What would convince a doctor to refer his patients to YOUR assisted living facility? | Blog | Illumination Analytics | Health Reform for Assisted Living Communities | Better Healthcare and Lower Cost: What would convince a doctor to refer his patients to YOUR assisted living facility?
March 1st, 2014
Dr. Steven Fuller
It always surprised me that not a single marketer offered me the one thing that would have made me choose THEM in a heartbeat: metrics. The one feature that would have made the greatest impression is the one thing I was never shown…some type of HEALTH PROFILE, anything that demonstrated they understood and were committed to the huge responsibility of managing my patients’ health.
Here are just a few things that I wanted to know and whose answers would have made a lasting and very positive impression and would have resulted in my referrals:
I wanted to know the types of chronic health conditions and medications that are currently managed in this marketer’s AL so that I could have an idea of what the health environment was like.
I wanted to know whether an AL could manage my patient with heart failure or lung disease or severe arthritis or chronic pain or depression and who is taking 8 different medicines at different times of the day.
I wanted to know whether a facility somehow differentiates or adjusts its staffing to account for the Risk Level of individual residents – that is, does it care for residents with many health needs any differently than it does for residents with only minimal needs.
I wanted to know WHO is managing the health of all the residents. Are these caregivers educated about the kinds of health conditions my patients have and the medicines they take? And how do the caregivers keep track of and become informed of all the health needs that they are managing? This is a huge task when caring for so many people.
I wanted to know whether the AL PROACTIVELY manages the health needs of my patients, or do they just wait until my patients get sick before intervening or sending them to the ER. And how can the AL demonstrate its answer to me?
{He developed Illumination Analytics specifically for Assisted Living Communities in order to enhance health management and provide objective measures of care excellence in this setting.}
