Home Health Providers Continue to See Telehealth as Staffing Tailwind

With the market for home-based care continuing to grow, providers need to make sure their employees are ready for a digital future in the space.

They also need to focus on what their employees want out of a career, and should be able to pivot and adapt as the industry evolves.

Those were the main takeaways from Tuesday’s SimiTree webinar, which took a closer look at growth and retention.

“Technology has evolved to the point where you can monitor patients in the home, in a safe way, and can absolutely coordinate and collaborate that care amongst the growing care team,” Melissa Kozak, co-founder and president of CitusHealth, said. “Of course, technology also helps patients stay connected with family while caregivers could be spread around the country. These tools now enable that connection and bring everybody together, even if they’re not under the same roof.”

CitusHealth is a virtual care platform specifically tailored for home-based care providers.

As demand for home-based increases, many believe that offering remote work for clinicians could help in recruiting and retaining staff.

“Technology really is an option that can be leveraged as a win-win on both sides,” John Rabbia, director of SimiTree, said. “We know for certain that many clinicians find the hybrid or remote work model to be far preferable to having to be on site for their full shift every week. By leveraging virtual visits, at least to some degree, you have an opportunity to offer clinicians the opportunity to work from home or work remotely.”

The benefit for employees is obvious, Rabbia said. It’s also beneficial for providers.

“It certainly enhances clinical care by allowing us to provide more patient contacts with less cost, to be frank,” Rabbia said. “We can make more of these visits by doing it remotely. It cuts down on travel time and is particularly beneficial to patients who are in rural areas where there’s less population density. And even in a very dense metropolitan area, public transportation or traffic can slow you down.”

On the patient side, Kozak doesn’t see a future where the demand for telehealth will slow. It might not be the end all, be all of home-based care, but telehealth in some capacity is here to stay, she said.

“The big takeaway for me is that 76% of consumers are interested in telehealth moving forward,” Kozak said. “In just one year — from 2019 to 2020 — it went from 11% of patients or consumers ever using telehealth or being interested in using it to 76%. I would expect that to rise again.”

On the provider side, Rabbia said it’s important to be clear and direct with employees during the implementation side of a digital platform, as providers start and continue to offer telehealth services.

“One of the biggest steps that you can take to reduce pushback, both from the clinician side and from the patient-caregiver side, is to be really intentional about how we prepare folks on both sides of the camera and microphone to implement this technology,” he said. “Not everyone is truly meant to be a TikTok star. A little bit of preparation is going to go a long way in terms of facilitating acceptance of these technologies.”

Like many providers, Trustbridge Hospice and Palliative Care was forced to provide remote services due to the pandemic. Tarrah Lowry, its COO, said during that diving in head first was beneficial in a lot of ways.

“We all know that if issues can be solved before they become problems, it’s a win, because the outcomes are usually positive,” Lowry said. “Technology has the potential to help organizations in home-based care educate, communicate and meet expectations.”

Telehealth and regular check-ins that are done digitally can also help overall communication between a clinician and a family, Lowry said.

There are often miscommunications throughout a patient’s journey, but being able to hop on a video call easily is an effective add-on.