Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente Make Big Investment in Hospital-at-Home Endeavor | Healthcare Innovation

Two healthcare giants—Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente—are teaming up for what officials call an “unprecedented collaboration” to allow more patients to receive acute level of care and recovery services in their homes.

The organizations are investing in Medically Home Group, a Boston-based, an IT-enabled services company that provides the technology to power hospital-at-home programs. Medically Home’s technology and services platform specifically allows providers to address a range of clinical conditions at the higher end of the clinical acuity spectrum that are typically treated in traditional hospital settings, safely in a patient’s home, according to officials.

This includes routine infections and chronic disease exacerbation, emergency medicine, cancer care, acute level of COVID-19 care and transfusions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, use of this model helped combat patient isolation and loneliness, allowing family members to be at the patient’s bedside at home, while helping hospitals balance the increased demands for hospital beds, they added.

One report in Forbes noted that the two healthcare titans have “confirmed a combined investment of about $100 million that will be used to ‘expand access to this unique model and encourage health systems and care providers to adopt it.’”

Key features of Medically Home’s virtual and physical care delivery model include a 24/7 medical command center staffed by clinicians and an integrated care team in the community who deliver care to patients at their bedside. According to officials, this turnkey, care delivery framework that integrates with the patient’s electronic health record (EHR), provides elements that include:

One of the demonstrated positive results is that patients hospitalized using the Medically Home model have a lower need for recurring hospitalization at 30 and 90 days following a care episode, officials report.

Both the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente are currently using Medically Home’s scalable care delivery model today for their patients, and the number of patients cared for using this model continues to increase.

Additionally, other organizations such as Adventist Health, ProMedica and UNC Health, use Medically Home’s model of care. Medically Home also partners with Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in their randomized clinical trial of supportive oncology care in the home. The group is also working with partners including Huron and Cardinal Health. Medically Home leaders estimate that 30 percent of hospitalized patients can benefit from the model. 

Historically, there have been different variations of the hospital-at-home model going back a few decades, and while programs have ramped up in recent years, the pandemic has caused interest to skyrocket. One study, published last year in the Annals of Internal Medicine, led by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Partners HealthCare System in Boston, reviewed 43 hospital-at-home patients and 48 patients receiving traditional hospital care, finding that hospital-at-home care was 38 percent less costly than traditional hospital care. The researchers found that only 7 percent of hospital-at-home patients were readmitted within 30-days, compared to 23 percent of patients receiving traditional hospital care.

“Patients expect and deserve high-quality care and excellent outcomes in a convenient and comfortable setting, even when faced with complex medical challenges,” said Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic. “Our partnership with Kaiser Permanente and Medically Home will create the next generation of patient-centric, compassionate health care that seamlessly integrates advanced technology with clinical expertise. By bringing best-in-class clinicians and services to patients in their homes, we’ll be able to provide more people with individualized care that’s tailored to meet their specific needs.”

Both Mayo Clinic and Kaiser have experience in running at-home programs. Last year, Mayo Clinic launched its advanced care at-home program last summer at its Florida location, and Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, Wis., to deliver complex, comprehensive care and restorative services to qualifying patients in their homes. Care is delivered by a network of community paramedics and nurses, and a team under Mayo Clinic’s clinical direction. Some services provided under this model include infusions, skilled nursing, medication delivery, and rehab.

Kaiser, meanwhile, launched its hospital care at-home program in two regions last year, admitting patients from multiple hospitals across both its Northern California and Oregon locations. In this model, Kaiser Permanente has a single medical command center in each region supporting multiple hospitals to care for patients longitudinally across their acute and restorative phases.

“Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente partnering with Medically Home to lead the transformation of the delivery of health care is a watershed moment for our national health systems,” says Raphael Rakowski, executive chairman of Medically Home. “The democratization of the finest medical care also has the potential to close gaps in underserved, rural areas at home and globally.”

John Halamka, M.D., president of Mayo Clinic Platform, added, “Rarely in the history of medicine do we see such a perfect alignment of policy, technology and cultural transformation converging to produce a new care paradigm like acute care at home. We can advance the well-being of patients by catalyzing innovative, collaborative, knowledge-driven platform business models to redefine the standard of high-acuity care for patients with serious or complex illnesses who currently receive care in hospitals.”