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News and Market Developments
Becker's Health IT: First Hospital at Home Program Launches in Georgia (2/6) - Wellstar Health System launched the first hospital-at-home program in the state of Georgia. As part of the program, virtual nurses monitor patients around the clock, while nurses and paramedics visit the patients at home at least twice a day for tasks like administering IV antibiotics, getting vital signs and examining the home for safety issues. Patients meet with physicians virtually once daily.
Modern Healthcare: Providers See Hospital-at-Home Growth Potential in Cancer Care (2/6) - Technology and hospital-at-home programs are paving the way for in-home treatments to be the new frontier in cancer care — if reimbursement and other challenges can be worked out. Mayo Clinic, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are among the providers leveraging acute care at-home programs and telehealth to treat certain patients outside of traditional care settings as the number of cancer diagnoses in the U.S. climbs. But patient safety, regulatory and reimbursement challenges are obstacles to expanding in-home cancer care.
McKnights Home Care: ATI Advisory: US Approaching a ‘Tipping Point’ in Value-Based Care Adoption (2/4) - As United States healthcare costs continue to rise, along with an increasingly chronically ill patient population, participation in value-based care will be crucial for the system to succeed in the years ahead. Helping to fuel the transition to value-based care is CMS’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Center (CMMI). The agency has been particularly successful with its home-based innovation models, including the Kidney Care Choices (KCC) model and the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) model.
Modern Healthcare: Remote Patient Monitoring Faces Cost Challenges in Rural Areas (1/28) - Adoption of remote patient monitoring, which can use smartphone applications, connected devices and telehealth to treat conditions such as heart disease, has lagged in hospitals due to reimbursement uncertainty from commercial payers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Reimbursement is especially challenging in rural and underserved areas where providers say the technology has the potential to extend care and significantly improve patient outcomes.
McKnights Home Care: New Mexico Awards Millions in Grants for Rural Home-Based Care (1/28) - New Mexico Governor Grisham announced millions of dollars in funding to support rural Medicaid providers of home health, home modification services and more. Meggin Lorino, executive director of the New Mexico Association for Home & Hospice Care, said she was pleased to see home care benefit from the funding. However, she noted that more still needs to be done to ensure equitable and comprehensive access to home-based care across all of New Mexico.
Modern Healthcare: Hospital-at-Home Alternatives Score with Some Providers (1/28) - Providers are bypassing Medicare requirements to set up scaled-down hospital-at-home programs they say save money by reducing hospitalizations. Ochsner Health, Los Angeles General Medical Center and Tru PACE in Colorado are among those offering home-based hospital programs that are less expensive and quicker to set up than the Acute Hospital Care at Home program, which has an uncertain future.
McKnights Home Care: Innovative Rural Care Framework in Four States Offers Opportunities for Home Health Providers, Stakeholder Says (1/27) - Most seniors wish to remain in their homes as they age, but for those who live in rural areas, doing so can be particularly difficult. The Rural Aging Action Network (RAAN), a care framework designed by Lutheran Services in America, learned that through engaging both traditional and nontraditional home- and community-based services, it could help rural seniors age in place.
McKnights Home Care: Right at Home, PocketRN Partner to Support Dementia Patients through GUIDE (1/23) - Right at Home announced a partnership with PocketRN, a virtual nursing care platform, to provide care for dementia patients through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) model. The partnership will give Right at Home clients access to PocketRN’s unique “virtual nurse for life” system, which matches patients and their caregivers with a nurse who provides round-the-clock education, coaching, monitoring and support. It will also enable Right at Home agencies to offer respite care services, a prominent feature of the GUIDE model.
Becker’s Hospital Review: Hospital-Level Care at Home: A Viable Option (1/24) - For decades, health care leaders have recognized the immense potential of hospital-level care at home. However, systemic barriers have largely kept this vision from becoming a reality. Today, a confluence of factors has aligned to finally make this long-sought goal achievable. A significant factor driving this shift is the development, validation, and commercialization of hospital-at-home models. Leading health systems now recognize the opportunity to improve patient care options while managing pre-existing capacity constraints.
HealthLeaders: How Innovation is Changing Length of Stay (1/23) - Allina Health is using technology and new ideas to reduce the time a patient spends in the hospital. Allina Health has partnered with Navvis to gain a better understanding of what goes into the patient’s length of stay, and is using data and technology to improve care pathways. Improved care coordination means patients can be discharged earlier to the right place, such as a rehab facility, SNF or home, reducing inpatient costs and freeing up hospital beds for more patients.
