2021 WellSky Outlook Report

2021 Outlook on Leveraging data analytics to create patient-centered, cost-effective health-at-home models of care

This Outlook Report illustrates how executives developing strategies for an era of evolving consumer preferences can harness data and technology to accelerate transformation and lower the costs of care via new models of care. 

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Consider today’s health-at-home landscape: 97 percent of health plan leaders indicated that more care should be delivered in the home¹, nearly 80 percent of consumers are interested in virtual care for injuries or sick visits, chronic care appointments, or wellness physicals,² and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule to “accelerate the shift from paying for home health services based on volume, to a system that incentivizes value and quality.”³

With new executive mindsets, evolving consumer preferences and policy initiatives to enable care in home settings, health plans and health systems have a significant opportunity to invest in health-at-home, skilled nursing facility (SNF)-at-home, telehealth and other virtual models of care.

As health care executives plan for the post-pandemic era, it will be important to prepare for a growing percentage of care services — and the substantive revenue opportunities associated with new care models — to take place outside the traditional hospital setting and the technological infrastructure and digital tools necessary to support them. 

The Outlook on Leveraging data analytics to create patient-centered, cost-effective health-at-home models of care informs executives developing strategies for home-based care models by focusing on the following:

• • Delivering care amid evolving consumer preferences with a particular focus on how the perception of home-based care has shifted over the past few years
  • Harnessing data and technology to foster innovation and accelerate the transformation in consumer preferences already underway
  • Lowering the cost of care, including health-at-home programs that both enable more access to care services and reduce associated expenses when operated effectively

Sources
1 CMS, CMS to improve home health services for older adults and people with disabilities
2 CareCentrix, Health at Home 2020: The new standard of care delivery
3 PwC, Consumer health behavior and the COVID-19 pandemic: What have we learned?
4 McKinsey & Company, Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality?

Outlook Co-Chairs
Bill Miller, CEO WellSky
Scott Theisen, CEO Optum Care Services
Seema Verma, former CMS Administrator and Senior Advisor, TPG

Outlook Contributors
Lori Aronson, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
Susannah Higgins, MedZed
Lissy Hu, CarePort Health
Barbara Joers, Gillette Childrens Specialty Health
Michelle Kohara, Kaiser Permanente
Wes Little, WellSky
Shankar Madhavan, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
Hasmik Manukyan, Kaiser Permanente
Albert Marinez, Intermountain Healthcare
Walid Michelen, ArchCare
Geoffrey Nudd, WellSky
Allison Rogers, Ballad Health
Laurie Sprung, MedZed
Andrew Watson, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Download the Outlook Report.