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Aligned by Design: How Integration Improves Care Delivery, Care Quality and Patient Satisfaction

It’s wellness activity time in a senior living community, and the memory care residents are involved in DanceFIT, a program that is minimal in its pattern but keeps them active. They appreciate this easy repetition of motion.

On another floor, assisted living residents are working on complex wellness movements with greater pivoting and turning through DrumFIT. Their friends in independent living are doing even more specialized movements in a group called AquaFIT, noticeably more strenuous than what the AL residents do.

At every care level, the residents are getting a wellness program tailored to their specific needs and capabilities. That’s because the programs from the community’s partner Synchrony Health Services are designed to meet senior living residents wherever they are and take them to the next level of wellness.

It’s no wonder that Synchrony has a 97% resident satisfaction score.

“We have 17 group programs where we offer wellness to any resident living in a community, and we adapt those programs to the person’s individual abilities,” says Julia Barrett, Vice President of Senior Living Services for Synchrony Rehab.

As health care continues moving more and more into the home, including senior living, and as it continues to embrace value-based care, integrated wellness programs such as those from Synchrony Health Services are essential for improving and increasing care delivery, care quality and resident satisfaction. Here is a look at how Synchrony is bringing pharmacy, rehab and lab services to senior living residents wherever they call home, whether IL, AL, memory care or in a CCRC.

“One of the hallmarks of Synchrony is that therapists get to follow residents along the continuum of care as they transition between IL, AL, memory care and SNF,” Barrett says. “Through this approach, residents achieve a higher level of independence, thus reducing the burden of care for our partners.”

Inside the numbers of the Synchrony difference

Synchrony Health Services’ mission is to pursue clinical excellence through collaboration and innovation, resulting in extraordinary outcomes. They do so through their integrated programs that are designed to meet the needs of seniors wherever they live. Specific to rehab, their programs include:

  • Synchrony MOVES – Onsite outpatient clinics in your community offering physical, occupational and speech therapy services
  • SynchronyFIT and SynchronyONE — Group and individualized wellness programs, respectively. If a person needs more personal attention, they can come to SynchronyONE, for example, and work with a therapist one on one in the style of a personal trainer.
  • SET — This integrated falls program stands for “Screen, Evaluate, Treat.” This is a collaboration between rehab and pharmacy, studying each resident’s physical abilities, cognitive abilities and medication management. “Through partnerships with the communities we serve, we have seen both a total reduction in the number of falls and a reduction in falls with injuries,” Barrett says.

“We have a lot of stability in our organization. Our therapist retention rate is over 90%, and our rehab program director retention rate is over 92%,” she says. “Regarding customer satisfaction, 94% of our customers on our spring survey said they would recommend us to someone else. And we have a 97% resident satisfaction score. So between our stability, our vision and our culture, we are a great place to work. And our data-driven outcomes will support our clinical advocacy, which allows us to build those data-driven programs.”

How health integration affects 3 key areas of quality of life

Barrett describes health care integration as “when two or more entities come together to align goals and approaches toward a singular outcome.” This becomes more and more vital in a value-based care world, where collaboration and communication are critical to care outcomes. And in Barrett’s view, Synchrony’s integrated programs work in large part because the people running them are actual care providers.

“Many of our clinical and operations professionals not only come with senior living experience but they have experience in their respective fields,” she says. “The vice president of pharmacy is a pharmacist. Our COO of rehab is a physical therapist. I’m an occupational therapist. All of our people have clinical backgrounds and have had practical working knowledge in this setting which I think makes a difference in putting the resident first.”

Here is a look at how integration improves three key areas that dictate quality of life, as described by Barrett.

  1. Care delivery

BARRETT: “Integration improves care delivery through the elimination of service duplication. This means our work is more efficient and more cost-effective for the provider. I believe the resident gets more comprehensive care because of the way services are delivered.”

  1. Care quality

BARRETT: “In terms of the quality of care, integration allows you to look at the person holistically and assess their clinical needs from multiple points of view. From there, a uniquely individualized collaborative plan of care is created. This results in higher quality outcomes for the resident.

“Not only do we identify and track meaningful metrics for our partners, but we work collaboratively as a team to implement innovative solutions,” Barrett says. “Our clinical teams are highly involved in discussions to continuously review and improve processes for the best outcomes of our residents. Ongoing education to the teams is vital to our residents’ and partners’ success. We don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.”

  1. Patient satisfaction through collaborative care

BARRETT: “Because we’re integrated, we are working toward the same goal at the same time from each of our different disciplines and perspectives. That way, a resident doesn’t feel caught in the middle between two different objectives or approaches. We’re all working collaboratively toward the same goal which gives the resident confidence in the care they’re receiving.”

In short, the removal of care silos will continue to improve care.

“The future of care means we need to tear down silos,” Barrett says. “Integration among entities in the same organization or with other care organizations is critical. Collaborative, holistic approaches are the key to successful service delivery models in the future. Synchrony Health Services is leading the industry through its integrated approach to resident care.” 

This article is sponsored by Synchrony Health Services. To learn more about how Synchrony can help your residents achieve clinical and wellness outcomes, visit synchronyhs.com.

The post Aligned by Design: How Integration Improves Care Delivery, Care Quality and Patient Satisfaction appeared first on Senior Housing News.

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