Collective Medical, delivering the leading ADT-based network for real-time care collaboration, today announced a solution to support home health agencies in coordinating care for COVID-19 patients. Skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), hospitals and accountable care organizations (ACOs) already utilizing the Collective network can now sponsor home health organizations to rapidly onboard.
COVID-19 has created many challenges across the healthcare system, but SNFs, other long-term care organizations and the populations they serve are especially vulnerable. Because of this high risk, it is critical that home health organizations are connected to their patients’ entire care team to close hazardous communication gaps. With Collective, home health teams can collaborate across the care continuum and receive real-time, high-value clinical insights to drive informed decision making to facilitate smoother transitions of care and deliver quality care from the safety of patients’ homes.
“It’s so important that these vulnerable patients are treated in the isolation of their own homes whenever possible to minimize the community spread of COVID-19,” says Katherine Jimenez, regional director of operations at Signature Healthcare at Home. “At Signature we want to keep every patient as safe as possible, while continuing to provide the level of care these patients need. There’s been a huge increase in home health utilization over the past few months, and it’s massively helpful to collaborate with other members on a patient’s care team to make care transitions as smooth as possible while serving the patient to our fullest ability.”
Collective now connects patient data across all 50 states and has a long history of supporting post-acute providers, including home health, in achieving seamless transitions of care and transformative reductions in preventable readmissions. According to an article published by Becker’s Hospital Review, Housecall Providers—a home health organization based in Portland, Oregon—implemented Collective to reduce the administrative burden of coordinate care for their 2,300 patients. Collective’s notifications notify care teams when a patient is admitted, discharged or transferred from the hospital and this automated process has enabled care collaboration with neighboring hospitals and streamlined patient follow-up and transitions of care.
Similarly, according to an article published by Skilled Nursing News, within five months of implementing the Collective platform, Marquis Companies, a SNF provider based in the Pacific Northwest, reduced its hospital readmissions rate by approximately 60 percent.
“Our entire healthcare system has been struggling under the unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19. Because of the vulnerable populations they serve, SNFs are up against particularly difficult conditions. Patients in their facilities are at extremely high risk, meaning a single positive case could lead to a full-blown outbreak,” says Chris Klomp, CEO of Collective Medical. “Home health has long been a pillar of post-acute health, but with ever-evolving circumstances and protocols, it’s becoming a bigger priority. Enabling SNFs and home health agencies to work together and with discharging acute providers is key to rendering the safest and best quality care for their patient populations. We’re excited to provide the technical backbone to make that clinical collaboration happen.”
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