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How Home Care in Texas Can Be Transformed by

The Power of Data 

Introduction

It’s no secret that home care agencies face increasingly challenging circumstances when it comes to providing efficient, high-quality care that Texans and their families expect.

With strict, shifting regulations, inconsistent Medicaid reimbursement rates, a dearth of caregivers at a low minimum wage in a highly competitive market, not to mention Texas’ recent Obamacare challenge — the need for agencies to prove their worth to the government and their clients has never been more important.

Houston alone is one of the top U.S. markets for home care agencies, as it is home to approximately 700,000 of the state’s 3.5 million individuals over the age of 65. As the Houston Chronicle recently featured, pay is a central issue that is causing high turnover rates and

labor
gaps, since Medicaid dictates the private sector’s wages, despite the fact that only 40

percent
of home care services are government-funded.

With few financial incentives for caregivers, Texas has a home care

labor
shortage that will no doubt rise along with its

aging
population. As the article points out, it’s estimated that at least 13 million new in-home caregivers will be needed by 2030. The stakes have never been higher for agencies to both recruit and retain the very best caregivers available.

If incentives can’t be realized through monetary means, then agencies must look to find them elsewhere. That’s where the power of harvesting the right data can set progressive agencies apart from the rest.

Data: The Superhero of Home Care

Measurable data provides industries with a wealth of information that can help leaders make evidence-based decisions to move a business forward. From analyzing customer buying

habits,
to examining pricing trends for resources, to understanding energy use to curb hydro costs — the list of how data underpins business is virtually endless.

The healthcare industry

too
has seen enormous benefits in collecting clinical, research, claims data and more. This has helped to shape operational efficiency and, importantly, uncover crucial insights that form the building blocks for the future of care.

The home care industry is no exception when it comes to the myriad benefits that data provides, and 2019 is poised to be the year it takes off. In fact, Forbes’ top healthcare predictions for 2019 anticipate that by the end of the year, half of all healthcare companies will have resources dedicated to accessing, sharing, and analyzing real-world evidence for use across their organizations.

Let’s take a deeper dive into some of the power and possibilities when it comes to data collection and analysis in the Texas home care market:

Let’s take a deeper dive into some of the power and possibilities when it comes to data collection and analysis in the Texas home care market:

Value-Based Purchasing

KPIs Promote Business Success

Attracting and Retaining Your Best Talent

Value-Based Purchasing

Value-based purchasing (VBP) is a form of payment that holds health care providers accountable for both the cost and quality of that care. It aims to reduce poor care and identify and reward the best-performing providers. VBP has been identified by Texas’ Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to help advance key priorities for the state’s Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs. Namely:

  1. Keeping Texans healthy
  2. Providing the right care in the right place
  3. Keeping patients free from harm
  4. Promoting effective practices for chronic disease
  5. Supporting patients and families facing serious illness
  6. Attracting high performing providers

An uptick in the use of the VBP model is also on the list of Forbes’ 2019 predictions, which estimates that 15

percent
of global healthcare spending will be tied in some form to value/outcome based care concepts by year’s end.

VBP is all about data, as payment correlates to each provider achieving defined, measured goals such as patient experience and quality of care. Agencies will need the right software to clearly track how patients and clients are doing and demonstrate the value of the care delivered to payers, providers and other healthcare stakeholders through quantitative data. These important proof points can then be used to show just how much both medical and non-medical services boost outcomes for clients — for example, how many times a patient required transfer to hospital or metrics related to the quality of life, such as loneliness or chronic pain.

Value Based Purchasing Guide

Ultimate Guide to Value-Based Purchasing

With this guide will you learn how your home care agency can prepare, adapt and thrive in a value-based purchasing landscape with the help of modern home care technology.



KPIs Promote Business Success

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can measure an agency’s success by revealing if objectives are consistently met or not. While KPIs can form the backbone of a VBP model, they also address all measurable aspects of home care: the number of on-time client visits, employee retention, HR and finance efficiency, and more. Essentially, KPIs can help track and address every single priority of the HHSC — while improving business.

Take a common scenario, where agencies could use KPIs to measure service hours (since payers will fund only specific hours worked). On the flip side, client feedback metrics can be used to track the perceived quality and level of care with opportunities for caregivers to weigh in on the feedback and describe how issues arose and how they were addressed. This data can then be used to improve care while ensuring your care teams are treated fairly during performance reviews and more.

“Data is like the foundation of a house. Without it, you can’t make efficient decisions. Yet data in and of itself, is virtually useless. Taking data and turning it into information and making that knowledge that you can repeat: that is success.” — Lee Grunberg, President of Integracare

“Having data automatically exported to the dashboard instead of manually entered into an excel spreadsheet has improved both the accuracy of inputting and efficiency of sharing the data.” — Terri Soukup, Vice-President, Helping Hands

Attracting and Retaining Your Best Talent

Keeping your care teams happy goes hand in hand with better client outcomes — not to mention greater profits. Given the competitive Texas market, it’s imperative to ensure you’re keeping your top talent happy — and limiting costly, time-consuming churn.