Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / How In-Home Assessments Drive Better Outcomes with Catherine Tabaka & Dr. Michael Cantor of Matrix Medical Network

Transcript

How In-Home Assessments Drive Better Outcomes with Catherine Tabaka & Dr. Michael Cantor of Matrix Medical Network · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

• 0:00
  Hi, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with
• 0:02
  Becker's Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning
• 0:04
  into the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
• 0:07
  So I'm thrilled to be on-site today with
• 0:09
  two special guests at Becker's Payer Roundtable,
• 0:12
  and we'll discuss how in home care supports
• 0:14
  better health and cost savings.
• 0:16
  So we have with us Catherine Tabaka, the
• 0:19
  CEO at Matrix Medical Network, and Michael Kantor,
• 0:22
  chief medical officer at Matrix Medical Network. Catherine
• 0:25
  and doctor Kantor, thank you so much for
• 0:27
  joining us today.
• 0:28
  Thanks for having us. Yeah. We're so thrilled
• 0:30
  to have you. And before we get into
• 0:32
  the meat of our discussion, I wanted to
• 0:34
  see if you'd each like to share just
• 0:35
  a little bit more about yourselves, your role,
• 0:37
  Matrix Medical, whatever feels top of mind for
• 0:39
  you.
• 0:40
  Sure. I'll, start. So good afternoon, Eric, and
• 0:43
  thanks for having us again. So I am
• 0:46
  Catherine Tabak. I'm the, CEO of Matrix Medical
• 0:49
  Network.
• 0:50
  Twenty five years ago,
• 0:52
  Matrix
• 0:53
  pioneered the first national clinical network
• 0:56
  meeting people
• 0:58
  in the comfort of their homes, kind of
• 1:00
  reviving the old households.
• 1:03
  Today we are the only independent provider of
• 1:06
  in home health and care assessments. We employ
• 1:08
  nearly 3,500
• 1:10
  clinicians,
• 1:11
  mostly nurse practitioners across the country.
• 1:14
  We partner with just under 40 risk bearing
• 1:18
  entities,
• 1:19
  health plans and downstream entities from health plans.
• 1:23
  And in any given year, we will complete
• 1:25
  and deliver
• 1:26
  about a million visits,
• 1:28
  while positively actually impacting hundreds of thousands of
• 1:32
  other lives of people in the care ecosystem
• 1:34
  of those patients that we meet in the
• 1:36
  home.
• 1:37
  If you think about Matrix and and what
• 1:39
  differentiates Matrix today, we are focused on the
• 1:42
  whole person in front of us. So whole
• 1:44
  person care is really core and at the
• 1:46
  center of what we do. We're clinically led
• 1:49
  at the point of care. It's the clinical
• 1:50
  judgment of our conditions that actually prevails based
• 1:52
  on what they see when they're in the
• 1:54
  home.
• 1:55
  And for twenty five years, an unyielding commitment
• 1:57
  to quality, accuracy,
• 1:59
  and compliance.
• 2:01
  And this is really,
• 2:02
  one of the backbones of this organization, which
• 2:05
  everybody is pretty proud of at Matrix.
• 2:07
  So great to learn more of the history
• 2:09
  of Matrix. Thank you so much, Catherine. And
• 2:11
  doctor Kanter, tell us about yourself.
• 2:13
  Great to be with you today. Very excited
• 2:15
  to share my experience and to tell you
• 2:16
  a bit more about what we're doing at
• 2:18
  Matrix.
• 2:19
  I'm a geriatrician
• 2:20
  with a lot of experience, including making house
• 2:22
  calls, for many years. So I've actually personally
• 2:25
  seen the value and the power of in
• 2:27
  home care
• 2:29
  and how much you can learn, from being
• 2:31
  on-site and in someone's home and how much
• 2:33
  better it is in terms of understanding who
• 2:35
  they are, what they need, what's important to
• 2:37
  them. I've been a chief medical officer,
• 2:40
  for many organizations, for physician networks like Tufts
• 2:43
  Medical Center in Boston where I live. I've
• 2:45
  worked with health plans like Bright Health and
• 2:48
  also for companies that provide support to health
• 2:50
  plans like Matrix Medical and Uber Health.
