Orchestrating High Quality Home Healthcare
How AlayaCare is Reshaping the Market, Experience & Outcomes
It is no secret that the healthcare system we live in today is overheated. The healthcare industry is the #1 employer in the US, accounting for 18% of the U.S GDP¹. About 30% of those healthcare costs are driven by administrative functions, with 7 additional admin staff required for every 10 physicians². Hospitals have longer wait times than ever before, and access to hospital beds is becoming an unsurmountable challenge. Adding the fact that our population is rapidly aging (the number of Americans older than 65 years old is going to double by 2060)³, these problems are expected to only get worse with time. One of the industries that will be the most affected by these macro trends in healthcare is the homecare industry.
Homecare is more important than ever
Homecare agencies help provide quality care to patients recovering from their homes. These patients are increasingly important because they do not take up space in hospitals, and are not time-consuming for doctors to manage. Keeping these patients at home, rather than having them re-admitted to hospitals can save the health system $17B on an annual basis⁵. That being said, recovering from home comes with unique challenges, such as administering one’s own medication, and monitoring one’s own development. Home care agents are key to bridging this gap. They visit patients on a regular basis, track patient health records, ensure proper rehabilitory steps are being taken, and help contribute to a dramatic reduction in readmission rates to hospitals.
As hospitals become increasingly overheated, it is expected that more patients will be left with no choice but to recover at home. There are already 250,000 homecare agencies across the U.S alone and that number is expected to grow by 12% annually. As these agencies increase their workforce and complexity of operations, technology will have to scale accordingly. Most homecare agencies are antiquated in the way they use technology today, relying on legacy software that does not add value to daily operations nor to interactions with patients.
Agencies need a better software layer
AlayaCare is a comprehensive cloud solution for home healthcare providers. AlayaCare believes that the future of homecare will be a combination of well-orchestrated in-home visits, virtual visits, and remote monitoring and that insight based on the data collected through those interactions can help optimize the delivery of care. The company provides an easy-to-use mobile application for homecare providers to manage all aspects of their interactions with patients. Ultimately, this allows the agency to offer a higher quality of care, provide care to more patients, and better record patient data. Not only does this software have a direct impact on the way the homecare provider cares for their patients, it also has a ripple effect on the healthcare system, contributing to 60–70% reductions in emergency room utilization and hospitalization of patients.
Adrian Schauer, a Montreal-based serial entrepreneur picked up on these trends in the homecare market nearly 4 years ago when he co-founded AlayaCare and began developing software for homecare providers. Today, AlayaCare sells primarily in three geographic markets: Canada, Australia, and the U.S. The massive tailwinds behind the burning need for new software in homecare agencies goes far beyond the pitfalls of the healthcare system. Here are some other macro shifts we’ve noticed having an impact on this trend:
- A shift of power back in the hands of the patient: traditionally, patients would be assigned an agency to take care of them in their home. The agencies were government mandated, and they would be dispatched to patients according to a set of pre-defined criteria. The last several years have seen a shift in some geographies towards ‘client-directed care’, allowing patients to select the agency they feel will suit their needs the best. Now that patients are left with the power to make their own choice, agencies must compete for business. Part of that competition involves offering a better experience to patients, through improved efficiencies, and updated technology. Australia has already experienced this regulatory transition, and we expect other developed healthcare systems to follow suit.
- Patients are balancing virtual visits and in-person visits: Providing remote monitoring and virtual visits to patients has become the norm across the industry as it optimizes the agency’s time and allows them to help more patients in any given day. The patient can then follow-up with issues or questions via video chat and reduce the likelihood of readmission. As this trends grows homecare agencies will rely on a software provider to help them bridge the gap and offer these value-add services to patients.
- Turnover of homecare agents is high: Most agencies spend a majority of their time working alone, with little information to prepare them for their patients, and run the risk of being in unpleasant situations. Additionally, a large number of agencies are english as a second language, low income, and spend a lot of time travelling to and from patient homes. All of these factors contribute to employee churn of more than 100% annually. Software solutions start by optimizing the scheduling of care workers so that they are more likely to be seeing patients closer to where they live. On their way to the patient’s home, the care worker can view a full report of the patient, including any notes left by previous care workers (such as risks, or dangers). Software also enables the care worker to better document their experience with the patient and easily communicate that to their manager. Overall, this connected, and real-time experience helps reduce turnover, and save HR departments in agencies nearly 25%.
Each of the three tailwinds mentioned above have given agencies a reason to seek new software solutions for their businesses. We are proud to announce that we have led Alayacare’s Series B round, and are excited to support the company in becoming the global standard for homecare.
References
- https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/labor-administrative-costs-drive-us-healthcare-spending-far-beyond-other-n/518994/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/upshot/costs-health-care-us.html?mc=contentTWdom&ad-keywords=auddevgate
- https://www.prb.org/aging-unitedstates-fact-sheet/
- https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-turnarounds-ideas-to-improve-performance/10-statistics-on-us-venture-capital-funding-in-healthcare.html
- https://revcycleintelligence.com/news/3-strategies-to-reduce-hospital-readmission-rates-costs
