Connecting The New Dots In Home Health Care

As in any industry, the playing field and the rules of the game are constantly evolving. And perhaps nowhere more so than in home care. Changes are galloping ahead at an ever increasing pace. It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify and connect the right strategic dots to set a solid, secure and profitable path forward. Well no more. Escalating senior demographics, new and additional regulations, new policies, the new HHS STAR RATING disclosures and the new emerging models of home care businesses are revealing a clear picture.

There are two ‘dots’ in that picture that are inextricably connected. The ‘dot’ of achieving high HHS STAR ratings and the ‘dot’ of the vacuum that exists in care recipient unified communications that contributes to poor HHS STAR Ratings. Failure to connect these ‘dots’ and eliminate the vacuum will not bode well for home care businesses that disregard the connection.

Experience does teach some things:

To date, the adoption of technology by conventional home care services has been severely hampered by three major factors - (1) budgetary constraints (2) high levels of staff churn and (3) lack of internal IT resources. The new home care business models, especially those being funded by deep pocketed new venture investors, are moving to use technology to fill the vacuum. They will use technology to give them a competitive advantage, as they should. And, they are moving aggressively forward to seize the high ground of that advantage.

When technology does come upon the scene in traditional home care, it most typically arrives, internally focused, on only how to make the home care business more profitable. Now, I fully understand that this is not a bad historical choice of an objective for technology spending. But, as I said at the outset the landscape is changing.

With the ‘age-at-home’ momentum and with hospitals driving patients, under their new economic model, to choose hospital visits less frequently. The rules for home care competitiveness are changing.

Home care clients and their families now want and are being driven to take greater control by adopting a self-managed care philosophy, a desire to more positively impact and control the quality of their lives and enhance their abilities to engage with families, friends and their social community more robustly.

So what does all this mean to the conventional model of the home care services business?

To be future viable, home care businesses must move to offer a ‘unifying technology’ that positions them against their new era competitors with a solution that embraces their patient base ever more closely. To achieve and sustain reputable HHS STAR Ratings means that the new IT (technology) objective for home care needs to be one that enhances client/patient engagement and communications. This needs to be put at the forefront and it needs to be done quickly.

The choice made by future patients and their families will be significantly driven by access to a unifying technology for THEM being offered by the home care service they will select. While fee rates will always be significant factor in care provider selection, HHS STAR RATINGS and unifying technologies will dominate fees in importance. The competitors of the new era will see to it that this is what happens. Central to great HHS STAR RATINGS and thus survivability, will be the advancement and utilization of robust patient and family communications. Care giver/patient communications can no longer rely upon a cacophony of scheduled visits, phone calls, text messages, voice mails and e-mails – those times are over. The future of home care will be defined by a unified communications platform that is easy to use, is always ‘on’, enhances the quality of life, and one that enables your home care business to demonstrate a true differentiating value to your future clients.

Amazing Technology Enabled Health Care From Around the World

 I see through the lens of 40+ years of experience in global technologies that the evolution of technologies to aid, assist and enhance the quality of life and the delivery of care for a globally aging population has arrived a significant inflection point. Aging, by the way, is not just a U.S. issue. The UN’s Report on Aging has stated it is a global issue of great magnitude. The world’s older population will grow to more than 2 billion people! The ramifications of this eventuality are as broad and challenging as any socially driven global demographic issue we have faced. As it relates to healthcare technologies, the challenge being addressed presents as it always does, a unique opportunity to harness global innovation.

It is time to advance health care technologies created worldwide into readily accessible domestic solutions that are crucial to our quality of life, the purpose in life and delivery of care experienced by Seniors.

Thus far my experience in searching worldwide for technology enabled healthcare technologies and services has already led me to powerful solutions from Australia, Canada, China, Belgium, France and Ireland.

By looking abroad, we at ChartaCares have already made available a number of these very exciting technologies and services:

A unified senior touch screen friendly communications platform being deployed for Seniors, their care-givers, family, local service organizations, charitable entities and volunteers.

Humanoid robots that are actually at work, assisting with healthcare in Senior care facilities

A Social engagement service that reduces loneliness and enhances the quality of life via a very unique video services platform and a repertoire of ‘session professionals’ that lead discussion groups and take Seniors on web based tours and provide Senior’s with educational opportunities.

Remote Patient Monitoring systems that are critical to a healthy recovery or managing chronic illnesses.