• 2:53
  When we go into the home, what we
• 2:54
  can see are things that other people
• 2:57
  can't.
• 2:58
  There's simply no substitute for walking into someone's
• 3:00
  home, taking a look around, even taking a
• 3:03
  a whiff, and kind of getting a sense
• 3:04
  of what's going on in that home. And
• 3:06
  this is completely consistent
• 3:07
  with my personal goals, which have always been
• 3:09
  about the Triple Aim goals of improving quality
• 3:12
  of care, lower costs, and better patient member
• 3:15
  experience.
• 3:16
  And really, if possible, bringing the care to
• 3:18
  the patient instead of bringing the patient to
• 3:20
  the care.
• 3:21
  So we are a % committed to whole
• 3:23
  person care, which is completely aligned to geriatrics.
• 3:27
  Catherine mentioned that this is really the core
• 3:29
  of what we're trying to do, is to
• 3:31
  ensure that we do comprehensive assessments
• 3:33
  that identify
• 3:34
  that person's strengths
• 3:36
  and also what they need, whether that's a
• 3:38
  medical need or social determinative health need. We
• 3:40
  can be the eyes and ears in the
• 3:42
  home for primary care providers, many of whom
• 3:44
  are not able to make house calls.
• 3:46
  And we can also reinforce the messages
• 3:49
  that that patient, that member needs to hear
• 3:51
  to improve and maintain their health.
• 3:53
  We really do a comprehensive assessment to ensure
• 3:56
  that people are getting what they need and
• 3:58
  that we that we have any,
• 4:01
  if we have identified any gaps that we
• 4:03
  can do what's necessary
• 4:04
  to close those gaps and collaborate with the
• 4:06
  rest of the health care system to get
• 4:08
  that done. So it's really a privilege,
• 4:10
  when being invited as a guest into someone's
• 4:12
  home in a matrix, we do it almost
• 4:14
  a million times a year, and we're getting
• 4:16
  great results.
• 4:17
  Just a million times a year. That is,
• 4:20
  quite a number. And thank you so much,
• 4:22
  doctor Kanter, for rounding us out with the
• 4:23
  introductions. It's great to hear about what personally
• 4:26
  motivates you to do this work and how
• 4:28
  you have, such expertise in this field. So
• 4:31
  thank you again for sharing.
• 4:33
  And I wanna start with addressing something that
• 4:36
  Katherine brought up in in her intro, and
• 4:38
  that was and you did as well, doctor
• 4:39
  Kanter, the concept of whole person care.
• 4:42
  I know it's not a new concept by
• 4:44
  any means, but we certainly see it a
• 4:45
  lot more in health plan strategy today. Health
• 4:49
  plans are looking for more holistic approaches to
• 4:51
  support their members and their health. But implementing
• 4:54
  some of those services can be challenging. So
• 4:56
  I'd love to hear from you both. What
• 4:58
  are some of the biggest barriers to effectively
• 5:00
  delivering whole person care, and where does in
• 5:03
  home care help to address those gaps? Mhmm.
• 5:06
  I'll I'll get us started here. I think,
• 5:09
  first, when we talk about whole person care,
• 5:11
  I think that traditionally the health care system
• 5:13
  has,
• 5:14
  focused on
• 5:15
  controllable aspects of an individual's overall health. And
• 5:19
  you're thinking, you know, their diet, their exercise
• 5:22
  regimen, their sleep pattern.
• 5:24
  But there is growing recognition, as you mentioned,
• 5:26
  Erica, that health outcomes are also impacted by
• 5:29
  things that are less controllable,
• 5:31
  such as where a person is born, where
• 5:33
  they live, their education,
• 5:35
  whether they work or not, how affluent they
• 5:37
  might be. So all of these factors really
• 5:40
  contribute to the notion of whole person care.
