The Unrelenting Evolution of Healthcare Today And Tomorrow
We are in the middle of an evolution in healthcare. It’s not coming fast, but it will happen. I call it hospital deconstruction.
Look at other industries. Despite achieving massive national
scale of brick and mortar facilities, companies like Blockbuster (thanks Netflix), Sears (thanks Amazon), Mike’s Camera (thanks iPhone) were disrupted and decimated by new entrants that used technology to deliver similar
capabilities in a more convenient way to consumers.
In healthcare, our facilities and our business models were built around provider needs, productivity, and their required efficiencies. Hospitals grew bigger as they began to convene clinical specialists, providing support and equipment in order to keep up with the advances in medicine; generally receiving compensation for admitting patients for observation, diagnostic testing, medical treatment, and surgical procedures. As our national healthcare system evolved, our facilities got bigger and bigger, and as a result, hospitals became the center for care in our communities.
Correspondingly, millions of lives have been saved by delivering care in a systematic way: with sterile techniques, medical peer review, evidenced based protocols, trauma systems, stroke centers, and cardiac protocols, etc.
For the sickest patients with a need for significantly complex care, the hospital will always be the best location. An emergency room can take care of virtually any level of illness, and route care to the right spot for definitive treatment and admission.
That said, the majority of healthcare delivery will face the same forces that impacted companies like Blockbuster and Sears – a desire for care to be delivered in a more convenient way for consumers, with similar systematic controls through digitally enhanced logistics, mobility, and care models. Additionally, unlike the past when medical care required large facilities as a convener of specialty capabilities and medical equipment, these same capabilities have become mobile through miniaturization and digitization. Specialists are becoming more accessible through telemedicine which does not require a brick and mortar to deliver.
So why does this matter?
A huge wave of Americans are aging into their eighth decade where functional limitation and chronic illness create complex health problems, making it difficult to treat such patients effectively at the right cost. For this reason, patient’s homes are emerging as a critical access point for healthcare.
Roughly five million aging adults now have difficulty leaving home without help and nearly half of those seniors are considered frail, fragile or functionally limited, according to a 2015 study published in Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine1. The high cost of effectively caring for these patients is crippling, and only exacerbated by the fact that aging patients tend to rely on the emergency room for treatment that could take place in a lower cost setting.
Caring for patients at home has been shown to dramatically increase patient satisfaction, improve outcomes, and prevent hospital readmissions. Additionally making healthcare at home affordable has proven effective at reducing 911 transports and ER visits while enabling end of life care to take place where people are most comfortable. Home healthcare has the added benefit of providing a much less disorienting experience for many older
patients who also suffer from cognitive dysfunction; enabling an easier recovery with lower stress and fatigue due to the patient remaining where they are most at ease.
In addition to aging patients, busy parents with young children, adults with physical and behavior disabilities, and professionals used to on-demand services also show high interest in alternative care that provides a more effortless, comfortable experience. It’s a relief to know they can conveniently recover from issues like migraines, lacerations, urinary tract infections and the flu without ever leaving home.
As interest in identifying new ways to extend quality healthcare to the most demanding populations intensifies, innovative young companies like DispatchHealth are working ahead of the demand curve. They are solving the training, staffing, technological and logistical challenges inherent in delivering sophisticated, effective medical care to people in their homes and it’s already making an impact. DispatchHealth has treated more than
25,000 patients over the last few years, saving millions in unnecessary ER and 911 transport costs. Companies like this will continue to innovate and prove the value of home delivered care to payers, risk-based medical groups, hospital systems, patients and caregivers.
1 K. A. Ornstein, B. Leff, K. E. Covinsky et al.,
“Epidemiology of the Homebound Population in the United States,” JAMA Internal
Medicine, July 2015 175(7):1180–86.