Successfully Navigating the Post Acute Continuum
Many home health providers are connected to other business lines within the post-acute home care continuum including private duty and hospice. Owners and operators often find it challenging to successfully integrate these services and promote growth within their various business lines while offering patients access to the beneficial services needed to age in place at home. Does your company have a continuum of services that includes home health, private duty and hospice care? If so, are the business lines operating like silos or otherwise missing potential “low hanging fruit”?
Integration of the continuum of services begins with education for patients and families, as well as organization staff. How aware are your staff with regard to the array of services offered? Are individual team members fixated on their own business line without seeing the broader client impact opportunities within the organization?
Strategies to Provide Education within Your Organization:
- Schedule monthly or quarterly “round table” meetings that include leadership members from each business line. This facilitates face to face communication, relationship building and opportunities to spotlight each business line and opportunities for collaboration.
- Routinely include representatives from separate business lines in weekly case conference meetings to improve patient care collaboration, team building and clinician education.
- Example: The home health agency within the organization may invite a member of the hospice team, such as the manager or intake coordinator, to attend a weekly case conference. This allows the hospice team member to assist with identifying patients who potentially quality for hospice services. This practice not only improves the likelihood that a patient will receive the proper services without delay, but also ensures that the patient benefits from care within the organization’s continuum.
- Ensure that the organization’s or business line’s orientation program includes a spotlight on each post-acute business line.
- Example: Does your organization have home health, hospice and private duty? Include a brief description of each of the business lines within the orientation program so that all new hires are aware of the services offered. This also ensures that new hires are aware that they are a part of “something bigger” and will take pride in working for an organization structured to allow patients to safely remain in their home. Ensure that new hires buy into the continuum of care and services from day one.
- Develop checklist or guides that highlight the qualification for each business line.
- Example: Develop tools that spotlight private duty qualifications that both the home health and hospice team can reference. Prompt the team to refer patients to the private duty services offered within the organization as appropriate.
- Do team members within your home health and hospice business lines know that patients can potentially have both home health and private duty, or hospice and private duty services at the same time?
Effectively utilizing all service lines within your continuum starts from within your organization. If you are an owner or operator, ensure that you have processes and tools in place to ensure consistent collaboration amongst your post-acute business lines. Don’t let your organization or patients miss out.
Contact Proactive for assistance with effectively utilizing your organization’s continuum of post-acute services.
Written by:
Nichole McClain, RN
Principal Consultant of Home Health Services
Contact Proactive to learn more about Five-Star Improvement support services and develop a road map to Five-Star success in 2025.