Intelligent, automated behavior modification plans that enhance results achieved.

I also see advanced technologies being innovatively crafted for use by the Senior population such as ‘voice bio-metric’ signatures for healthcare related transactions and governmental interactions. Anti-microbial computer tablets for use in active care scenarios.

My point is that there exists an enormous source of creativity and innovation worldwide for health care technologies and services that needs to be cultivated. The time has come to begin to aggressively identify and share the work of global technology enabled health care developers. At ChartaCares we are working to do just that.

Many believe that the potential for the ‘future’ of health care is actually still some time off…well it is not, it is underway, now, and from locations around the world. We all can benefit from that.

We at ChartaCares are committed to advancing technology enabled healthcare from sources around the world . If you know of any such technologies or services you think we should review, please send me that information at mike@chartacloud.com. I will be sure to reach out to those sources. Thank you.

Two Big Mistakes Health Care Providers Are Making

We all can agree, I believe, that the era of patient engagement i.e. self-managed care is coming upon health care providers like a tsunami. It starts with the recasting of the dynamics of the health care delivery model which are being ever more driven by changes in payment models, quality of care metrics and technology. The more important drivers are, however, are that patients are seizing ever more control over their desire to manage their own health care and while doing so are becoming more representative of conventional consumer behavior, as they have been conditioned to it in other technology driven service sectors. Their experience in these other sectors has cultivated them to want open choices and self-managed, instant interactions via technologies. 

To express it another way - we will see an ever increasing trend in patients (read: consumer) moving (read: shopping) amongst care providers driven by their perception of the availability of and the quality of the patient engagement service component. The number of patients moving amongst providers, a number which I will call ‘customer churn’ is driving upwards toward the same percentage levels as in other technology driven subscription service industries. I expect to see a 10% churn rate to quickly become the new norm in health care. This means millions in lost revenues if not managed.

The mistakes start with care providers not having a proprietary, robust mobile patient engagement system. The studies I see, put the availability of such proprietary service applications being offered at less than 15% and sadly, they for the most part have poor satisfaction ratings versus the externally provided solutions. Bridging to the home in a proprietary manner will be critical.

Here is the real mistake. If care providers do not develop their own high quality proprietary patient engagement applications and rather chose to proceed to continue to outsource this function to third party external vendors, then the technical wolves of healthcare will soon be poaching their patients to the add-on health care services they plan to offer once the patient base that the health care providers have given third party providers is big enough. After all, now that they have your patients in their database and connected now as customers of theirs, why not then offer them tele-medicine services? Good bye customer! Call a traditional taxi owner about UBER and ask them how’s that going? Make no mistake about this, healthcare providers must take a proprietary approach to patient engagement. At stake are millions of dollars of revenue that you need to protect from ‘churn’ and from future poaching.

At ChartaCares we encounter these phenomena every day and our advice is always the same, adopt and deploy your own private labeled patient engagement application service. Keep your customers close to home. There are wolves out there.

Loneliness Is Real Killer

Take a step back and set aside for the moment all the typical chatter and story lines about how technology is empowering changes in healthcare. You know, like HIPPA security, health records exchange, patient-centric care, OASIS ICD coding, hospital re-admissions stats, laptops in the exam room – it goes on and on. Not that these are not appropriate matters and issues mind you, but I see a much more ‘human’ story emerging.

I have been a technology professional for more than 40 years and over that time I have continued to marvel at the revelations that are generated as new frontiers are pursued and outcomes evolve. My work in technology enabled health care has not failed to live up to that history and provide such revelations.

What I am increasingly observing first-hand is the human dimension, the magnificence of human response to encounters with technology when it delivers on ‘quality of life’. This of course can be easily seen with the impact of life saving advances in technology provided by the likes of drug treatment break-throughs, genetic therapies, imaging systems. These are critical and vital to quality of life and care to be sure. Yet while we all seem very familiar and comfortable with understanding and accepting the impact of conditions on health such as obesity, alcohol abuse and air pollution the fact is that loneliness has a greater life shortening probability impact than any of those conditions.

In my work with ChartaCares I see time and time again how technology ‘lights up’ people and patients not because the technology delivers ‘gee-wiz’ digital transactions making it easier for care recipients to do things like reorder a prescription and care givers to do billing more efficiently but because technology opens up and creates a new and enhanced connection to life as it is actually being lived. When one’s quality of life is so significantly and positively impacted the outcome of technology operates at what I referred to earlier - at the higher human level.

