Skilled-nursing leaders have long desired a seat at the table to help hospitals prevent readmissions, and a new collaboration aims to do just that.
Portland, OR-based Consonus Healthcare — which provides consulting, pharmacy and other services to long-term care facilities — has announced that it’s partnering with Collective Medical, a Salt Lake City firm that assists providers with care coordination. With the new union, Consonus will be able to utilize the PreManage platform for care coordination in its more than 300 skilled-nursing facilities across the country.
With that, SNFs will begin collaborating closely with hospitals, receiving alerts and insights that key providers into when a patient might be at risk for a readmission, has a history of being violent, or has any unique care guidelines or plans, according to a press release.
The hope is that this partnership will help to smooth out care transitions from the hospital to skilled nursing and prevent costly readmissions. About 20% of Medicare patients discharged from a hospital are readmitted within the next 30 days, costing CMS some $26 billion annually, the partners note. They hope closing the information gap will make such return trips to the hospital evaporate.
“Long-term and post-acute care providers need to have a seat at the table, collaborating and receiving care team insights to make sure patients don’t fall through the cracks,” Chris Klomp, CEO of Collective Medical, said in the release.
