Amanda Hannan
Jan 14 2025
Reading Time: 3 minutes
The demand for home-based care is surging, and shows no signs of slowing down soon, as the number of Americans aged 65 and older is projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050.1 But as the older population increases, so does the prevalence of age-related chronic conditions such as diabetes, arthritis and cardiac conditions.
Many of these seniors want to receive treatment for these conditions at home whenever that’s a feasible option because of the comfort, familiarity and emotional support being at home provides. Home-based care also helps individuals live independently while still receiving the healthcare and support they need.
This growing demand for home-based care has created more work for care teams. They often face an inbox of disconnected and backlogged emails, and still need to handle paper forms and documents while playing phone tag with patients and other care team members. This can lead to frustration not only for providers, but also for patients who are looking for more communication and connection.
These challenges mean that care coordination is more important than ever. These platforms help manage complex care needs by centralizing patient information, helping reduce the risk of errors, and improving care quality, allowing seamless communication between patients, caregivers and care providers to make sure everyone is aligned on treatment plans and progress.
Here are five ways care coordination can benefit you and your patients:
- Improved patient outcomes: Effective care coordination helps make sure patients receive timely, personalized interventions that help lead to better management of chronic conditions and faster recovery from health events or injuries.
- Timely care interventions and reduced hospital readmissions: When providers are in regular communication with the full care team, potential issues can be identified and addressed more quickly, which reduces the likelihood of health complications or hospital readmissions.
- Lower healthcare costs: When unnecessary hospital visits, tests and treatments are avoided, coordinated home-based care can lower costs for patients and the healthcare system.
- Improved family and caregiver support: Coordinated care involves the family and caregivers in the patient’s treatment, and gives them the guidance and resources they need to support the patient at home.
- Streamlined communication: Better collaboration among the entire care team helps keep everyone on the same page, which helps reduce confusion, avoid errors, and ensure the patients receives the most effective care possible.
Get the care coordination tools you need
A platform that helps empower caregivers with the tools and resources necessary to provide efficient, timely and personalized care ultimately helps enhance patient satisfaction and health outcomes. CitusHealth offers home-based care providers a single digital solution that supports robust care team collaboration and communication. This helps lead to increased patient and family caregiver engagement, and more satisfied referral partners.
Our platform can help clinical staff work more efficiently and achieve better work-life balance and job satisfaction by enabling secure, real-time communication and fostering a deeper connection between care teams and patients, from intake and admission through the entire patient journey.
- https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/
