Technology hasn’t always been an easy sell at Mission Health, a mostly skilled nursing organization that has grown to nearly 50 locations in nine states since launching in 2016.

At a time when many US nursing home staff express frustration with new burdens tech can bring — and fear the implications of artificial intelligence — getting the buy-in that makes upfront investments worthwhile remains a challenge. But largely rural Mission Health is leaning into technology as a way to enhance services, put employees and residents first and improve retention.

They found a powerful partner, too, when launching a new employee scheduling platform about a year ago. Bucking stereotypes, the staff of a rural community quickly embraced the platform, helped build excitement for the product and sell it to their peers.

“They built the platform and everybody was super scared to go off of paper. We still scheduled people [by hand] and put it up on the wall,” said Tina Thomas, Mission Health’s senior vice president of operations. “There were a lot of people putting  their feet down and insisting, ‘This is not going to work for us. We’re different. We can’t do it.’ And then we had a rural community that was in agency that 100% bought into this software. They saw the efficiencies and intelligence it gave them from a community level.” 

They became super users and then spoke with regional leadership pods to discuss how they implemented Valid Shifts and why their leaders and staff liked it. Those conversations helped smooth the transition at other locations.

“That one-on-one conversation goes a long way with an employee. It’s a new technology, a new system. ‘Why would I do this?’” Thomas said. “Here’s the why: You can see your schedule out for a year, and if you want to pick up more, you can do that based on a hierarchy in the system. They have visibility into all of it.” 

Increased visibility has helped guide the company in several areas as it grows and also supports a busy consulting practice that is often called into work with struggling facilities by lenders, owners and state or federal regulators. In some cases, such as in Kansas, receivership roles have led to significant expansions. Mission Health is the state’s largest single provider.

Now, with six regions — some of them geographically disconnected from each other — leadership pods remain focused on insights that may fuel operation, clinical, accounting and recruiting success. It starts with the electronic health record, and consistent monitoring by different levels of employees across the company.

“That probably makes the largest impact from a quality perspective that we go in and look and can see identity issues before they become trends,” Thomas said.

Better medical management

In one of its newest partnerships, Mission Health has contracted with Theoria Medical to provide primary care and medical director services in Tennessee and Georgia and, soon, Kansas. Part of what made the alignment attractive, Thomas said, was Theoria’s use of analytics, including AI-powered predictive tools, that can be easily viewed through the provider’s existing health records system.

“They have a very intuitive, smart system for their physicians’ documentation and it communicates with PCC [PointClickCare],” Thomas said. “So when they start seeing trends on falls, UTIs, labs or whatever it is, they’re making medical recommendations before the nurses have to call them. We’re really trying to be more proactive in medically managing the residents, really getting ahead of it.”

Visibility matters, but so, too, does having the right metrics in place.

While net income, patient and employee satisfaction, and administrative and DON turnover are the focus of company-wide efforts, targets are also variable by location and circumstance.

Moving metrics

“From a corporate perspective, we have our home office metrics, kind of guiding principles, that along with our core values, drive our strategy and our vision,” Thomas said. “Then we know that in every market, it’s different. What happens in Macon, GA, is not going to work in New Hope, MN. We take our metrics and then the teams take them and make them regionalized.”

Even some individual facilities may have their own metrics, given demographics or regional opportunities Mission Health leaders see in a given area. Some quality measures or survey results, including the number of deficiencies, may get more or less focus based on specific goals.

Regional vice presidents are guiding the use of analytics.

“We try to look at all the different leadership models and whether the structure looks right,” Thomas said. “Do we have the right pods in place? Are we getting the best practices from Colby, KS, to Roberta, GA, and how are we doing that?”

Those VPs report to Thomas, who works with them to evaluate metrics, decide what’s working and what needs extra attention and how to replicate the good things individual facilities and leaders are doing.

In recent years, Mission Health has been investing in technology to help make in-person visits between regional leaders and support teams more efficient and supportive. The tools working in the background leave more time for developing a regular cadence of communication with administrators and other building staff.

“The visibility that we have from our software and our dashboarding, we can see everything,” she said. “So when you go to the community, it’s not the, ‘Where’s your agency at? What’s your overtime look like? What are your PPDs? Where are your quality metrics?’ We know all of that, so it’s, ‘What are we doing to drive customer service? What are you doing with your core values? How are you speaking to people?’”

Those RVPs also talk amongst themselves and share results with colleagues in other regions, who can bounce ideas off each other or troubleshoot during weekly leadership calls.

Given that the company has a three-to-five year strategy that emphasizes ongoing growth — and a new value-based care partnership — there’s little doubt technology will remain a high priority.

“We want to grow,” Thomas said. “With value-based care and where our profession is going, that’s a big part of how you keep moving forward, not having the same thing day after day.”