At a time when skilled nursing facility operators like Chicago-based Innovative Health feel like they are getting squeezed as patients head for home health or acute rehab facilities, SNFs will need to find new ways to show their value in the modern post-acute care continuum.
One way SNFs could find success in improving clinical outcomes and thrive in a value-based world is through technology.
Speaking at a National Investment Center webinar last month, Summa Health’s Senior Vice President of Population Health Dr. Mark Terpylak, D.O., FACOG, said his organization is looking more closely at what happens when they discharge patients to a skilled nursing facility and what happens when they leave that facility.
Summa Health is one of the largest integrated health care delivery systems in Ohio and encompasses a network of hospitals, community medical centers and more.
“We need to find a different way to align ourselves with the skilled operators in our market that are open to partnering around a different methodology, different metrics, and a different level, frankly, of care integration,” he said at the NIC Leadership Huddle.
One operator that’s trying to become a better partner in their post-acute care continuum is The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center.
In October 2019, the center, which sees over 60,000 inpatients annually, and includes a network of seven hospitals in Columbus with more than 1,400 beds, began using technology company Aidin and attributes a much-improved patient discharge process to the referral management tool.
“Nationwide today, less than 20% of Medicare recipients using services at a skilled nursing facility choose the best quality nursing home or home health agency available to them,” Aidin CEO Russ Graney explained in a conversation with Skilled Nursing News. “Most just choose one that’s closest to home. With Aidin, 82% of our patients choose the best quality provider and that’s something that we track down to ensure that they’re actually engaging the patients with all the information that’s available.”
In the first year of using Aidin, the center reportedly saved $4 million.
Aidin’s goal is to make post-acute care more of a free market system in the United States, allowing for better transparency, quality, choice, and price for both their customers and clients.
It reduced the center’s average length-of-stay (LOS) for post-acute patients by 0.7 days, decreased the cost of patient care and created capacity to treat more than 1,500 new patients.
The way Aidin works is by managing transitions for patients needing post-hospital care in inpatient settings and by identifying and connecting them to the best care options available while making discharge planning easier and more efficient for staff.
Its platform connects providers, patients and payers. With it OSUMC saw how many total referrals there were for a certain type of insurance for clinical care needs in a specific geographic region.
“It gives providers a lot more insight into the demand for their services and helps them as a result, tweak their supplies such that the health systems as a whole are functioning cooperatively,” Graney added.
Companies featured in this article:
Aidin, Innovative Health, Summa Health, The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center