• 5:43
  Now when you talk about barriers
• 5:45
  of delivering whole person care effectively,
• 5:48
  the one word that comes to mind and
• 5:50
  the is the lack of integration.
• 5:52
  Whole person care and delivering it effectively assumes
• 5:55
  that the
• 5:57
  all the parts
• 5:58
  in the health care journey of one individual
• 6:02
  actually connect.
• 6:04
  That
• 6:05
  all of the stakeholders
• 6:07
  that will at some point have their hands
• 6:09
  or their eyes
• 6:11
  on a patient,
• 6:12
  the ecosystem together
• 6:14
  communicates effectively.
• 6:16
  And then they're able to
• 6:18
  relay each other,
• 6:20
  each of them providing
• 6:21
  a uniquely
• 6:23
  incremental
• 6:24
  step into the the the journey of that,
• 6:27
  of that individual.
• 6:29
  So
• 6:30
  for the full health care ecosystem to come
• 6:33
  together,
• 6:34
  you're assuming
• 6:36
  the primary care, specialty care,
• 6:39
  other community resources potentially
• 6:41
  coming together in a seamless way to ease
• 6:44
  and facilitate
• 6:46
  for that individual to stay on their healthcare
• 6:49
  journey, to stay on their healthcare regimen
• 6:52
  towards living their best possible life.
• 6:54
  So what do we do at Matrix to
• 6:56
  help facilitate that?
• 6:58
  Our in home health and care assessments
• 7:01
  are an important way for an individual
• 7:05
  really
• 7:06
  to sort of get a three sixty
• 7:08
  picture around where they're at and and what's
• 7:11
  needed, especially for populations
• 7:13
  of older adults or or other individuals that
• 7:18
  may lack access to primary care
• 7:21
  or are challenged to coordinate their own care.
• 7:25
  So when we get into the home, our
• 7:27
  in home model really adds value
• 7:30
  because we extend the capabilities
• 7:32
  primary care provider as well as the payer
• 7:35
  care management programs.
• 7:36
  We help bridge those gaps,
• 7:39
  in understanding those gaps in education, those gaps
• 7:42
  in coordination
• 7:44
  for that person in the home.
• 7:46
  Think of us as,
• 7:48
  connectors.
• 7:49
  Think of us as navigators,
• 7:51
  right? Helping that person that either is not
• 7:54
  literate and or educated and or simply is
• 7:58
  afraid
• 7:59
  of a healthcare system that's complex and difficult
• 8:02
  to navigate,
• 8:03
  and we help them connect or reconnect
• 8:05
  with their primary care or other services that
• 8:09
  are critical and help them make
• 8:12
  sense as to what the prior step was,
• 8:14
  what the next step should be.
• 8:16
  And the way I think about it is
• 8:18
  orchestrating and aligning the dominoes so that they
• 8:21
  fall in a sequence that's easy for that
• 8:23
  person to consume so that they stay on
• 8:25
  their health care journey. That's the goal, to
• 8:28
  keep them engaged. Keeping them engaged. Absolutely.
• 8:31
  Yeah. I would echo, what Catherine said. And
• 8:34
  in terms of barriers, I think about the
• 8:36
  three c's,
• 8:37
  communication,
• 8:38
  collaboration, and coordination.
• 8:40
  And I think about it from a clinical
• 8:41
  perspective and that the communication
• 8:44
  between what we're seeing in the home, what
• 8:46
  that person does with their life, their particular
• 8:49
  needs, their ability to get answers to questions
• 8:52
  they have about their health, that's all really
• 8:54
  complicated. It's very difficult for people to get
• 8:57
  ahold of their providers. It's just the nature
• 8:58
  of our very fragmented system.
• 9:01
  So if we can solve that communication gap,
• 9:03
  if we can enhance collaboration,
• 9:06
  that then leads to better coordinated care. Too
• 9:08
  many people end up going to the emergency
• 9:10
  room because they don't have any other way
• 9:12
  to get help for their health care needs.
