When the Telehealth Subcommittee of the American Hospital Association (AHA) released its final recommendations regarding the future of healthcare post-acute care, it was clear that Telehealth would be a significant part of that future. The AHA’s new recommendations affect post-acute care facilities, nursing homes, and residential care providers. The new guidelines encourage facility owners to have regular check-ins with residents to make sure they are happy and engaging with their surroundings. The recommendation also encourages SNFs to use Telehealth in order to help residents with activities like exercise and socializing. Instead of spending money on different programs or hiring nurses for extra aides, a better practice is using your facility’s resources.
With the shift toward digital care, more medical institutions are exploring ways to use technology in post-acute care and skilled nursing facilities. The growing popularity of Telehealth (or video-based remote patient care) has created an environment where institutions can leverage these technologies to improve resident health outcomes and lower costs. Read on for three ways post-acute care and SNFs can optimize telehealth offerings.
A Good Example of How Telehealth Can Help.
Telehealth is an excellent way to monitor a resident’s health and to help them stay active and engaged with their surroundings. In this example, a nursing home is using Telehealth to ensure that an elderly resident is receiving an adequate amount of exercise. The resident is in a wheelchair, so it can be challenging to be sure that she is getting enough physical activity. Using Telehealth, a nurse can alert staff if the resident has not moved around for a while. With this benefit, it is clear that Telehealth can improve a resident’s quality of life by helping ensure that they get the activity they need.
How Post-Acute Care Hospitals Can Use Telehealth
Telehealth can be a great way to connect with nursing home patients. An inpatient post-acute care facility can use Telehealth to check in with patients regularly. Telehealth can also provide a sense of community for patients. By allowing them to stay connected with family members or loved ones, Telehealth can help to reduce the feeling of isolation that many patients experience as they transition from inpatient to outpatient care.
How SNFs Can Use Telehealth
Telehealth can be a great way to provide companionship services and help residents with activities like exercise and socializing. Instead of hiring additional staff, SNFs can use their resources to provide remote monitoring. It can reduce costs while also providing residents with the same level of care they would get if they were in the facility. Telehealth can also be helpful for SNFs that offer assisted living services. SNFs in this category can use remote monitoring to help to reduce the risk of falls and to provide assistance with activities like showering or dressing.
Telehealth has been highlighted by the ongoing pandemic as a way to deliver care, control healthcare costs, and reduce hospital readmissions. The pandemic is slowly decreasing, but healthcare providers, post-acute facilities, and skilled nursing facilities, in particular, must continue searching for ways to optimize Telehealth to maintain margins and improve patient outcomes.
The home is becoming the preferred care setting as the population ages faster than the younger ones. Remote patient monitoring reimbursement models to in-home patients will undoubtedly hurt SNFs, who already have lower census totals.
How can SNF and post-acute care leaders tackle these formidable challenges? These are the three steps to follow:
1. Training and support are the most important things.
2. To create competitive advantages, reduce hospital readmissions
3. Integrate Telehealth and medical devices so patients can be treated outside the home.
Telemedicine offers many opportunities for post-acute care facilities or SNFs to improve patient outcomes and protect revenue. However, it must be implemented strategically.
Final Words
Telehealth has the potential to improve the lives of many elderly and disabled people. But why wait for the technology to progress when you can start using it today? If you own a post-acute care facility or a skilled nursing facility, you can use Telehealth to improve the quality of life of your residents. It can also enhance the quality of life among residents at your facilities with physical limitations. In addition, Telehealth can be used to help provide companionship services to encourage better behaviors and socialization among your residents. With these benefits in mind, it is clear that post-acute care facilities and SNFs have many reasons to explore Telehealth.
Telehealth is quickly becoming one of the latest trends in post-acute care and skilled nursing facilities. In short, Telehealth uses video equipment or apps to connect patients and residents to nurses, care managers, and physicians for an extended period outside of a hospital. It doesn’t just refer to monitoring patients who convalesce from an acute condition. Telehealth also has high potential as a strategy for optimizing patient experiences in SNFs and PARCs. If you’ve read anything about PARCs lately, you know they often face staffing shortages as more people turn to home instead of facility care as their primary care option after an extended hospital stay.
Hucu.ai App is an excellent example of how communication and operations are sorted out smoothly around a healthcare organization’s patients, doctors, and staff. Hucu.ai is a HIPAA-compliant Application and a healthcare communication app that provides a platform for patients, doctors, staff, and families to remain connected remotely systematically. Now Doctors can sign up for patients online and also communicate about the patient with the provider team in separate channels. The healthcare team provides real-time updates to families of institution residents through Hucu.ai.
