How technology is changing the way post-acute care is delivered.
The healthcare landscape is continuing to evolve to meet the needs of patients within medical facilities and beyond the hospital setting.
Technological advancements such as AI, telehealth, remote patient monitoring and more have transformed post-acute and at-home care by enhancing accessibility of care, improving efficiency, and enabling personalized patient support.
“Many people, even those with complex care needs, can be cared for at home after a hospital stay thanks to emerging technologies,” said Dr. Steven Landers, CEO of the National Alliance for Care at Home. “It is also less costly to the system than unnecessary hospital days and nursing home care.”
The Alliance, comprised of more than 1,500 members from all 50 states, is an organization of home health, hospice, home care, palliative care, and other care-at-home service providers that are driving forward the home care movement. The Alliance’s partners include technology companies, consulting firms and other organizations committed to patients having access to high-quality healthcare at home.
“One of the things top of mind for patients and families when they are hospitalized is how they can safely return home after their inpatient care,” said Dr. Landers. “Post-acute care at-home offers an opportunity for continued recovery, rehabilitation and disease management in a comfortable environment.”
Advanced technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of the healthcare experience today. It has revolutionized physician communication, driven better patient outcomes, and has largely reshaped the way care has been traditionally delivered.
“New AI and analytics tools are helping physicians with risk stratification, triage, and quality gap analysis and closure,” said Dr. Landers. “I’ve been impressed with the role of some of the risk stratification and triage tools used specifically in post-acute healthcare. For example, the company Medalogix has a software product on the market that has helped home health providers identify patients who have poor survival prognosis and may benefit from conversations about hospice and palliative care. This tool has likely helped hundreds of thousands of patients receive more patient-centered care based on their goals and circumstances.”
Technology has also changed the way post-acute care providers handle administrative tasks and aspects of patient care, making standard processes more streamlined and efficient.
“The nature of clinical documentation is changing. The back-office billing and administrative functions are being assisted by new AI tools,” said Dr. Landers. “Remote monitoring and telehealth tools are more frequently supporting more seamless access in between visits and physician/provider certification visits.”
Potential of tech in post-acute care
The promise and opportunity of telehealth in post-acute care has not yet been fully realized. While telehealth and technology has transformed many areas of healthcare, its integration into post-acute and at-home care remains uneven.
“While improvements in physician certification tasks, management of urgent situations to avoid preventable hospitalization, and ongoing monitoring have grown, regulatory limitations and lack of clarity on some compliance and reimbursement restrictions are limiting the full potential of AI and other technologies,” said Dr. Landers.
Though tech solutions have been a growing area of investment across the nation for hospitals and health systems; skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and other post-acute providers have largely been excluded and/or delayed in benefitting from the past decade of substantial public and private-sector investment in information technology (IT), according to the NIH.
To realize telemedicine’s full potential across the industry, collaboration among the healthcare and technology sectors is imperative. Through remote consultations, monitoring, and diagnosis facilitated by technology, according to the NIH, tech-based healthcare can extend its reach to remote and underserved areas and healthcare sectors while enhancing accessibility.
To continue advancing the goal of technologically integrated post-acute care facilities, the NIH asserts in its “Progress Toward Digital Transformation in an Evolving Post-Acute Landscape” report a need to expand efforts to identify and address design, implementation, and use issues that continue to impede progress toward optimal IT-enabled care.
Technology tackles challenges
Technology has certainly played a role in assisting post-acute care providers, but it has a ways to go in terms of fully addressing the overwhelming and persistent challenges facing the industry.
Staffing shortages exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic are an ongoing issue across the healthcare sector, which Landers says has continued to be a significant obstacle impacting physicians’ ability to provide quality, patient-centered post-acute care.
“Many communities are facing nursing other health professional shortages, and these providers are in competition with hospitals and facilities for a finite number of workers. We need a range of solutions to improve the situation,” said Dr. Landers. “Technology that supports logistics, reduced documentation time, care coordination, point of care decisions, remote monitoring, and more are all helping with workforce shortage challenges, but we still need more caregivers.”
While Dr. Landers stresses that technology has helped to address physician and caretaker shortages, the healthcare workforce is still under an immense amount of stress.
Addressing the staffing crisis will require not only innovative technology and tools, but also strategic investments in training, recruitment, and retention to ensure the health industry is able to meet the growing demand for quality care across post-acute care.
The future of post-acute care technology
Looking forward, Dr. Landers said that the rapid growth of the 85 and older population, the falling caregiver support ratios and workforce constraints, the preference for care at home, the cost pressures on Medicare, and technological and care model innovation opportunities will dominate ongoing conversations within the post-acute care industry.
To successfully navigate these shifts, the post-acute care industry must take a multi-faceted approach to progress that includes policy changes, workforce investments, financial reforms and the continued adoption of technology.
Efforts such as these, coordinated across groups such as healthcare providers, policymakers, and technology companies can help to ensure more effective and long-term access to technology solutions for post-acute care physicians and their patients.
“The healthcare industry must be working hand-in-hand with each other on advocacy efforts to help educate policymakers on opportunities to strengthen tech-enabled post-acute care,” Dr. Landers said.