• 9:14
  And so by focusing on those three c's,
• 9:16
  communication, collaboration, coordination,
• 9:18
  we get the better clinical outcomes and results.
• 9:21
  Interestingly,
• 9:22
  it's also those three c's are worsened when
• 9:25
  you have complexity.
• 9:27
  So a person who is older and frail,
• 9:29
  so they have multiple chronic illnesses, they may
• 9:31
  have cognitive impairment,
• 9:33
  they're challenged already in so many ways of
• 9:36
  just getting through the day, and then they
• 9:37
  have to try and deal with a health
• 9:39
  care system that is not communicative, not collaborative,
• 9:42
  not coordinated. It just makes it that much
• 9:44
  worse. And that's where we see huge opportunities
• 9:47
  because as
• 9:48
  the provider in the home, we can be
• 9:51
  the eyes and ears. We can be an
• 9:53
  organization that facilitates that communication,
• 9:56
  which is what we do. If we find
• 9:57
  that a person is sick or
• 9:59
  needs urgent care, we will immediately call that
• 10:02
  person's physician or health care provider. If they
• 10:04
  need to go to the emergency room, oftentimes,
• 10:06
  our nurse practitioners will follow
• 10:08
  the ambulances,
• 10:09
  to make sure the person gets to the
• 10:10
  ER and is tucked in and gets the
• 10:12
  appropriate care. So we really take it seriously
• 10:14
  in terms of that communication, collaboration, and coordination,
• 10:18
  whether it's a medical need, so the person
• 10:20
  has some medical question or a social need.
• 10:23
  Like they need a way to get to
• 10:24
  the pharmacy to pick up their medications
• 10:26
  or to get groceries. We will help with
• 10:28
  all of that because that's part of our
• 10:30
  role as an in home service provider.
• 10:33
  Fantastic. And sounds like you have quite committed
• 10:35
  workforce, a nurse practitioner following an ambulance to
• 10:38
  the hospital just to make sure that patient's
• 10:40
  okay.
• 10:41
  It's something to be proud of for sure.
• 10:44
  And, Catherine, you had touched on primary care
• 10:47
  access
• 10:48
  earlier in your response, and
• 10:50
  I know that access is such a component
• 10:52
  of whole person health.
• 10:55
  And and access to primary care and community
• 10:57
  resources in many parts of the country, especially
• 10:59
  rural parts of The US, is quite limited.
• 11:02
  So,
• 11:03
  doctor Canton, maybe you can shed some light
• 11:05
  on this.
• 11:06
  Based on what you're seeing at at Matrix
• 11:08
  Medical, your data, what insights have you gained
• 11:10
  about populations that are struggling with access, and
• 11:13
  what's the role of in home assessments here?
• 11:15
  The role of in home assessments is really
• 11:17
  to close that gap. The last mile people
• 11:19
  talk about and really bringing care. As as
• 11:21
  I said before, sometimes you need to bring
• 11:23
  care to the patient instead of bringing the
• 11:25
  patient to the care. So we actually studied
• 11:27
  this. We worked with one of our partners,
• 11:28
  FTI Consulting. We wrote a white paper about
• 11:31
  challenges with access and the impact of the
• 11:33
  work that we do,
• 11:34
  to address that gap and to close it.
• 11:37
  And what we found is that in home
• 11:39
  assessments
• 11:40
  really do enhance access to care as you
• 11:42
  would expect.
• 11:43
  Not for everybody because many people are able
• 11:46
  to go to the office, go to the
• 11:48
  place where they get their usual care, and
• 11:49
  so they don't they don't necessarily need us
• 11:51
  to close that gap. By doing a comprehensive
• 11:53
  assessment, we often find things that other providers
• 11:55
  don't, so there are different kinds of gaps
• 11:57
  that we close there. But what we found,
• 12:00
  two important things.
• 12:01
  21%
• 12:03
  of our visits were to people who live
• 12:04
  in rural areas.