I see the defeat of loneliness and despair as a killer being achieved every day when I see via the technologies that we provide a senior who wants with great anticipation and excitement to join an active senior group experiencing together an on-line social gathering of friends with a common interest or an autistic or handicapped child break through the isolation in their lives and reduce their fear and stress via interactions with a humanoid robot or family members who are geographically separated increase their daily interactions and increase the knowledge of the condition and care of their aging parents via a unified communications platform. Everyone lights up! Why? As so very well defined by Eric Kim, Victor Stretcher and Carol Ryff in their research on preventative health care, a ‘purpose in life’ has been gained. The correct embrace of technology enables the elderly and those individuals with life conditions to recapture meaningfulness in their lives. This is why we at ChartaCares believe there is no better way to make a difference.

The Future of Health Care Is All In the Stars (and the Numbers)

Quantification of circumstance can deliver a rude awakening. The challenge faced in the U.S. as an aging population gains steam will demand aggressive solutions. But first, let’s visit the numbers:

Boomers are retiring at the rate of 10,000 per day – yes that’s each and every day.

Those over 65 are headed for a total population of 71.5 million

Add to that number those over the age of 50 and we are headed to an elderly population base of 112 million.

This is a population grouping that will post staggering numbers in: Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Diabetes, Chronic Heart Disease, COPD and hip and knee replacements.

By my actual personal count the number of different prescription drugs being advertised on TV and aimed at this group numbered 36 each with three repeats within two hours on average.  50% of adults take at least two drugs a day, 20% take five. Medication management and adherence is critical.

Clearly this is a generation in transition and, yes, it is in need of assisted car

Health care policy makers are working feverishly to address the quality of care and not just its cost. Health care models that pay more for better population health are underway. A rating system for home care services called the HOME HEALTH STAR RATING operated by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare is now actively reporting results and awarding the ‘stars’ (the stars referred to in this article’s title) to home care providers. Here numbers come once again into play. In 2014 more than 2600 hospitals faced penalties costing over $450 million dollars resulting from less than acceptable hospital re-admission rates. Get tagged with a three star rating or less as a home care provider and you are probably going to be forced out of the business.

The National Association of Health Care has reported that 75% of health care operators will be or will be approaching unprofitability by 2017. One leading researcher reports that the number of health care service firms in home care will be reduced by over 80,000 and industry employment will decline by over 400,00 by 2019.

So, not only do we have a generation in transition but we have a care service provider industry struggling to meet generational demands, lower payments, increased regulatory scrutiny, a higher wages model and a lack of qualified caregivers. It is an industry reeling and in a dramatic transition itself.

Driven by these facts and conditions I make a continuous effort to search out and vet innovative health care technologies that will enable the ‘boomer’ generation to age more securely at home, improve the quality of their lives and simultaneously empower home care service providers to become more efficient while adding a demonstrable competitive differentiator to how they compete for new business. One recent discovery is MyHomeReach. The impact that MyHomeReach can have on hospitals seeking to reduce re-admissions is significant. Towns and community governments can now get a handle on their aging population’s health status thereby reducing the burden on first responders to what will be an alarming increase in medical conditions that need attention. With a product like MyHomeReach corporations also can now have a path to assisting the growing numbers of ‘sandwich’ generation workers who are frequently late to work or become absent due to the demands of caring for aging parents. Home Care services can offer a technology that embraces their customer base.

As has been the case so often in the past, innovative technologies arrive in with save-the-day solutions. Ahaa moments! MyHomeReach is a classical case in point. It’s the right technology and it’s available at the right time. If you want to get ahead of the numbers and reach for the STARS, get more information about MyHomeReach at www.chartacares.com or call me at 603-580-5497. I’d be happy to share what I have learned.

 

Humanoid Robots That Are Reducing Children's Care Related Pain and Stress by 50%?

There can be no doubt that robots have entered the medical care and services space. Different classes of robots are at work doing surgery, delivering medical supplies around hospitals, dispensing medications, cleansing hospital rooms and picking up laundry. Some are on the verge of lifting patients from bed to wheel chair. Soon they will be welcoming you at your medical check-in and escorting you to your appointed location. The next evolution has now begun. This next evolution is “humanoid” robots that work as medical assistants.

