In March, Renton, Wash.-based Providence launched the first phase of its home-based care partnership with Brentwood, Tenn.-based Compassus.
The joint venture, called Providence at Home with Compassus, will become operational in Alaska, Washington and Texas on May 1. The organizations plan to expand to 24 home health locations across Alaska, California, Oregon and Washington, and 17 hospice and palliative care sites in Alaska, California, Oregon, Texas and Washington.
Providence’s chief of community services, Terri Warren, spoke to Becker’s about what this partnership means for health system operations and what it signals to the healthcare industry at large.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What were the primary strategic drivers behind Providence’s decision to form this joint venture with Compassus?
Terri Warren: Providence has a long-standing commitment to care in the community, specifically in post-acute care. Our commitment is so long-standing that two of our hospice programs were original demonstration sites for the Medicare Hospice Benefit. Our commitment is not just to have home-based care available, but to have it done exceptionally well.
Strategically we see that access to care in the home needs to continue to grow, so we took a step back to look at how we were going to ensure increased access in the communities we serve.
Our pathway led us to realize that, yes, we have home health, hospice, private duty and community-based palliative care programs that are operating well today. Thousands of people trust us with their care, and we take that trust really seriously, but we are operating off of a system designed for our system’s acute care centers. While our post-acute services are large by post-acute definitions, within a health system, we’re still a small part of that.
We really believe that by partnering with a like-minded operator like Compassus, who focuses exclusively in this space, we can truly increase access to care in the communities we serve. We have found that Compassus brings not only a deep understanding of Catholic healthcare and having a commitment to the poor and vulnerable in communities, they also have taken a strategic approach to intentionally build long-term joint venture partnerships with other Catholic healthcare systems.
Q: How does Providence at Home with Compassus reflect the broader shift in healthcare toward home-based care?
TW: I can tell you we’re intending to be on the front end of that shift, not running behind.
We’re taking a proactive approach to this not because our programs are broken. We have great clinical outcomes and really solid retention of our caregiving teams. What we are looking for in this venture is the opportunity to have one plus one equal three in home-based care. We’re really partnering together to imagine what’s possible by building the synergies of what each program does well, accelerating it and scaling it.
It is so clear that as the big baby boomers age, and as the world we live in shifts, people want access to home-based care. They want easy access, easy communication and they expect nothing but the best in care, both from an experience and a clinical outcome standpoint.
We fully intend to be part of driving toward that solution across the board. Our partnership with Compassus is focused on building systems that make figuring out factors such as care delivery and patient communication easier. This joint venture helps us accelerate in that space, because we’re marrying the best of both organizations.
Q: How will this joint venture help address industry-wide challenges in care delivery and coordination?
TW: Well, I’d love to say that that one joint venture is going to be the magic answer, but our world is too complicated for that. I do believe sincerely that our partnership is strategic in that vein, for a couple of reasons.
Healthcare is really complicated. Every element — the way it’s delivered, the way it’s paid for, what it feels like for a patient and a family — is complicated. If by forming a joint venture we can leverage tools that simplify the way care is delivered, that’s substantive.
Any opportunities that simplify that pathway for the clinicians creates a better experience for patients and families, because the clinician will have more time — yes, to deliver excellent clinical care, of course — but also to develop relationships. Patients want to know someone actually cares about them and their unique experience. People are more than just a diagnosis or two or three, they’re human beings. If we deliver our care models well, we are helping that family make every day the best it can possibly be.
This joint venture truly is one that is going to stay focused on providing care to the poor and vulnerable as well, not singularly commercial payers and Medicare only. We’re going to continue to care for those in the community who may live at the margins, and do that with focus, integrity and excellence. That is reflective of who we are today, but it’s also reflective of who we are going to be tomorrow.
Q: What key priorities or innovations will Providence focus on in the partnership’s first year?
TW: First and foremost, easing the way for our caregiving teams into this joint venture is critical. There’s a lot of new learning to take place with operating systems, with tools and things like that. Making sure we do that well, so that we actually gain the value that these systems can offer is important.
But really, the overarching focus is caring for more people in the communities we serve, and doing that in a way that makes it easier for patients, their families, Providence physicians and our whole array of allied health professionals working in this space. Looking at areas and ways to connect the dots in care for folks really is our initial focus.