• 12:06
  We all know that access to care in
• 12:07
  rural areas is way worse than it is
• 12:09
  in urban or suburban areas.
• 12:11
  And secondly, we found that 20,000
• 12:14
  members who we saw out of the almost
• 12:17
  a million people visits almost a million visits
• 12:19
  that we did would not have had any
• 12:21
  other access to care. No one out there.
• 12:23
  No other claim. They had no other interaction
• 12:25
  with the health care system except for that
• 12:27
  in home visit by one of our nurse
• 12:29
  practitioners.
• 12:30
  And so we are able
• 12:32
  to close that gap for rural people and
• 12:34
  for people who generally,
• 12:35
  have challenges accessing care.
• 12:38
  And what we found is we looked at
• 12:39
  our data. We found
• 12:41
  tens of thousands of people who were unable
• 12:44
  to shop themselves, cook for themselves, feed themselves,
• 12:46
  who had housing or economic challenges,
• 12:49
  or who had two or more limitations in
• 12:51
  activities of daily living. The ADLs or activities
• 12:53
  of daily living are the things you need
• 12:55
  to do to remain independent of the community,
• 12:57
  like paying your bills, shopping, taking your medications,
• 13:00
  and also, in some cases, the basic activities
• 13:02
  of daily living, like being able to,
• 13:04
  take care of yourself by feeding, bathing, transferring,
• 13:07
  all of that. And so when we identify
• 13:09
  those needs and then we collaborate with the
• 13:11
  rest of the health care system, we can
• 13:12
  close those gaps in care.
• 13:14
  This isn't surprising
• 13:16
  because we already know that these are problems.
• 13:17
  It's interesting to see the numbers we found.
• 13:20
  We know from a September 2024 publication, Annals
• 13:22
  of Internal Medicine,
• 13:24
  that an evaluation of a large Medicare Advantage
• 13:26
  Plan showed that about twenty percent of their
• 13:29
  population, twenty two percent actually, was homebound and
• 13:32
  unable to access care without assistance.
• 13:35
  And so the numbers that we see demonstrate
• 13:37
  that there is this large and growing, in
• 13:39
  fact,
• 13:40
  group of people living, at home who have
• 13:43
  a really difficult time making it into a
• 13:46
  a site of care unless they have, you
• 13:48
  know, an ambulance or someone to take them
• 13:49
  there. We actually directly help those folks in
• 13:52
  rural areas where access to care is even
• 13:54
  worse. We offer an even more valuable access
• 13:57
  to care compared to rural or urban compared
• 13:59
  to suburban or urban environments.
• 14:02
  When our board certified matrix clinician
• 14:05
  enters
• 14:06
  someone's
• 14:07
  home, they're they're really truly able to see
• 14:09
  and
• 14:11
  and better than anyone understand the holistic factors,
• 14:14
  that this person faces on a day to
• 14:16
  day basis
• 14:17
  as they really strive to to live as
• 14:19
  healthy and full a life as they possibly
• 14:21
  can based on the conditions, right? One of
• 14:24
  the other statistics that
• 14:26
  in the study that we conducted is almost
• 14:28
  sixty percent of the people that,
• 14:31
  we saw that year had multiple chronic conditions.
• 14:35
  So if you overlap the rural
• 14:37
  and the chronic
• 14:39
  and the barriers to accessing care, I mean,
• 14:41
  that in home touch is all the more
• 14:43
  important.
• 14:45
  This is how we bridge those gaps between
• 14:48
  the care teams, the insurer,
• 14:50
  and the community and support resources that one
• 14:53
  may be able to get access to. And
• 14:55
  that's we're now back to a full circle
• 14:57
  to the whole person care, right, and how
• 15:00
  the in home model actually adds value
• 15:02
  in that model by being an extension of
• 15:06
  and almost the advocate for that person that,
• 15:08
  again, may or may not know how to
• 15:10
  navigate the system.
• 15:11
  It's education, it's care support, it's access to
• 15:14
  resources that otherwise may never come to you.
