Acclivity Health’s Chief Innovation and Advocacy Officer explains why patients and families shouldn’t hesitate to seek hospice care.
As seriously ill patients near the end of life, it is often suggested that hospice care become part of their health care plan. Unfortunately, patients often enroll in these services too late to reap the full benefits. Dianne Gray, Chief Innovation and Advocacy Officer at Acclivity Health, says this is often due to a stigma that surrounds hospice care.
Read moreOver half of all hospice referrals today come from hospitals that often wait too long to refer a patient into hospice care. Whether they believe a referral suggests they are abandoning the patient or they anticipate higher profits from an extended stay, too often hospitals prevent patients from receiving hospice care in time to make it meaningful.
Independent physicians and specialists often don’t have the time or experience to handle hospice care coordination efficiently. However, when physician groups align with hospice organizations in a formal community structure called a Connected Care Community, these doctors can remain on the front line of their patients’ care.
Read moreby Darcey Trescone, RN
Home health agencies, hospices, skilled nursing facilities, rehab and long-term hospitals, and all other Post-Acute Care providers are not more than a year away from hearing this conversation over and over and over again:
“We would very much like you to refer some of your hospital’s discharged patients to our care.”
“Maybe we will. Let’s find out if you meet our standards.”
“Oh, we provide excellent care…5 stars.”
“That’s not what I meant. Are you a member of Commonwell? Do you have an Epic shared instance? Does your electronic health record have open APIs or HL7 capability? Can we send our hospital record directly into your EHR when we refer, and can you send your patient charts back to us electronically if our mutual patient comes back to our emergency department or is readmitted?”
The right answers might lead to a long-term referral relationship. The wrong answer, especially if the person asking for referrals has not been trained in the language of interoperability, could bring about permanent census disintegration. That hospital is looking for partners that can meet its data sharing needs, and they do not mean with a fax machine.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently announced a new primary care payment model that will provide an alternative to Comprehensive Primary Care Plus. This new model, called Primary Care First, will be offered in 26 states and regions beginning Jan. 1, 2020. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar predicts that the models will enroll 25 percent of traditional Medicare beneficiaries and providers, who must apply to take part, and the program may roll out to all states after five years pending its success.
Here’s what CMS has released so far about their new initiative.
Less than 40 years ago, when you went to the Emergency Room at your local hospital, you had no idea what kind of doctor you’d see. Staff physicians in the hospital took shifts in the ER, so you might have an obstetrician casting your broken wrist or a psychiatrist treating your heart palpitations. Beginning in 1979, Emergency Medicine was recognized by the American Board of Specialties. Over the next decades, EM specialists became thoroughly integrated into the continuum of care, so that today, patients coming into to the ER can expect treatment and a proper diagnosis from the right physician.
Read moreToday’s doctors are trained to keep patients alive, but not always to prepare them for death. From developing a care plan to delivering the news to supporting their patients’ medical, emotional and spiritual needs, most doctors are uncomfortable starting the conversations required to develop the most appropriate end-of-life care plans.
Read morePopulation health is a relevant topic in our space, and there are technology providers that are taking it a step further with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). I had the opportunity to meet with Jeremy Powell, CEO and Founder from Acclivity Health Solutions to discuss their vision for the post-acute space and how they are utilizing data to support that vision.
Continue reading article from Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Technology Report.
Eighty percent. That’s how many Americans would like to die at home. But despite the fact that 70 percent of Americans die from chronic illnesses[1], giving them time to anticipate their deaths, over 50 percent still die in hospitals or nursing homes.[2] Of the Medicare patients who died in 2016, only 48% received hospice services at the time of death[3], even though every patient was eligible for six months of hospice care.
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Palliative care is a discipline of skilled medical care designed to relieve suffering and improve the quality of life for patients and families living with serious, advanced, or life-defining illnesses. It can be available to patients of any age with serious illnesses of all types, at any stage of illness, providing care in all locations. It is typically supported by insurance plans. We believe that despite having a serious – possibly terminal – diagnosis, there is the potential of experiencing meaningful quality of life. Though maintaining an understanding of the reality of a serious illness, the focus is on clarifying a patient’s values, wishes, hopes, and dreams, and creating the optimal care environment that allows them to move beyond potential pain and suffering and realize opportunities for joy in life. It’s about living, not dying.
Read more On the difference between Hospice and palliative care
As I walked on an early summer day in South Florida, I listened to Duncan Sheik’s “She Runs Away.” I caught a phrase about “symptoms” and then “the darkness comes, and the darkness goes,” followed by “happiness ain’t never how you think it should be so.”