McKnights Home Care: Best Buy Reports Progress of Home-Based Care Initiatives (1/23) - Throughout 2024, Best Buy Health achieved milestones, solidifying its commitment to enabling care at home for everyone. Early in 2024, Best Buy rolled out an updated version of its Lively medical alert device and has made numerous partnerships with home care organizations nationwide.
News Medical: Hospital-at-Home: Bridging Inpatient and Remote Care (1/21) - Currently, Hospital at Home programs are primarily adopted for the management of patients with chronic diseases, such as heart failure (HF), pneumonia, cellulitis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), who are cared for by in-personal clinical staff and, when possible, virtual care. Health Care providers at the Brigham Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, have created a clinical framework that provides details on important steps that the clinical team must follow on each postoperative day for patients who have been transferred to HaH care.
ECRI: Safe Home Healthcare: Addressing Risks in Home Medical Device Use (1/21) - One of the most significant concerns associated with home health care is the potential for preventable harm due to improper use or malfunction of medical devices. Improper setup and management of technologies, particularly by lay users, can result in delayed or inaccurate care, with serious consequences for patient health.
Becker’s Health IT: Five Health Systems Expand Care at Home with Best Buy (1/21) - Best Buy has continued to grow its care-at-home partnerships with big health systems. Five collaborations with Best Buy Health include Mass General Brigham, Sarah Cannon Cancer Network, UC Davis Health, UMass Memorial Health, and Virtua Health.
Becker’s Health IT: Why Saint Luke's Plans to Expand Hospital at Home (1/17) - Missouri-based Saint Luke's Health System plans to grow its hospital-at-home program, already one of the biggest in the country, once more payers get on board with the care model. Becker's conversed with Michael Nassif, MD, medical director of Saint Luke's Hospital in Your Home, about what has changed about the program over the past year.
MedCity News: Meet the Company Developing an At-Home Test to Replace the Pap Smear (1/16) - Teal Health raised $10 million in seed funding, taking its total funding to $23 million. The company has submitted an application to the FDA for its at-home cervical cancer screening kit, which seeks to give patients an alternative to the in-office pap smear.
Home Health Care News: How 2 Home Health Providers Fine-Tuned Hospital to Home Transitions (1/15) - Home-based care providers are often uniquely positioned to play a critical role in timely hospital to home transitions. Organizations like Care Central VNA & Hospice and Choice Health at Home have made ensuring smooth transitions a major priority.
Modern Healthcare: AI in Post-Acute Care (1/8) - Health systems and post-acute care providers are banking on artificial intelligence to lead to savings by clearing logjams that make it harder to transition patients out of the hospital and to keep them from bouncing back. Software companies like WellSky are embedding AI technology into their products to give hospitals and accountable care organizations better access to post-acute care providers and their patients. AI software can be an added cost for hospitals, accountable care organizations and post-acute care providers that are already juggling lower Medicare reimbursements, as well as rising labor costs and other expenses.
Becker’s Health IT: Built from Within: A Successful Blueprint for Hospital-at-Home Programs (1/8) - Health systems that fully integrate, or "built-from-within" hospital-at-home programs — like Tampa General Hospital's TGH at Home — are proving superior patient outcomes well above the national average, strong program growth and highly rated patient and provider satisfaction.
Home Health Care News: Why a ‘Complete Shift’ of Paradigm is the Most Challenging and Promising Aspect of Hospital-at-Home (1/8) - The hospital-at-home model of care has gained significant momentum in recent years and is transforming how care is delivered to patients. This model enhances patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes by providing reliable, high-quality acute care in the comfort of patients’ homes. Additionally, technological advancements are revolutionizing health care, enabling patients to receive excellent services at home rather than in hospitals.
Modern Healthcare: Hospital-at-Home Programs in Limbo With Waiver Uncertainty (1/8) - With no guarantee that Congress will approve a five-year waiver extension that health systems want, some providers are tabling new hospital-at-home programs or rethinking expansions of existing ones. Another short-term extension would not give health systems the time they need to launch and scale hospital-at-home programs. The investment required to stand up hospital-at-home programs doesn’t happen overnight. Contracts need to be executed for remote patient monitoring equipment, meal delivery services and staffing. Those things can take beyond a year to deploy.