• 15:17
  Catherine, appreciate you bringing that back full circle
• 15:19
  too.
• 15:20
  And everything that you both are saying really
• 15:22
  aligns with trends that I'm hearing on-site here
• 15:25
  at Becker's conference. I I've been on several
• 15:27
  panels today where hospitals, health systems, payers alike,
• 15:31
  they're talking about greater investments
• 15:34
  in home care strategies. So,
• 15:36
  you know, as organizations
• 15:38
  are
• 15:38
  investing more in in home health services, what
• 15:41
  opportunities and challenges are coming along with that
• 15:44
  shift? What should they be aware of as
• 15:45
  they're readying to do so? So I think
• 15:48
  one of the big opportunities
• 15:49
  is actually just helping people age where they
• 15:52
  prefer
• 15:53
  to live
• 15:54
  so that they need help maybe if they
• 15:56
  need grab bars for when they're in the
• 15:58
  shower or they need to have a ramp
• 15:59
  put in because they can no longer go
• 16:01
  up steps. So obvious things like that are
• 16:04
  not obvious from claims. Right? You can't see
• 16:06
  the steps. You can't see that the bathroom
• 16:09
  is is not accessible anymore, that the tub
• 16:11
  the lift is too high for that person
• 16:13
  to get in. So making that house call
• 16:16
  actually allows you to make that assessment and
• 16:18
  then to identify the resources
• 16:20
  that allow that person to stay at home,
• 16:21
  which is oftentimes less expensive than if they
• 16:24
  have to move into a senior living area.
• 16:26
  So I think that's something that's really important
• 16:28
  and becoming increasingly recognized is that people need
• 16:30
  help to stay where they wanna live and
• 16:33
  that the assessments we do, the functional assessments
• 16:35
  in particular, the trip hazards, like Catherine mentioned
• 16:37
  a second ago, all of that goes into
• 16:39
  helping people stay where they wanna live. The
• 16:41
  second thing I would say is we're seeing
• 16:43
  a lot of increase in, clinical service offerings.
• 16:46
  So we're seeing the hospital at home,
• 16:49
  the urgent care. Sometimes they'll have paramedics actually
• 16:52
  go into the home, community paramedicine or mobile
• 16:54
  integrated health models,
• 16:56
  and organizations like ours where you have nurse
• 16:58
  practitioners or physicians even making house calls to
• 17:01
  extend the reach of primary care or even
• 17:03
  directly provide primary care in the home. And
• 17:05
  so there are opportunities
• 17:06
  what the success of all these different kinds
• 17:08
  of care in the home are demonstrating
• 17:10
  is that these models work, that you can
• 17:13
  help people stay home longer, they can actually
• 17:15
  deliver clinical services at scale across the country,
• 17:18
  and enable people to live more successful,
• 17:21
  healthier lives. And finally, we can use technology.
• 17:23
  We can actually use sensors in the home,
• 17:26
  whether that is a blood pressure cuff or
• 17:28
  a scale that's connected to the Internet and
• 17:30
  allows for a nurse at a distance to
• 17:32
  see if someone's health parameters,
• 17:34
  physiological parameters are okay,
• 17:36
  or even,
• 17:37
  technologies like personal emergency response systems, a button
• 17:40
  you can push when you need help. You
• 17:42
  can push that button and get help that
• 17:43
  way. And there are so many, interesting technologies
• 17:47
  emerging now even beyond that. There are companies
• 17:49
  that offer sort of what they call sound
• 17:51
  sensors or microphones in the home, and they
• 17:54
  use AI to determine, was that a fall?
• 17:56
  Was it on TV, was it in real
• 17:57
  life? They're able to kind of sort that
• 17:59
  out.
• 18:00
  So when we think about some of the
• 18:02
  challenges, Erica, to to your question, I think
• 18:05
  that we're one of many
• 18:07
  in home or home based
• 18:10
  health care companies
• 18:11
  that
• 18:12
  a health plan or risk bearing entity will
• 18:14
  rely on in order to provide and extend
• 18:16
  some of that care that they provide to
• 18:18
  their members.
