Things Repertoire learned at the HIDA Educational Foundation’s Post-Acute Channel Strategies Conference in Chicago.
One goal. For supply chain professionals, it’s always been about delivering the right product to the right place at the right time. For post-acute-care administrators, payers and providers, it’s about offering the right kind of care, at the right time, in the right place, to the right patient. SNF? Home care? Hospice?
A ways to go. We’re still early in this whole coordination-of-care thing. When it comes to patient placement after hospitalization, there are no standards about the circumstances under which a patient should be referred to a skilled nursing facility, home care, hospice care, etc.
No clinical pathways. Acute-care facilities have worked hard to create clinical pathways for certain types of patients, conditions and disease states. Expect post-acute-care providers to apply hospital quality techniques to post-acute patients.
Codependence. There’s a codependency between hospitals and post-acute-care providers. In order to reduce readmissions, hospitals need to refer discharged patients to the highest-quality post-acute providers. On the other hand, SNFs, home health agencies, etc., need those referrals in order to keep their doors open and provide needed services.
Who will take care of them? For the nurse and patient, home care is a one-to-one deal. Yet the nation faces a nursing shortage. Only about 4 percent of nurses go into home health. No surprise. It’s a lonely job, there’s no direct supervision, and there’s lots of paperwork.
The forecast. Abnormal weather is the new normal. Post-acute-care providers have to demonstrate their ability to care for patients – or transport them to safety – in the event of storms, fires, etc. They need suppliers on whom they can trust to help.
Cool new term. A SNFist, as defined by The Advisory Board, is a hospital-employed or hospital-affiliated physician who provides care for patients post-discharge in a skilled nursing facility. Very descriptive, and kind of fun to say, too.