Facing an ever-changing landscape, healthcare industry experts know that the key to sustainable success is building meaningful relationships. These are our tried-and-true factors that make valued partnerships work and grow.
If we have learned anything in healthcare over the past several years, it is that there is power in partnerships — with our teams, our post-acute providers, our communities, and, above all, with our patients and their families. Rising acuity, tighter capacity, and growing pressure on length of stay have made one thing clear: we need one another more than ever. Bringing people together and growing valued post-acute care partnerships is how we navigate uncertainty and come out stronger on the other side.
Many factors are taken into consideration when evaluating a partnership, and C.R.A.V.E. is the best way to simplify what we all truly need in a valued post-acute care partner:
Communication, Reliability, Accessibility, Valued Care, and Ease.
Communication
Communication is key to any relationship’s growth, and the ways we communicate have changed dramatically. Care teams have adapted and streamlined how they connect in order to develop valued post-acute partnerships no matter the distance between them. From virtual meetings about a patient’s discharge needs, to telehealth visits, to referral workflows that live directly inside the EHR, we have been able to keep communication at the forefront of care.
Reliability
Reliability is as simple as doing what you say you are going to do. Yes, it is that simple — but not always so common. Growing a post-acute partnership requires someone who is reliable and who you can depend on at all times. Health systems, skilled nursing facilities, and senior living communities have faced real strain in recent years, and that pressure has clarified which partnerships they can depend on for patients and their families. The growth of preferred provider networks, frequently used partners, Accountable Care Organizations, and other value-based arrangements has demonstrated that these partnerships are key to success — not only for the health system, but also for the patient’s continuum of care after discharge.
Accessibility
Having accessible information is essential for any partnership. There is so much information that needs to be gathered and shared during just one patient’s discharge that many healthcare outsiders may fail to notice how complicated it can be to access accurate information quickly. On-demand access to that information is essential — whether a case manager needs to know about a skilled nursing facility’s availability, what services a home health agency provides, or which post-acute care provider can accept a patient’s insurance.
Valued Care
A patient discharging from the hospital today often presents with higher acuity and more complex needs than a comparable patient a few years ago. It is now an expectation across the board that case managers and discharge planners connect their patients with a post-acute partner that delivers quality care. Skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, hospice organizations, life plan communities, and inpatient rehabilitation facilities have all had to expand and prioritize their clinical capabilities to keep pace with the higher-acuity patients we are all now seeing. To be a partner today, you must provide valued, quality, and innovative care and treatment to even the most complex of patients.
Ease
Healthcare is more complicated than ever before, and navigating next steps in post-acute care has to be easy — not only for discharge planners, but for admissions teams, schedulers, and families as well. A strong partnership should simplify care transitions, bringing all parties involved peace of mind with their next steps in care and confidence in their decisions.
Partnering with Trella Health for Post-Acute Care Management Success
There is real comfort in knowing that, across all of the valued partnerships we have built and continue to build, Trella Health brings each of these factors to the table through Trella Discharge, our discharge automation solution for hospitals and health systems:
- Communication: Trella Discharge allows case managers to share comprehensive patient choice and discharge list options with patients and their families — whether they are at the bedside or joining from a distance.
- Reliability: Reliability is something we stand strong in at Trella Health: accurate information on post-acute care options, dependable performance when you need to get a patient home safely and quickly, and access to the platform from anywhere for case managers, post-acute providers, and patients.
- Accessibility: We make information, data, and resources accessible to all of our users — from the clinical services and capabilities that help patients feel comfortable with their next step in care, to real-time provider availability, to the network insights that show health systems where their patients are going next and how those providers perform.
- Valued Care: We make valued, quality care front and center by surfacing CMS Care Compare star ratings and quality metrics alongside every post-acute care option.
- Ease: Ease of use and ease of sharing have never been a clearer need than they are right now. Patient choice lists can be shared digitally with patients and family members even when they cannot be in the hospital with their loved one. This not only speeds up the discharge process for case managers, it also makes it easier to obtain information and choose the best care option — which brings about true peace of mind. Health systems using Trella Discharge have reported meaningful reductions in length of stay for post-acute discharges.
In an ever-changing healthcare industry, one thing remains certain: who you work with does matter. Valued post-acute partnerships lead to a better experience for providers, patients, and their families.
If you are looking to strengthen your post-acute care partnerships, get in touch with us, request a demo, or learn more about Trella Discharge.
