The crucial transition period after a major hospital procedure can often mean the difference between full recovery and an adverse event – making post-acute care a critical juncture when it comes to patient outcomes.
To put it in perspective, almost half of Medicare patients use some form of post-acute care after an acute discharge. However, there typically has been limited coordination between acute and post-acute providers. Historically, once a patient left the hospital, there was little financial incentive to track patients who required post-acute care. This has driven loose or informal referral relationships between acute and post-acute care providers, as well as limited standards to help clinicians determine the best settings for this type of care.
Limited oversight of post-acute care has also left hospitals in the dark when it comes to the significant cost and quality variation among post-acute providers. Access to meaningful data on post-acute costs and outcomes have also been challenging. These factors can have serious financial repercussions for a health system's bottom line and even more serious effects on patient outcomes.
As shifts to value-based thinking demand cross-continuum engagement, health systems are increasingly accountable for the performance of the post-acute care providers they send their patients to. With post-acute care variation impacting overall health system performance under evolving payment models, it is crucial for providers to effectively coordinate care across the continuum – especially for those participating in alternative payment models, such as accountable care organizations (ACOs) or bundled payment programs.
Simply put, our healthcare system's long-standing siloes among acute and post-acute organizations simply aren't sustainable.
We've found significant interest among healthcare leaders around creating these essential partnerships. In a Premier survey, 85 percent of health system leaders reported they are considering creating or expanding partnerships with high-performing post-acute care providers.
When it comes to creating an effective post-acute care network, it's important to consider these five key strategies that establish a strong foundation for success.
1. Define roles and establish accountability: The buck has to stop somewhere, and establishing clear leadership on the network developer's side is critical to create effective communication channels, designate accountability, manage decision-making efforts and resolve inevitable challenges.
2. Understand consumption, costs and outcomes through data: Using deep data to fully understand operations regarding post-acute providers offers a foundation to design effective cross-continuum thinking and address gaps between care settings, forge new connections where necessary, and help inform who, where, what and how care will be delivered for patients.
3. Begin a dialogue with post-acute care providers: After diving deep in data to better understand how a post-acute network would be managed and developed, it's time to start the conversation with post-acute providers and gauge both their interest and capacity around collaboration.
4. Establish a narrow network: Leaders must equip themselves with the right information to identify, vet and credential potential partners that are willing to adopt value-based measures, engage in best practice, work towards shared goals and promote safety, quality and patient-centeredness.
5. Improve care together for the patient: Health systems and post-acute providers must both recognize that significant changes across institutions will be a necessity in order to improve internal processes and establish best practices across the institutions. This means working closely toward a shared vision that makes care better and safer for patients, while also reducing clinical variation and creating new practices that foster collaboration and reduce siloes in care.
For a deeper dive on this emerging trend, be sure to learn more about these best practices.
Andy Edeburn is a Principal at Premier Inc., specializing in advisory services on acute, primary, post-acute and senior care.
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