The following is a guest article by Ashish V. Shah, Co-Founder & CEO at Dina
Faced with a stressed system, healthcare’s next—and most crucial—innovation frontier should focus on optimizing the access, flow, transitions, and use of human resources
When patients stay longer than expected in the hospital because there is no safe handoff, the results can cause significant financial stress.
We know that our aging population has complex needs, requiring more post-acute and in-home care as well as other community-based support. Many skilled nursing facilities are short-staffed, so patients cannot always transition out of the hospital in a timely manner.
At the same time, there simply are not enough nurses and other healthcare providers to care for the people who will need support and resources in the next five to 10 years.
A recent report by McKinsey estimates there will be a shortage of 200,000 to 450,000 registered nurses (RNs) in the U.S. by 2025 if healthcare stakeholders and federal leaders do not take action. Although the number of RNs has been anticipated to increase by 6% by 2031, forecasts show it won’t be enough to close the gap.
What does this mean to the healthcare system and to patients––particularly those who are ready to leave the hospital and move home or to their next site of care?
Consider the case of a patient leaving the hospital. Insurance authorizations, determining bed availability, staffing and other processes are often communicated via phone and fax. It’s inefficient and resource-intensive.
Healthcare organizations are painfully aware of waste and have been focused on making the most of their resources. Now, a fresh approach is warranted.
To change this dynamic, the entire system needs to operate like a high-functioning supply chain that supports the safe movement of people from the hospital back into the home and community.
This isn’t a job for robots or AI. It is not about remote patient monitoring or adopting electronic health records or tools to help patients view their charts. It requires practical innovation to remove waste and optimize the use of our increasingly precious human resources.
We’ve seen that the patient experience, cost control and human capital considerations all improve with real-time connectivity. But improving connectivity is easier said than done. Here are five steps to make it happen:
- Identify your partner networks outside of the hospital. Map the entire care continuum, identifying all potential partners and their capabilities. In addition to home healthcare providers, this network should include at-home services like meal delivery, durable medical equipment (DME) providers and organizations that address social determinants of health (SDOH).
- Use technology to activate partners. Digitally activate your partners in a shared online experience so you have real-time visibility into capacity. This can enable timely and efficient care transitions and reduce the time required aligning resources with patients.
- Bring health plans into a shared platform to streamline health benefits management. Use additional data from insurers’ medical bills to identify treatment gaps, manage costs, and meet quality performance targets.
- Make it easy for hospitals and post-acute partners to engage, collaborate and meet the needs of patients. Be clear about what information is most important and make it easy for your partners to supply it via automation or simple workflow tools. Look for technology that integrates into case management systems and EMRs for a seamless experience.
- Gain visibility into service delivery and satisfaction. This can include jointly setting performance goals around patient care, encouraging partners to validate outcomes with data, empowering teams to manage care delivery, and using shared technology to facilitate communication. This not only helps with managing partner networks but is essential to improving the patient experience.
There is a unique and immediate opportunity to optimize the human supply chain of healthcare and redefine care delivery across the entire continuum. As care continues to move into the home and community, tools and technology need to be easy to use and progressive to address a provider’s new and future needs. When done right, investing in the technology to see, manage and coordinate resources can alleviate the pressure on the human supply chain and help return people safely from the hospital and back to their homes and communities.
About Ashish V. Shah
Ashish V. Shah leads the Dina team on its mission to power the healthcare industry’s transition to home-centered care. He founded the company in 2015 and remains passionate about empowering care teams with the tools they need to help people age in place. Ashish previously served as CTO at Medicity, the market leader for vendor-neutral Health Information Exchange solutions (acquired by Aetna in 2011). Today, Dina works with many leading health plans and health systems to extend their reach into the home to help people live their very best lives.
