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News and Market Developments
Forbes: Balancing Care: How Wearables Can Alleviate The Burden On Family Caregivers In Hospital-At-Home Models (9/30) - Unlike professional caregivers, family caregivers take on these responsibilities out of personal commitment, making their role uniquely challenging as they navigate complex medical needs and the emotional strain of caring for a loved one. However, the technology that enables Hospital-At-Home programs can help reduce this burden. Prioritizing family caregiver well-being in remote patient monitoring (RPM) is crucial, and companies must consider features that alleviate their stress and workload.
Becker’s Healthcare: How Mass General Brigham Built the Largest ‘Hospital-At-Home’
(9/27) - Mass General Brigham now has a capacity for acute hospital care at home of 70 patients, and is currently treating about 50 to 60 a day. The goal is to move to 10% of Mass General Brigham's overall capacity, or about 200 to 300 patients.
Health Leaders: Are Hospital At Home Programs Forgetting About the Patient? (9/27) - Fueled by the promise of remote patient monitoring and the acute care at home (or Hospital at Home) strategy, health care leaders see the home as a better place than the hospital room for many patients to recover from treatment. Armed with studies that show that patients heal faster and better at home than in the hospital, they’re crafting programs that include everything from digital health and telehealth technology to in-person visits from nurses, doctors, and specially trained paramedics. Some of the more advanced acute care programs include multiple daily visits and technology designed to bring the ICU experience into the home. But Paurvi Bhatt, president and chief impact officer, Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, says patients—and their family members are caregivers— need to be prepared for that type of activity in their homes.
Modern Healthcare: Rethinking Healthcare at Home: a Personal Reflection
(9/26) – Author Dr. Sachin Jain is CEO of SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan. “For years, I’ve been a fervent advocate for moving more care to the home […] And yet, the experience of seeing my father age with multiple chronic illnesses has given me new insight into how home-based care programs often play out in reality and has caused me to reflect on my advocacy for them. As my family learned, in-home care programs often place unrealistic burdens on patients' families, requiring them to perform tasks for which they have no training, and do little to reduce costs.”
Becker’s Healthcare: Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health’s Hospital-At-Home Program at the 1-Year Mark: How it’s Going (9/26) - While VCU Health's hospital-at-home program did not meet its initial patient volume targets in its first year, it achieved strong success in terms of patient satisfaction. The first year was marked by some challenges, including staffing shortages and payer participation. As the program evolves, VCU Health has fine-tuned its processes. New screening tools have been implemented to better identify eligible patients, and additional care aids have been introduced to alleviate the burden on caregivers.
Home Health Care News: ‘Society Will Greatly Benefit’ From The Transformative Hospital-At-Home Movement (9/25) - Hospital at Home (HaH) is a sustainable, innovative and next-generation health care model. From the physician’s perspective, it offers person-centered medical care and keeps patients out of the hospital, away from possible complications and on to better outcomes. However, there are still plenty of challenges for providers to work through.
Brookings: Commentary: A Home Care Benefit for Medicare (9/20) – Almost one in five Americans over age 65 are unable to manage basic activities of daily life—bathing, dressing, eating, toileting—without assistance. Most Americans do not have enough income or savings to cover these costs. In this article, Wendell Primus, former health aide to Nancy Pelosi, and former HHS Assistant Secretaries Sherry Glied and Richard Frank describe some design options for a Medicare home care benefit that could be dialed up or down depending on the priority assigned to program generosity or fiscal feasibility.
Nature: How Might Hospital at Home Enable a Greener and Healthier Future? (9/16) - Traditional health care delivery models face mounting pressure from rising costs, increasing demand, and a growing environmental footprint. Hospital at Home (HaH) has been proposed as a potential solution, offering care at home through in-person, virtual, or hybrid approaches. Despite focus on expanding HaH provision and capacity, research has primarily explored patient care outcomes, patient satisfaction economic costs with a key gap in its environmental impact. By reducing this evidence gap, HaH may be better placed as a positive enabler in delivering healthier planet and population. This article explores the environmental opportunities and challenges associated with HaH compared to traditional hospital care and reinforces the case for further research to comprehensively quantify the environmental impact including any co-benefits.
Home Health Care News: More Home Health Providers Sunset Relationships With Largest Medicare Advantage Payers (9/12) - Essentia Health – a regional, nonprofit health system with a substantial home health arm – announced that it will no longer serve as an in-network provider for UnitedHealth Group and Humana Inc. Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. It is the latest example of home-focused health care providers drawing a line in the sand with certain payers. Those examples can still be classified as anecdotal, but they are close to forming a trend. It’s also likely that each move like this will beget similar moves by other providers.
App: House Call: Hospital Care at Home is About to Explode in New Jersey (9/11) - Health care providers have been looking at alternative ways to care for patients as they deal with a current staffing crisis and an expected tsunami of older patients who will likely require greater care in the years and decades to come. The number of New Jerseyans over 60 is expected to increase by 1 million this decade when those in the tail end of the baby boomer generation become senior citizens. The most common ailments among those sent home at Hackensack and Virtua are early-stage infections or pneumonia, along with those whose chronic heart disease or chronic lung disease has flared up.
McKnights Home Care: Signify Health Unveils Home Assessment Program for Chronically Ill Patients (9/10) - Signify Health, a subsidiary of CVS focused on home care services, announced the launch of a new in-home assessment program designed to close care gaps and slow the progression of chronic diseases. The so-called Focused Visits are a type of specialized in-home health evaluation that allows clinicians to better understand the needs of individuals with chronic conditions.
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