Bringing the Full Healthcare Continuum Home

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to showcase the dedication, perseverance, and compassion of healthcare professionals around the world. It also places a spotlight on a previously underappreciated end of this country's complex healthcare ecosystem: the full continuum of care being delivered outside the hospital and inside the home.

As preferences rapidly shifted throughout the pandemic to receiving expert care in the location that offers comfort and safety from the potential to contract infectious diseases in hospitals and other congregate settings, the U.S. home healthcare industry met a surge of demand. It also accomplished this while caring for 15 million ongoing patients and delivering more than 600 million visits per year.

Demand for home-based care and services were already outpacing available resources, and home healthcare industry growth is only expected to accelerate in the coming years. This is largely due to three factors – increasing technological and medical advances that make home healthcare more viable than ever before: from pediatric to medically complex cases, the aging U.S. population and a common desire to age in place, and generational shifts in the preferences of healthcare purchasers.

Every day, 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 nationwide. At this rate, one in every five U.S. residents will be at retirement age by 2030. Meanwhile, most people and especially post-pandemic prefer to age in place, creating an unrivaled demand for services.

Millennials and Generation Z are also becoming the primary healthcare purchase advisors to support Baby Boomer family members. These generations think more like consumers, who want personalized, customer-centric, and transparent healthcare experiences. They also prefer having their parents and older loved ones cared for in a comfortable and safe setting with easy access for visitation, which was another key challenge that brought more family members and caregivers back into homes during the pandemic.

A Lifetime of care: Complex medical to hospice services.

Despite its ever-increasing popularity, the home healthcare industry has largely remained under the radar. Many people are still surprised to learn about the full continuum of healthcare services being provided at home and in private settings outside of hospitals and long-term care facilities. The Interim HealthCare Home Health Insight Study revealed that 62 percent of Americans didn't know that home healthcare offers a full continuum of care including for medically complex individuals, such as those with ALS or spinal cord injuries.

For example, Interim HealthCare's nurses, therapists, aides, companions, chaplains, and other healthcare professionals provide everything from non-medical to pediatric care, acute care, chronic disease management and specialized programs for diabetes, dementia care, spiritual support, and more.

Interim HealthCare is also the only major home healthcare franchisor to offer hospice care and staffing services to complete the ability to support patients throughout every phase of their health journey and for most conditions. Interim HealthCare provides compassionate end-of-life support, helps families create lasting memories, and celebrate their remaining time together. The company does all of this with a focus on providing dignity and ultimate comfort through its care for patients and their loved ones.

Hospice care teams can also be customized and expanded to provide the utmost support for the patient and their families. For example, Interim HealthCare also partners with social workers, case managers, elder law experts, hospitals, nursing homes and community-based organizations to provide care in patients' homes as well as in nursing homes, independent and assisted living settings.

At the same time, hospice care growth is also expanding with the aging population. Approximately 1.4 million Americans receive hospice care each year and utilization continues to rise nationwide, reaching a record high 51 percent in 2019 (when last reported). These numbers are only expected to increase as more people recognize the benefits that specialized hospice services provide.

Personalized care for the whole person.

Another benefit of home healthcare is the ability to provide comprehensive services that account for all factors that influence a patient's health to improve their overall wellbeing. Interim HealthCare refers to this model as its HomeLife Enrichment® Signature Standard of Care to support a patient's mind, body, and spirit alongside a focus on support for their loved ones.

The company's proprietary standard of care is designed to work with each family and their individual situation to develop protocols and activities that turn each day into a manageable flow of holistic care that supports the patient and all supporting them. This includes everything from brain-stimulating activities to nutrition and fitness, ways to cope with the changing state of the patient's condition, and to integrate activities that encourage connectedness and hope.

Click here to learn more about Interim HealthCare's full continuum of services and its HomeLife Enrichment offerings.