As people age, the topic of caring for loved ones comes into the conversation. Most find this discussion to escalate after events have begun.
Ashish V. Shah experienced this firsthand with his elderly father. And after his father’s death, he learned how pockets of information between care teams that weren’t shared in a meaningful way could have delayed the fateful event.
Shah realized there was no easy mechanism for care teams from different providers to share information that could help patients by age, so he set out to create one. And now he’s the CEO of Dina, which creates an AI-powered platform for home care models.
Seven out of 10 people need supportive care in their lives. Studies show that most elderly people prefer staying at home and with age rather than being transferred to an assisted living facility.
IT news about healthcare sat down with Shah to discuss the role of IT in health in aging in situ.
Q. Please describe the experience you had while caring for your elderly father and what you learned about information not being meaningfully shared.
ONE. Anyone who has ever cared for an aging parent knows it can be a challenging experience. Not long after my previous company, Medicity, was acquired by Aetna, my father passed away suddenly. Unfortunately, this is something you hear a lot in healthcare ventures – often with a personal connection.
In my case, I was trying to solve a problem our family went through. My father is an elderly citizen, he has been seen by caregivers at home and in and out of senior centers.
After his sudden death, we spent time with those who saw a meaningful decline imminent, but that information was not shared with the official healthcare team, certainly. not his insurance company and not with his family in such a way that we could intervene to try to change the trajectory of his care. They are an untapped resource with a critical and objective perspective.
At Medicity, we are serving 1,300 hospitals, facilitating data exchange between hospitals, primary care facilities, and laboratories, but we never do anything to touch families. family and community. And as I dig deeper and deeper into it, I find that my story is, unfortunately, not unique; it will be something that grows in nature.
So, both for professional and personal needs, we were looking for opportunities to organize home-based and community-based care ecosystems and help health systems, ACOs, and plans Healthcare easily extends their reach and visibility into the home, in an effort to help people maximize their healthy days at home. We launched Dina in 2015 and we were very focused and committed to bringing our vision to life.
As an industry, we have two problems to solve. One is when you’re a really attached family carer. How do we make that person’s life easier? Second, how do we give family members less interaction about what’s going on with a loved one?
For us at Dina, that means how do we best enable and coordinate home care and how do we open our eyes to how that care is progressing. development for people who are not normally part of that process, such as insurance companies, doctors, health systems, etc.
Q. What are some of the important reasons for care teams from different providers to share information when trying to help patients age on site?
ONE. Healthcare is hard. But if you look at a hospital, it is the place with the best resources for medical care in our country, such as staff, suppliers, equipment and technology.
Now if you think about that model isn’t pooled and you’re now providing care in the home and in the community, to fit that experience and make it a smart model, you have to has good visibility and ability to track everything. How do you understand what is happening now?
From COVID, it’s clear that people want control over their overall healthcare experience and the plethora of centers in and around their homes. And, unfortunately, when people end up in the hospital, it’s often easier to go home than to do.
Most in-home providers and family caregivers lack the technology to share a patient’s progress with the extended care team. In addition, more and more people with chronic conditions do not need routine care but need to connect with their providers to manage their health at home.
In the hospital, you press the “nurse call button” if you feel unwell or something is wrong. You have to replicate that remotely and share the information between caregivers.
Finally, all persons often in contact with the hospital bed must be empowered to share information flexibly to coordinate care. Carefulness happens because all those resources are there. What does it mean to fit those resources in your home?
All members of that care team will not be at your home at the same time. They will come at different points and follow different shifts, so sharing that information becomes important.
Q. What types of healthcare information technology can address this?
ONE. There have been great advances in virtual care, remote patient monitoring, and patient engagement. But the type of technology that will require the most investment right now is the kind of technology that brings it all together, for example, the right kind of infrastructure for the coordinators, be it them at a hospital or in a hospital. insurance company, to be able to monitor what happens outside the hospital and enable physical and virtual services.
Such care may include personal care, companionship care, home calls, meal delivery, home modifications, or durable medical equipment. It’s a very broad and fragmented market. So the technology of bringing it all together at the push of a button is crucial.
In the future, care will be provided in three ways: in high-quality facilities; online with remote capability; and in your living room. I believe that in the next 5 to 10 years, every home will need to be configured to function as a full-fledged care facility (e.g. primary care clinic or hospital) and the providers – especially especially value-based contract participants – need to be willing to provide care in this setting.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to setting up home care models. It needs to be relevant to hospital billers and financiers and contract groups, and you need to understand your target patient population.
Over the past year, more people have opened up for home healthcare, and these models are here to stay. We have found that when the home is the focal point, care is more streamlined, more convenient, and the experience more comfortable.
Q. What role do remote patient interaction and monitoring technologies play?
ONE. Remote patient monitoring tools act as an early warning system and create visibility between visits. They increase the contact or connection between the health system and the individual.
If you’re a traditional healthcare provider or a medical plan, setting up the infrastructure to enable, monitor, and manage care is outside of the traditional four walls. of the hospital is very important. We call this “care flow control” to monitor and engage patients remotely and generate insights at home to help identify functional, behavioral, and social determinants of health needs.
While most providers do some level of tracking, monitoring, and trending, one-way visibility is not enough. For example, text-based patient registration can be used to get real-time feedback and manage exceptions, thus helping everyone stay safe at home.
This helps reduce unnecessary hospital and ER visits. For the elderly, it can slow down long-term care in a nursing home. It’s something we’ll need to do more of, especially as 10,000 people turn 65 every day.
Healthcare organizations around the country are grappling with staff shortages and burnout. To transition to home care, they need to find a way to expand their reach to the home without overwhelming additional staff. Technology is one way to overcome that challenge.
Q. What experience do you and your company have with remote patient monitoring when it comes to on-site aging?
ONE. Studies show that most people feel safer receiving care in their own home and say they are more satisfied with the care they receive when they are in familiar surroundings belonging and comfortable.
Right now, we don’t have enough nurses, doctors, and home health workers, so technology must promote greater efficiency and interaction.
By enabling remote patient engagement tools, we are able to connect different points of care and different care providers and align them with the same goals, while keeping patients at bay. nucleus in the center. And this has positively impacted outcomes and kept more patients safe and well cared for in their homes.
Not only does it passively collect data, but it also remotely engages in timely conversations with someone, such as asking how they are feeling, how their diabetes is progressing, or any case.
They are not directed to visit a portal but to engage in a dynamic conversation. And through those conversations, we can determine if they need to be referred to the appropriate care team member who can determine next steps.
Dina’s technology uses triggers from the patient and predictive model to help identify in real time who may need intervention or assistance with issues of social determinants. Care teams are important to guide and intervene when signals indicate that escalation is needed. Using technology to “manage by exception” ensures no one falls through the cracks.
It stays connected and pulls back social, behavioral and functional health insights, then acts in real time. I think it’s a progressive model of care and we’re passionate about helping more people access care on their terms, in their homes, and maximize their healthy days at home.
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