“Humanoid” robots are a next higher class of robot. They are equipped with human like interaction intelligence such as cognitive-behavior recognition, facial recognition and emotional response assessment. As such, they make ideal medical assistants. Know that humanoid robots are already working in pediatric care and have been clinically proven to reduce a child’s stress and pain by 50% when facing medical procedures. In dental practices humanoid robots are calming children as they have their first experiences with dental procedures.

In skilled nursing facilities they are doing everything from informing residents what’s for lunch to playing Bingo to leading exercise classes. In more specialized environments they are terrific in helping treat Autism. They increase vaccination rates. I have even seen where they can aid in dementia therapy. The point is they are here, they are real and they are ready to be on the job.

Their flexibility in adapting to customized medical protocols makes them extremely versatile.

I have been engaged for more than 45 years in the advances in technology. My work around humanoid robots has been the most exciting. Humanoid robots establish an entirely new interface to the world around us – innovation and imagination reign supreme. Not a day goes by when yet another breakthrough concept or idea fails to surface.

Besides, can there be anything better that seeing a fearful child transform into a smiling, excited and happier child? The medical profession will once again demonstrate their leadership in doing what they are foundationally committed to doing – increasing the quality of care. A positive experience by a child with medical care and or dental care can impact a lifetime of their perspective on health care and health self-management.

Strictly from a business perspective I have seen how humanoid robots increase business development and enhance patient loyalty. Not insignificant benefits of using this technology.

If you would like to know or learn or about my experience with humanoid robots in medical care call me at 603-580-5497 or e-mail me at mike@chartacloud.com I’d be glad to share what I have learned.

 

 

Digital Pens and ‘Smart Paper’ Transforming Health IT

Healthcare providers around the world agree that quality patient care is their top priority, and capturing patient data digitally is critical to improving patient care. Today, most healthcare processes are still paper-based. Many healthcare providers are concerned about the risk of inaccuracy, disruption of workflow, and harm to patient care quality involved in adopting new and complicated data-capture and password encumbered tools like in-room computers, laptops or tablet PCs.

Using a digital pen and smart paper forms makes every sense from the critical perspectives of patient interactions to reducing the expense of data capture and digital document management. Its day has in my opinion- arrived. Whether it be in hospitals, medical practices, SNFs, VNAs or Home Care it just makes sense – economically and operationally.

We all know the drill. Enter any doctor’s office or emergency room and the first thing you get handed is a clip board. Why are the paper forms on the clip board not SMART? Using a digital pen the data can be immediately captured and electronically, instantly stored. The smart paper documents and forms can even be signed with the signature electronically captured.

The patient’s room has become a data center with as much time given over to logging-in and data capture as to discussing symptoms and giving care advice.

The next advance in health care technology will be Digital Pens, SmartpaperForms and the smart clip board. Yes, you understand it correctly. Why? Because it is simple and efficient to adopt, deploy, and use.

The benefits are too clear for the hospital or medical practice to avoid the inevitable.

Patient interactions are enhanced – avoiding distracting laptops, tablets and computers during care or treatment.

Increased Accuracy and Completeness – All care giver handwritten notes are accurately captured by high precision digital capture technology built into the pen itself.

Handwritten entries and notes can be converted to digital data – automatically.

You use your existing paper forms – no expensive programming transitions to electronic forms.

Minimal Training and Workflow Interruptions – Because digital writing uses a the familiar practice of writing with pen and paper, its use requires little training and is easy to learn

Eliminate document scanning – documents are auto captured, filed and stored instantly and can be instantly shared into workflows or with other care givers.

Signatures can be captured, diagrams drawn, boxes checked, items initialed when and where necessary – simply by signing or using a digital pen

Digital writing is the perfect bridge between the paper and digital worlds.

SmartpaperForms can now be printed on typical office laser printers using common office grade paper. You retain the use of your ‘tried and true’ paper forms. SmartpaperForms eliminate the need for expensive pre-printed forms or multi-form carbon sets.

Why spend on buying laptops and tablets and managing all the surrounding security concerns when you can now just print your existing health care and business forms as smart paper forms and use a secure digital pen? Capture handwritten entries and notes, and capture the form and the data instantly using digital pen technology.

I forecast that digital pen and smart paper will become the new kid on the health care block – fast and soon.

If you would like to discuss my experiences with digital pen technology in health care simply call me at 603-580-5497 or e-mail me at mike@chartacloud.com I’d be happy to share what I have learned.