Bridging the Gap from Hospital to Home: Notes from the 2019 AHA Leadership Summit

I was honored to represent UbiCare at the 2019 American Hospital Association Leadership Summit in San Diego. I really enjoyed the chance to make connections and to share our work with so many healthcare innovators and leaders.

The sessions and keynotes at the Summit this year were powerful, focusing on the common theme of disrupting and transforming healthcare. Hospitals are being pushed to consider their future roles as they move toward value-based care —and the work involved in preventative healthcare.

How can hospitals take a calculated leap to innovations that respond to immediate care and cost needs, while also laying the groundwork for preventative healthcare and continued growth? What should the role of hospitals be to best meet the needs of the communities they serve? Read on for some takeaways from the conference that focus on these questions and the direction of healthcare.

The definition of a hospital—and its role in promoting the health of the community—is changing. The paradigm that healthcare happens primarily in the hospital or the doctor’s office is rapidly becoming outdated:

• Many medical procedures that once involved a multi-day stay in the hospital are now performed with early or same-day discharge. Patient education and expectation management are essential to this kind of outpatient care. Patients who spend less time within the hospital’s four walls still look to their care team for guidance, from diagnosis through recovery.

• In the push toward preventative healthcare, patient education again plays a vital role in helping to keep people healthy and out of the hospital in the first place.

All of this has prompted the need for institutional shifts to align hospital practices and operations with this evolving definition. The model where the health team primarily has contact with patients in person must expand to include consistent interaction with the patient at home. This needs to be done in a way that takes the burden off practitioners who are already stretched thin—not by adding more work.

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The increasing focus on value-based care, cost and efficiency will continue to drive decision-making and processes. Disruptive business models can help hospitals work smarter, not harder.

Technology provides the infrastructure to support this fundamental evolution. It’s already entrenched in the hospital setting and in patients’ daily lives. Using technology to activate, educate and engage patients bridges the gap between the hospital or doctor’s office and home.

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Plus, digital technology gives care practitioners data that can help them effectively monitor patient progress and care, and increase efficiencies by streamlining processes.

As hospitals continue to make slow and uneven progress toward managed care, institutions are being tested like never before. Hospitals need to innovate and evolve to stay ahead of the curve—to provide high-quality care that’s cost effective and that emphasizes patient education and preventative healthcare.

At UbiCare, we’re proud to be providing a platform, content and data to help our partner hospitals educate and empower their patients to meet these goals. Through our patient engagement technology, we help staff do their jobs more efficiently and connect with patients in new and effective ways. Our hospitals have experienced increases in patient knowledge, satisfaction and outcomes; improved workflow efficiencies; the ability to meet and document regulatory requirements; and improved patient outcomes.

Learn more about how we help our partner hospitals improve patient self-management.