.
Two places to look
The chart holds the documentation. The coordination happens in text messages, voicemails and hallway conversations that the chart never sees, and that nobody can reconstruct later.
The conversation should survive it
Agencies change EHRs. A communication record tied to one vendor leaves with that vendor. Buzz is independent of your system of record, so the thread stays yours.
How it works
Connect. Open. Coordinate.
Three steps, and only the first one involves your IT team.
1 · Connect
A stream to the source
Skyscape stands up a stream between Buzz and your source system. Epic was first. Homecare Homebase followed at the RVNA go-live. A source does not have to be an EHR at all — one stream launched when Zing onboarded.
2 · Open
The channel opens itself
A record crossing the stream opens the patient's channel in Buzz and brings the assigned care team in with it, so nobody is building a group by hand at the moment the work starts.
3 · Coordinate
The team works where it already works
Nurses, therapists and schedulers talk in the channel, attach what they need, and escalate when it matters. Everything else Buzz does — calls, video, forms, signatures — lands in the same thread.
What agencies use it for
The patterns that show up first
One channel inside, one channel out
A two-channel pattern: an internal channel for the daily back-and-forth among staff, and a separate, condensed channel for outside physicians who need the picture and not the noise.
Reported by a home health agency.
Growth without the matching headcount
One agency reports roughly a third more volume against a tenth more staff, by taking the manual coordination work out of intake and referral response.
Figure reported by that agency.
Missed visits caught earlier
Under PDGM, a missed visit can turn an episode into a LUPA. Agencies describe using the channel as the place where a visit at risk becomes visible to a human in time to move it.
Described by agencies.
Streams that are not EHRs
The bridge is not limited to systems of record. A scheduling system, a referral portal or an internal tool can carry a stream the same way — one launched when Zing onboarded.
What a stream carries, field by field
A stream carries the patient, the episode and the assigned care team. The channel opens under the patient's name and date of birth, and the nurse, therapist, scheduler and director of nursing assigned to that patient are in it from the first post.
Safety, privacy and control
A bridge is only as good as what it refuses to carry.
Patient health information is the whole job.
Start small
Open five channels from your next intake batch.
A first stream does not need a program. It needs one source, one intake batch and a coordinator who will tell you honestly whether it saved them anything.
One source, one batch
Pick the system that carries your intake, and let the next batch of patients open their own channels.
A roster and a scoping call
Setup starts from your employee roster so the right people land in the right channels. We agree the timeline on the scoping call.
A channel the team actually uses
Judge the first batch by whether each patient's channel opened with the right people in it, and whether the team coordinates there instead of in texts and voicemails.
Questions agencies ask
Which systems can carry a stream?
Epic was the first. Homecare Homebase followed at the RVNA go-live. A source does not have to be an EHR — one stream launched when Zing onboarded. Bring the system you actually run to the scoping call and we will tell you where it stands.
Does anything go back into our chart?
That is scoped per agency and per system, and it is the first thing to settle on the scoping call. Nothing returns to your chart unless it is configured to.
Do we have to move off our EHR?
No. A stream is a connection, not a migration. Your system of record keeps the chart and stays exactly where it is.
What happens if we change EHR vendors later?
Buzz is independent of your system of record. The channels, the history and the team stay with you; the stream is re-pointed at the new system.
Does a stream create channels for every patient automatically?
That is the intent of the module, and the scope — which patients, which episodes, which team members — is set during setup. Confirm the specifics for your source system on the scoping call.
Is this the same thing as BuzzPassport?
No. BuzzPassport is about identity and the Microsoft side of the house — Entra single sign-on, Outlook, Power Automate. BuzzStreams is about records moving between a source system and a channel. Both are bridges; they bridge different things.
What does it cost to connect a system?
Per user, per month, at about the price of a venti latte at the airport. Book a demo and we will put a number against your headcount on the call.
Next step
Bring the system your intake actually runs on.
Thirty minutes, your source system, and an honest answer about what a stream can and cannot do with it today.