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Right at Home Participates in Study to Improve Aging for Seniors
Partnership Will Help Determine How Home Care Can Improve Senior Health and Reduce Costs
OMAHA—Right at Home, an international in-home care franchise, is working with researchers from Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy and ClearCare, the provider of software that the Right at Home franchise system uses to better monitor clients to improve at-home senior health care. The program, titled “The Intervention in Home Care to Improve Outcomes,” or simply the “In-Home Program,” will test a new, large-scale, randomized intervention aimed at preventing hospitalizations, improving health outcomes, and lowering Medicare spending among private-pay home care recipients.
The program consists of two components: The first is early identification of changes in patient condition; and the second is monitoring (or helping to manage) these changes in the home.
If these changes remain undetected and unmanaged, they frequently escalate into costly hospitalizations. Under this new program, acute changes in a patient’s physical or cognitive status are observed and reported via a Right at Home caregiver’s checklist, using the ClearCare software. Any changes in the patient’s status are communicated in real time to a Right at Home care manager who reviews a reported change in condition and decides on the appropriate course of action. By identifying avoidable conditions in the early stages, determining the appropriate escalation, and then managing the condition in the home, the In-Home Program can achieve the “win-win” of improving outcomes while lowering health care spending for the home care population. Harvard Medical School will be closely monitoring and analyzing how the software and caregivers come together to prevent hospitalizations while reducing costs.
“According to the U.S. Department of Health, roughly 28 percent – or 11.8 million – American seniors now live alone,” said Allen Hager, Founder and Executive Chair of Right at Home. “While this fact illustrates that there is, indeed, a real need for home help for seniors, what’s even more critical is that it prompts us to gain a deeper understanding and validation of how this help can support a better quality of life.”
The participants of the In-Home Program are hoping to lower health spending and maximize quality of life as the American population continues to age at a record pace. The program could help promote the option for seniors to remain at home and receive care there as both a cost effective and personally satisfying solution.
“We are experiencing a massive demographic shift, with older people than younger for the first time in human history,” said Geoff Nudd, CEO of ClearCare. “This fact, in combination with expensive treatments driving the health care cost crisis, is prompting a general examination of how preventative, nonmedical care might be the answer to the problem. This program will provide us with invaluable insight into how the power of home care can improve lives.”