As technology-powered service providers (i.e., Amazon, Walmart, etc.) continue to expand and deliver even more comprehensive services to the doors of our prospects, the temptation to age at home grows. Developing and delivering the proverbial “fountain of youth” through integrated and personalized services remains pivotal for the sustainability and success of our Life Plan Communities. While many organizations talk about integrated services, few deliver. Over the next five years, adopting robust integrated health practices should be at the heart of our strategic planning.
Integrated Health Defined
At Moorings Park Communities, we are focused on moving beyond the lip-service of integration to delivering a seamless system focused on healthspan. Utilizing a new corporate structure and technology, our goal is to create a personalized Successful Aging Plan for each of our residents. As my good friend Rob Love has been championing for years, at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are three benefits (relationships, esteem and self-actualization) that are much more likely to be achieved in a Life Plan Community than a person’s house.
Environments that support wellness and vitality lay the groundwork for a strong holistic approach to healthy aging. Now it’s time to take the next step to ensure lifestyles are enhanced by a fully integrated health approach. And that means everyone on the team is sharing the same detailed information and results.
This requires a collaborative channel of communication between all parties involved—physician, dietitian, personal trainer, activities team—and the resident. Each party having all the pertinent details paints a more accurate picture and allows for a truly holistic approach—which ultimately leads to superior outcomes.
Change Is Coming Quickly
The successful aging decade has just started, with recent breakthroughs in science, medicine and technology changing our views on health, wellness and longevity. These advances have started the ball rolling, and we can expect to see significant changes fast.
Science and Medicine
Genomic sequencing and cell retargeting, nanotech, targeted therapies, immunotherapy, data analytics and AI are changing how illness and chronic health issues are treated and prevented. These advancements, combined with new discoveries in anti- and reverse-aging, are already impacting longevity and will continue to do so at an exponential rate. Improved therapies and prevention not only help people live healthier and longer, but also become a critical factor in managing long-term care costs. An integrated health approach is essential.
Technology
As we all know, technology innovations and updates occur with rapid speed. Staying ahead takes diligence and agility. How well we embrace robotics, AI, expanded telecare, home-enabled solutions, remote monitoring, virtual reality and workforce-related tools will shape our sustainability and success.
Personal Roles
Today’s seniors are active participants in their health and fitness goals. They collect pertinent biometrics with tools like Apple Watch, WHOOP and the Oura Ring, and these data should be accessible and utilized by their health and wellness teams. Healthcare needs to catch up, and Life Plan Communities can lead the way. We not only need to open channels of communication, but also improve how we integrate and use data from self-tools to capture a holistic picture of each individual’s health.
Dealing With a New Kind of Competitor
Staying at home has been and will continue to be our strongest competitor. Now, new alliances between big players in health and business will make that option even more appealing by delivering more services and connecting with people in their homes. The goal of these partnerships is to provide team-based, home-based, community-based care, further accelerating the trend toward integrated health.
A good example is CVS’s acquisition of Oak Street Health and Signify Health. A nationwide network of primary care centers for older adults, Oak Street Health provides comprehensive care, including doctors, nurses, social workers, behavioral health specialists and a wide range of community events and activities to support overall health and well-being. Signify Health identifies people’s unique needs—clinical, social and behavioral—through extensive in-home and virtual engagements, and it helps deliver actionable insights on the factors impacting their health outcomes and total cost of care.
Position Your Community at the Forefront
I believe that Life Plan Communities have all of the assets to take a leading role in advancing integrated health. Now is the time to start, and I suggest:
Develop a team to pull your internal resources together: medical, clinical, fitness, dietary, interactive wellness and social services. Then discuss how resident data can better flow between those services to provide a more robust wellness experience. As CEO, improving communication between departments should be your top priority for the next two years.
Commit to an atmosphere of “no excuses.” You will hear “this can’t be done” plenty of times. Start simple. If technology is the barrier, start with paper. If time is the issue, look for opportunities to be more efficient. If an inability to get partners (whether medical, clinical, dietary, etc.) to participate is the issue, look for better partners.
Recognize that baby boomers and seniors’ expectations are changing. In the very near future, prospects will be asking questions like:
- Does your community create a baseline assessment of my health, both physical and cognitive? How does that information flow between my doctor and my exercise physiologist?
- Do you have a team that is preparing my personalized health and wellness plan? If so, who is on that team?
- How are components of my social and spiritual health incorporated into my plan?
- Do you have a dietitian on staff? How will my dietary plan flow from my dietitian to my physician and the culinary team? (This is different than dietary restrictions.)
- How do my personal biometrics obtained by my smartwatch or device get utilized by my physician and exercise physiologist? For example, will my doctor be reviewing my sleep data?
Addressing One of the Biggest Challenges
Physician buy-in and participation with your integrated health team may be your most challenging obstacle. Physicians are trained and paid to treat illness, chronic disease and injuries. They don’t have the incentive or inclination to prescribe specific exercises, healthy sleep behaviors, better dietary guidance, social programs or other wellness and prevention activities. And they are reimbursed by insurance companies that don’t want to pay for preventive care.
Physicians also typically don’t work for Life Plan Communities and are reluctant to share data constrained by HIPAA laws. Even if they do work for the community, they are usually still part of a larger healthcare system that controls how data are protected.
The information held by the physician is critical for integrated health to be effective, so how can we overcome these challenges? Here are a few options.
- Add a physician to your staff and set up a concierge program. This provides greater control over a physician’s participation with your integrated health team. A concierge physician employed by your community can not only significantly impact the success of your integrated health, but will also be highly attractive to prospective residents. The impact and value of this service makes it worth consideration, even at a break-even point or lost leader.
- If hiring a physician is not an option now, consider how it can be included into strategic plans moving forward. In the meantime, push harder on your physician partners. Integrate participation into contracts to ensure physicians are receptive to receiving and sharing data.
- Inform prospects and residents about how integrated health works in your community. Ask residents to include team members on HIPAA release forms.
- Designate a data coordinator who can not only work with the physician but also the whole team to ensure information is flowing smoothly.
Take a Leading Role
To continue thriving in the future, we need to stay ahead of the curve. That requires being laser focused on changes that will impact our residents and integrating those changes into our communities. CEOs need to stay vigilant! Monitor breakthroughs in science and medicine. Be proactive in utilizing new technology and innovations. Keep pace—if not one step ahead—of market changes. Know what your residents want now and what they will want tomorrow.
Today, people are searching for the proverbial fountain of youth. We have to show them that life is not only better, but also healthier, happier and longer in a Life Plan Community. And a well-functioning integrated health approach is essential to that promise.
