Sharing Success Stories Can Bolster Skilled Nursing in Meetings With Hospitals

Most post-acute providers are aware that they need to be able to demonstrate their outcomes with data in meetings with hospitals and other referral partners. But another crucial component is showing how those outcomes are contributing to a skilled nursing facility’s success.

“I always say share what your outcomes are doing for you,” said Shonia Russelle, assistant vice president of health care and post-acute sales, marketing and communications at Otterbein Senior Lifestyle Choices, said. “Share how these good results are helping your organization. Is it helping keep the patients … is it helping with your word-of-mouth, because your outcomes are so great? There’s nothing like showing what your good outcomes and data are doing for you.”

Russelle was one of several panelists speaking last at the Senior Care Marketing Sales Summit HQ (SMASH) in Rosemont, Ill., on how post-acute providers can see success – even as their upstream referral partners become increasingly selective. Though the exact strategy might vary from facility to facility, most hospitals will be looking for data on length of stay, readmission rates, and overall quality, among other metrics.

Advertisement

With those requirements, post-acute providers should make sure that they’re ticking all the right boxes in terms of data and in terms of people. Sending a clinical person from the SNF to meetings with hospitals can be helpful, Charles Ross, chief strategy officer at short-term rehab provider Transitional Care Management, said.

“The feedback I hear from the acute care hospitals in our market is, ‘Don’t send me another marketing person,'” Ross, who served as moderator on the panel, noted.

That makes it all the more important for SNFs and other post-acute providers to have significant control over their data. But they also need to know the hospital extremely well — anything from its current pain points to the direction of the hospital’s five- to 10-year strategic plan.

Advertisement

“Make sure you really know your audience,” Missy Highley, vice president of business partnerships at Louisville, Ky.-based Signature HealthCARE, said at the panel. “After you figure out what it is this partner is working on, you need to come armed with your facts and your data.”

Karen McGinnis, clinical strategy and innovation corporate lead for strategic relationship development at Bayada Home Health Care, agreed, but also recommended that post-acute providers go even farther beyond that.

“If you can go to a potential partner knowing more than what they know about what their needs are, how valuable do you become?” she said. “It’s understanding what’s the market driving [toward], and what is that solution.”

With the paradigm of care shifting, it becomes more important than ever for SNFs to show that they can be good partners to acute care.

“The world has gone to episodic care, so we’re not just measuring the patient in the hospital, in the SNF, in home health,” Highley said. “We are measuring episodes of care, which makes it imperative to partner well and transition well.”

Written by Maggie Flynn

Companies featured in this article:

, , ,