Two of the nation's biggest healthcare providers are leading a new innovation coalition focused on transforming healthcare delivery outside of the four walls of a hospital.
Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente launched the Advanced Care at Home Coalition, alongside partner Medically Home Group, a Boston-based tech services company that powers hospital-at-home programs, according to an Oct. 14 news release shared with Becker's.
Mayo and Kaiser inked a joint investment in Medically Home in May. The three organizations will lead a group of hospital and health system members, including Adventist Health, Johns Hopkins and Geisinger, to advocate for the support of current hospital-level care-at-home flexibilities during and after the COVID-19 public health emergency.
While the flexibilities, which have helped Kaiser and Mayo both expand their hospital-at-home programs to multiple Medicare beneficiaries at scale, are set to expire at the end of the year, Stephen Parodi, MD, executive vice president of The Permanente Federation, part of Kaiser Permanente, told Becker's that the coalition is hopeful the public health emergency will be extended. However, the coalition aims to serve as a "bridge" when it comes to implementing these programs permanently.
"We're hopeful that the PHE is going to be extended for some time so we don't have a cliff when it comes to these programs, but we know that there's going to need to be a bridge," Dr. Parodi said. "So, we either need a legislative bridge to allow the principles of what the hospital without walls waivers have allowed us to do or, and probably just as important, work with the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation or CMS to develop essentially a demonstration program that would allow us to in a rigorous way examine the types of patients that are being admitted."
Michael Maniaci, MD, a physician leader for advanced care at home at Mayo Clinic, is working alongside Dr. Parodi to spearhead the new coalition. He told Becker's that one of the coalition's main focuses will be exploring how to properly regulate hospital-at-home models and transform the laws that currently link hospital medicine to a building to include a virtual model.
"We have to continue to innovate and keep the momentum going, yet we can't open up the floodgates," he said. "We have to have regulation that keeps fraud and bad actors from taking over and driving this from a monetary perspective as opposed to a patient experience perspective."
By forming the coalition, Mayo, Kaiser and other hospital members will help drive best hospital-at-home practices and a new model forward for all providers, Dr. Maniaci said.
In addition to Mayo, Kaiser and Medically Home, here are the coalition's additional members:
- Adventist Health (Roseville, Calif.)
- ChristianaCare (Newark, Del.)
- Geisinger Health (Danville, Pa.)
- Integris Health (Oklahoma City)
- Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore)
- Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor)
- Novant Health (Charlotte, N.C.)
- ProMedica (Toledo, Ohio)
- Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group (San Diego, Calif.)
- UNC Health (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
- UnityPoint Health (West Des Moines, Iowa)