• 18:20
  Challenges that come to mind are
• 18:22
  standards.
• 18:23
  How do you establish standards and how do
• 18:25
  you make sure that
• 18:27
  you are consistent
• 18:29
  in the delivery of those services and in
• 18:31
  the care in the home?
• 18:32
  Quality,
• 18:34
  accuracy.
• 18:35
  And this is something that, as I mentioned
• 18:37
  earlier, for a quarter of a century now,
• 18:39
  Matrix,
• 18:40
  has built its reputation through that unyielding commitment
• 18:43
  to quality and accuracy and the highest level
• 18:46
  of compliance and safety standard,
• 18:48
  for our nurse practitioners.
• 18:51
  They
• 18:52
  are
• 18:53
  probably closer
• 18:55
  to firefighters
• 18:56
  in their line of work versus
• 18:58
  a nurse that would operate in a facility
• 19:00
  considering that they walk into strangers' homes several
• 19:03
  times a day and they're on the road
• 19:05
  by themselves most of the time.
• 19:07
  These are the challenges really that we think
• 19:10
  about. So in order to
• 19:12
  maintain
• 19:13
  those levels of standard quality and accuracy,
• 19:16
  our organisation
• 19:17
  has and continues to really invest
• 19:20
  in our tools, our systems,
• 19:23
  training,
• 19:24
  auditing practices to make sure that
• 19:27
  every single visit
• 19:29
  adds value to that member's life and really
• 19:31
  helps reconnect that person with their care ecosystem.
• 19:36
  Yeah. I would imagine from a business standpoint,
• 19:39
  those assurances are so important. But also from
• 19:41
  the patient perspective, you want the most trusted
• 19:43
  person coming into your home. It's your private
• 19:45
  space. It's a very vulnerable position to be
• 19:48
  in. It is. Yeah. Appreciate that, Catherine.
• 19:51
  And I know our time together here is
• 19:53
  is winding down. I feel like we could
• 19:55
  really keep going for quite a while.
• 19:57
  But with this growing emphasis on in home
• 19:59
  care,
• 20:00
  what trends are you seeing really shaping the
• 20:02
  future of home based health care, and how
• 20:04
  do you think organizations can prepare to maximize
• 20:06
  its impact starting now?
• 20:08
  I mean, I'm obviously biased, but I firmly
• 20:12
  believe that home is where health happens.
• 20:14
  If you think about the health care industry
• 20:16
  today, it it is very fragmented. It's difficult
• 20:19
  to navigate as we've mentioned earlier. It's under
• 20:21
  tremendous pressure from a regulatory perspective, from a
• 20:24
  cost perspective, the costs are unsustainable.
• 20:28
  So what you're seeing is in home health
• 20:31
  care organizations
• 20:33
  that frankly are poised to help address the
• 20:35
  pressure points that we're seeing in the industry,
• 20:38
  and you're seeing them increase their capabilities and
• 20:40
  range of the services that they provide. The
• 20:42
  the key to success there is really, as
• 20:44
  I we mentioned a few times, the ability
• 20:46
  to coordinate,
• 20:47
  to communicate, to collaborate,
• 20:49
  and the key word in the industry today
• 20:51
  is
• 20:52
  interoperability.
• 20:53
  We're not quite there yet. Right? This, seamless
• 20:56
  integration
• 20:57
  of all of the actors along the care
• 20:59
  journey of of an individual,
• 21:02
  is not quite a a reality.
• 21:04
  But when
• 21:06
  we get there, not if. Right? When we
• 21:07
  get there,
• 21:09
  and and if you think about other industries
• 21:10
  such as the banking industry, which is also
• 21:13
  highly regulated,
• 21:15
  has a lot of personal and confidential information,
• 21:18
  That industry reinvented itself.
