News and Market Developments
Modern Healthcare: Hospital at Home: A Shift in Thinking for Acute Care (4/1) - In the past, innovation in healthcare in the acute setting was heavily focused on improvements in procedural interventions or critical care. Recently, however, there has been a shift and developing interest in care at home. As a result, many tech-enabled care delivery improvements are being focused on the home. In addition, clinical necessity, driven by the pandemic, has required healthcare systems deliver better care beyond the four walls of the hospital.
AJMC: Cancer Care Closer to Home—or at Home—Is Worth Extra Effort, NCCN Panelists Say (4/1) - From taking part in clinical research at a local location to foregoing aggressive therapy in favor of quality of life, patients with cancer are seeking new options, said panelists at the 2022 Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). Shulman presented Penn’s efforts to bring care into the home, which launched slowly in the months before the pandemic and then took off—from only 50 referrals a month to around 450 a month. “So, why move cancer care to the home?” Shulman asked. Referring to Hammon’s discussion of her father’s wishes, “We want this to be a better patient experience. We want to improve the clinician experience.”
Bloomberg Government: Health Care Briefing: Home Health Groups Look to Revive Agenda (3/31) - Activists for home health care are asking Democrats to follow through on promises to expand access to the services increasingly in demand as the U.S. population ages. A coalition of labor unions, disability rights groups, and others have been advocating for legislation to strengthen in-home care for the elderly and disabled, while increasing caregivers’ wages and unionizing opportunities. The House-passed sweeping domestic spending package (H.R. 5376) included $150 billion for states to improve and expand their home and community-based care programs. But the package has been in limbo in the Senate, awaiting agreement from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
mHealth Intelligence: Illinois Health System to Offer Hospital-at-Home Care (3/31) - Blessing Health System in Quincy, Illinois, plans on creating a hospital-at-home program that will provide acute care in the patient's home with the help of health technology company Biofourmis. Spread out over three different states, Blessing Health System is an integrated rural health system consisting of three hospitals, two physician groups, and a nursing and health sciences college. Biofourmis is a health technology company that aims to advance software and data science to enhance virtual care.
New York Times: Many of Us Want to Age at Home. But That Option Is Fading Fast. (3/30) - A 2021 poll shows that the majority of Americans want to age at home. However, the shortage of workers in the home-based care industry results in fewer Americans receiving the care that they need in order to avoid a long-term care facility. A 2019 report found that about a quarter of all home care patients in New York reported they were unable to find workers, and nearly 20 percent of home care positions went unfilled because of staff shortages. But despite a surplus of unfilled jobs, many potential and current home-based care workers simply can’t afford to do this work. As states across the country grapple with rising health care costs and aging populations, New York’s proposal for higher home care wages could offer a model for how we can care for aging adults while making wise investments that will channel funding into the local economy.
Wall Street Journal: UnitedHealth to Buy Home-Health Firm LHC Group for $5.4 Billion (3/29) - The acquisition by UnitedHealth’s Optum health-services arm, which was announced Tuesday, will add one of the country’s largest home-health firms to a portfolio that already includes doctor groups, clinics and surgery centers, as well as some home-based services. The company expects the acquisition to close in the second half of 2022.
Home Health Care News: Florida Blue Medicare, Emcara Health Launch Home-Based Primary Care Program (3/27) - Florida Blue Medicare, the state’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield Medicare plan, is collaborating with Emcara Health to offer eligible members access to home-based primary care. With this partnership, Florida Blue Medicare will offer members in 17 counties in the Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Southeast Florida, Tampa Bay and Pensacola areas, a number of care services in the home.
Fierce Healthcare: How CVS Kidney Care is thinking about personalized care for patients (3/25) - CVS Kidney Care aims to provide an end-to-end experience to manage kidney care in the long term before it reaches chronic kidney disease or end-stage renal disease. It takes a home-first approach to its care model and is currently co-developing a hemodialysis device that is built specifically with home care in mind. CVS chose to get involved in developing the tool because the company saw an unmet need in the market for a device that's built from the ground up for in-home dialysis rather than adapted to it.
Insider Intelligence: Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Life365 push hospital-at-home care forward (3/25) - Remote patient monitoring (RPM) company Life365 partnered with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare to help providers and payers scale their hospital-at-home efforts to larger populations at lower costs. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare will facilitate interoperability and better health data management for Life365’s platform.
Home Care Magazine: New Legislation Would Extend the Hospital at Home Program (3/25) - The article provides an overview of the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act, and adds that the National Association for Home Care & Hospice has expressed support for this legislation.
Home Health Care News: Home-Based Care Providers Increasingly View Updated Technology, Interoperability as Imperatives (3/23) - In a response to a request for information from the U.S. House Republican “Healthy Futures” Task Force Subcommittee on Modernization, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and others laid out policy ideas that would help the home-based care industry get up to speed on health information technology (HIT). This group recommended that Congress should direct the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to establish an incentive system to help long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers make the transition to more up-to-date technology.
Healthcare Finance: The biggest trends in healthcare are hospital care at home and the widening labor gap (3/22) - During the HIMSS22 conference, During HIMSS22, Philips gave its top predictions for the future of healthcare systems over the next three years based on labor market trends and the expansion of hospital-at-home services. These predictions include:
- Over the next three years, 40% of providers will shift 20% of hospital beds to the home.
- By 2025, a common marketplace will connect all consumers, payers and providers.
- By 2025, 10 major national employers will go to direct contracting.
- Three-quarters of health systems will suffer from cybersecurity risks.
Philips unveiled two solutions: (1) Interoperability focused on creating a data highway for operational insights, and (2) prescriptive analytics.
Inside Health Policy: Stakeholders Seek Telehealth Flexibilities In Broader Plan To Expand Home Dialysis (3/22) - Innovation Kidney Care’s (IKC) broader agenda to expand home dialysis includes a smattering of new telehealth flexibilities among the provisions it recommends CMS and Congress adopt to make treatments more widely accessible to patients. The group says expanded use of telehealth would aid doctors and patients in remote monitoring and allow virtual training of patients who are participating in home dialysis. IKC's suggestions to modify existing policies center around three broad themes: 1.) alleviating the nursing shortage through multidisciplinary care teams; 2.) promoting competition on the dialysis market and therefore increasing patient choice; and 3.) furthering patient centricity.
Home Health Care News: Fresenius, InterWell, Cricket Health Form $2.4B Home-Focused Kidney Care Powerhouse (3/22) - This partnership will operate under the InterWell brand. The company’s goal is to create the “new standard in value-based kidney care in the U.S.” The news is another example of the rapidly budding kidney care market. Even more so, it’s an example of the innovations taking place in the market, with in-home care solutions being one of them.
Home Care Magazine: NHIA 2022 Focuses on Future & Industry Growth (3/18) - At the National Home Infusion Association (NHIA)'s annual conference, Connie Sullivan, president and CEO of the NHIA, told members and other attendees that while the COVID-19 pandemic kept members of the home infusion industry from meeting in person for two years, it also highlighted the field’s strengths and brought public awareness of home infusion’s potential in the health care continuum. Additionally, there are opportunities for home infusion to help address health disparities due to its potential to improve treatment access for patients in rural areas, in diverse communities and for those with transportation issues.
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