By Shane Reeves, CEO of TwelveStone Health Partners
In a recent article put together for the Nashville Business Journal I summarized my thoughts about where I see our industry heading in terms of the transformation of post-acute care.
Regulatory transformations and demographic shifts have quietly lined up to create a “perfect storm” for providers in the U.S. Acute and post-acute care providers are now responsible for patients’ health outcomes for a longer period of time. The top eight trends that support the need for transformation include the following.
- Management of aging Baby Boomer population with multiple chronic conditions.
- Technological advancements come with a cost.
- Increased medication usage.
- Readmissions under the microscope.
- Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and value-based payments.
- The patient as consumer.
- Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) preparing for greater acuity in patient populations.
- More specialized care and the risk of fragmented delivery.
So what are the keys to navigating this transformation for both acute and post-acute providers? In my opinion, it can be broken down into there core concepts.
- Collaboration
- Innovation; and,
- Nimbleness
The focus needs to be on leveraging technology to create a patient-centric delivery model where partners work together to ensure compliance. Instead of thinking about managing care, we need to be managing health outcomes, with a consistent “owner” of the patient’s health from point A to point Z. Successful collaboration between acute and post-acute care organizations includes an emphasis on patient education to support a seamless post-discharge experience, ensuring medication compliance by simplifying prescription delivery and deploying case managers and clinicians to follow the patient along the way.
Aligning the services that patients require into an easy to access bundle, together with support between facilities and home-based care, will be critical to ensuring adequate reimbursement, patient satisfaction and managing costs.
Shane is available to speak on this topic and others. To reach out fill out the form at the bottom of our home page.