• 21:20
  Right? How is it that there are clearing
• 21:23
  houses that allow you to transfer money worldwide
• 21:26
  when we can't hear between two practitioners,
• 21:29
  a specialist in a primary care have real
• 21:31
  time information about
• 21:33
  not the bank account of that person, but
• 21:35
  the health status of that person. Right? So
• 21:37
  we're we're a component of that, and and
• 21:39
  we're definitely looking to, to be a a
• 21:42
  bigger part of of,
• 21:44
  the home experience because to your point,
• 21:47
  people
• 21:48
  wanna age at home, they wanna heal at
• 21:50
  home,
• 21:51
  and,
• 21:51
  we are uniquely positioned to do that.
• 21:55
  I think that the the greatest trend is
• 21:57
  just the recognition of the value of in
• 21:59
  home care models
• 22:00
  and the breadth of models that you can
• 22:02
  now bring to bear. And there is no
• 22:03
  better patient experience than a good house call
• 22:06
  where they really feel heard and seen.
• 22:10
  It's been such a great conversation. Thank you
• 22:12
  both for shedding so much important information, data,
• 22:15
  and insights
• 22:16
  on the importance of home based care. Before
• 22:19
  we hop off, is there anything else that
• 22:20
  you wanted to share? Any final thoughts?
• 22:24
  Well, as I said, home is where health
• 22:26
  happens.
• 22:27
  So I think that if we wanna maximize
• 22:30
  home based health care, the call to action
• 22:32
  is really for all of us in the
• 22:34
  healthcare industry to embrace the movement
• 22:36
  towards the home. To Doctor. Kantor's point, this
• 22:39
  is really a movement that started a while
• 22:42
  ago,
• 22:43
  putting the patient at the centre
• 22:45
  of all of the actions that different actors
• 22:48
  will be taking and working together to ensure
• 22:51
  that every care intervention is actually net accretive
• 22:53
  to the next one. That's how you improve
• 22:55
  the experience. That's how you lower the cost,
• 22:58
  and and improve also the satisfaction, I would
• 23:00
  say, of the care
• 23:02
  givers in this country.
• 23:04
  At the end of the day, everybody deserves
• 23:06
  to live their best possible life. It doesn't
• 23:08
  matter where they were born, it doesn't matter
• 23:09
  what chronic condition they may suffer from.
• 23:12
  They can live their best possible life, and
• 23:14
  today, the system doesn't really help them do
• 23:16
  that. So
• 23:17
  let's rally behind
• 23:19
  that movement.
• 23:20
  That's a great closing thought, Catherine. Thank you.
• 23:22
  Doctor,
• 23:23
  Kantor, anything else you'd like to add? I
• 23:26
  think Catherine really summed it up very nicely.
• 23:28
  And I think what's really interesting to me
• 23:29
  is from a clinical perspective, it's really full
• 23:31
  circle.
• 23:32
  Because in the old days, there were no
• 23:34
  hospitals. There were no doctors' offices. Doctors rode
• 23:37
  from house to house and made house calls,
• 23:40
  and it made a huge difference in the
• 23:42
  relationship that they had. And that's the thing
• 23:44
  about any in home service is it changes
• 23:47
  that relationship because you're not in a white
• 23:48
  coat sitting across the table from someone. You're
• 23:51
  a guest in their home. And I think
• 23:53
  that that recognition
• 23:54
  that people will engage more when they have
• 23:57
  a clinician in their home, that's going to
• 23:59
  continue to accelerate the drive towards home based
• 24:01
  models of care. Yeah.
• 24:03
  Fantastic. And it's fascinating thinking about how we're
• 24:05
  going back, to the models that were used
• 24:07
  so many years ago.
• 24:09
  Catherine, doctor Kantor, thank you again for all
• 24:11
  of your insights today. It's been a pleasure
• 24:13
  having you on the pod.
• 24:15
  Thank you. And we'd also like to thank
• 24:17
  our podcast sponsor, Matrix Medical Network. Listeners, be
• 24:21
  sure to tune into more podcasts from Becker's
• 24:23
  by visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com.