New Coalition to Push Telehealth, RPM as a Mainstay for Home Care

A new coalition of healthcare providers aims to make the home a more acceptable – and permanent - site for care, including telehealth and remote patient monitoring.

Moving Health Home announced its formation today with an action plan to “change the way policymakers think about the home as a site of clinical service.” Its founding members are Intermountain Healthcare, Ascension, Landmark Health, Amazon Care, Signify Health, Dispatch Health and Elara Caring.

“Moving Health Home works to advance home as a clinical site of care through federal and state legislative advocacy, education, research, and evidence to educate policymakers about new clinical models involving the home and new payment models that focus on high-value in-home care that meets patients where they are and leverages technology to drive efficiency and continuity of care,” the group says on its website.

The coalition takes aim at one of the largest trends to emerge during the coronavirus pandemic. With COVID-19 putting a strain on hospitals and other healthcare sites, many are looking to move services to the home setting and use a mixture of in-person visits and telemedicine and mHealth tools and platforms to continue care management.

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the untapped potential of home-based clinical care, and the opportunity for a more robust set of services ranging from primary care to hospital-level treatment,” the group said in a press release issued today. “The advent of telehealth, remote monitoring, digital therapeutics, provider home visiting, medical records sharing, and other technology has shown that care in the home can be at least equivalent to, if not better than, care offered in facilities.”

While the pandemic has served as the catalyst for this strategy, many providers are looking beyond COVID-19 with programs – especially RPM services and enhanced home health care – that offer primary and specialty care, chronic care management and post-discharge care and rehabilitation.

These needs will only increase as the nation’s elderly and chronic care populations grow, and as more people look to manage their care at home rather than in the hospital or senior care or assisted living facilities.

"Over 17 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are living with six or more chronic conditions,” Landmark Health CEO Nick Loporcaro noted in the press release. “In-home, patient-centered care is critical to managing the complex health needs of our nation's older adults. We need a public policy agenda that ensures access to innovative in-home care.”