ST. LOUIS (August 22, 2018)—Intalere announced in June a new Hospice and Palliative Care Consulting Solution and Program to assist health care organizations in developing specific programs to significantly lower patient care costs while improving quality of life.
“Most palliative care programs are underutilized, if developed and implemented at all. Research proves that identifying palliative care patients, who meet criteria for intervention, bends the cost curve leading to a decrease in mean length of stay and reduction in readmissions,” said Daria Byrne, vice president of Clinical and MedSurg Solutions for Intalere. “An implemented and embedded palliative care and hospice program across the organization encourages clinicians to consider care resources to reduce cost, improve outcomes, and increase patient and family satisfaction.”
Intalere currently works with more than 1,000 hospice and palliative care providers. Byrne explained that despite the growing awareness and implementation of palliative care teams across the United States, there remains a misconception of the broader benefits of palliative care. The misconception leads to missed opportunities to provide additional supportive services for the patient and their family. Being proactive with palliative care recommendations for patients with chronic illnesses may result in an increase rather than decrease in lifespan, improve symptom management and communication, and allow patients to stay at home, away from the hospital, towards the end of life thus reducing unnecessary cost and improving care and quality of life.
Key focal points in developing or revising hospice and palliative care programs through the Intalere solution and program include:
- A hospice specific contract index delivering up to 12 percent savings on products and supplies specifically tailored to hospice care providers
- Evaluating cultural readiness for a hospice and palliative care program
- Identifying clinical champions and individuals to build a collaborative palliative care team
- Leveraging best practices to select key clinical indicators to assess palliative care consultation readiness
- Developing clinical workflows to embed and automate the referral process and ensure communication needs
- Identifying key measures to track metrics and return on investment, specifically operational, financial and clinical outcomes
The Intalere Hospice and Palliative Care Solution stresses individualized engagement with each participant to recognize priorities, identify maturity and understand the desires of the organization. “This is a collaborative process with the organization to develop a customized plan to meet your organization’s specific goals in relationship to hospice and palliative care programming,” Byrne said.
Visit intalere.com for more information.