PR Newswire: Grief Coach Offers Personalized Caregiving, Grief Support While Medicare Expands Reimbursement for Caregiver Training (1/7) - The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has updated a payment policy that will reimburse medical providers for providing caregiver training for Medicare beneficiaries for additional services and over telehealth. This policy change creates an immediate opportunity for increased access to critical caregiving resources, particularly because of the addition of telehealth.
McKnights Long-Term Care News: Make Nursing Home Personal Needs Allowances Part of CMS Equity Efforts: Researchers (1/7) - Federal regulators should push states to increase personal needs allowances provided to nursing home residents covered by Medicaid, policy researchers argue in a new JAMA Health viewpoint. The payments — which can be used to cover personal expenses ranging from fuzzy socks to telephones — have remained stagnant or lagged for below the rate of inflation for decades in many states.
Physician’s Weekly: Adoption of Acute Hospital Care at Home Program Limited to Specific Types of Hospitals (1/7) - Adoption of the Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCAH) program is mainly limited to specific types of hospitals, according to a research letter published online Dec. 23 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. AHCAH hospitals were larger than nonparticipating hospitals and were more often teaching hospitals, not for profit, and located in metropolitan areas.
Becker’s Health IT: Where Hospital at Home is Lacking (1/6) - Hospital-at-home programs are largely concentrated at large, urban, nonprofit and academic facilities, a new study found. The researchers analyzed nearly 300 hospitals that received a CMS waiver to provide acute hospital care at home since 2020.
Business Wire: Soleo Health Unveils Ambulatory Infusion Suite in Denver (1/7) - Soleo Health, a national provider of complex specialty pharmacy services, announced the opening of its ambulatory infusion suite (AIS) in the metro Denver area, complementing its existing specialty home infusion service offering.
Becker’s Health IT: AdventHealth Launches Hospital at Home: Five Notes (1/7) - Florida-based AdventHealth announced its acute hospital care at home program. The health system, which has more than 50 hospitals across nine states, will start by offering hospital-at-home care from its Winter Park hospital. Patients receive inpatient-level care from home after being outfitted with medical equipment and a tablet for 24/7 access to clinicians. AdventHealth is partnering with Biofourmis for the Epic EHR-integrated remote patient monitoring equipment and emergency response systems.
Business Wire: Biofourmis Selected by AdventHealth to Support “Whole-Person Care” With New Acute Care-at Home Program (1/6) - Biofourmis, a global technology-enabled care delivery company, and AdventHealth, have agreed to collaborate on a continuum-wide remote patient management (RPM) program in Central Florida to provide safe, whole-person care and a superior patient experience within their homes.
Home Health Care News: Holistic and Seamless: How Health Systems Advocate, Mass General Brigham Are Advancing At-Home Care (1/6) - A big part of the evolution of health systems has been more meaningful engagement with the home as an extension of brick-and-mortar operations. In recent years, organizations like Advocate Health and Mass General Brigham have exemplified this shift.
McKnights Home Care: Digital Health Interventions an Effective Tool for Transitions Home, Researchers Find (1/6) - Digital health interventions are an effective but often inaccessible tool to guide a smooth transition for patients leaving the hospital and entering home care, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Inbound Health:
Maximize the 90 Day Acute Hospital Care at Home Extension (1/3) - The 90-day extension of the AHCAH waiver would have provided health systems with a unique opportunity to expand and refine their home-based care services. Inbound Health can be a key partner in this process by offering a comprehensive, scalable solution for delivering acute hospital-level care at home, ensuring regulatory compliance, improving patient outcomes, and optimizing operational efficiency.
Home Health Care News: Inside the Future Of Contessa Health And High-Acuity Care at Home (1/2) - While other companies had been toying with high-acuity care in the home, Contessa has built up data to understand that home-based care was becoming more than just Medicare-certified home health care and personal care services. Contessa Health has invested in hospital at home, SNF at home, and palliative care, which are becoming an important service now that value-based payment models are emerging.
UC Davis Health: At-Home Monitoring Program for Hypertension (12/29) – UC Davis Health launched a program that monitors patients with high blood pressure at home. To support this initiative, the health system is working with Best Buy Health’s care-at-home platform, Current Health. Patients will use connected devices including blood pressure cuffs and scales. Readings from the devices will be sent to the Current Health platform and transferred to the patient’s UC Davis Health electronic medical chart, where they can be accessed by the UC Davis Health Connected Care Center in real time.
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