For years, continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) have attracted residents based on the services and amenities they offer within their campuses. But for one organization, the overwhelming adoption of a program offered specifically to seniors living outside one of its California communities has led it to rethink the future of its business model.
Carmichael, California-based Eskaton envisions its newly launched Live Well at Home initiative will increase the organization’s staying power and will better position it in a changing marketplace.
It’s banking both on services and health care in the greater community to achieve this plan.
“We see in the future that in order to have survivability in long-term care, we will need to create systems and approaches that are affordable,” says Sheri Peifer, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Eskaton. “If we achieve that crux, which is patient health and satisfaction, then we have achieved our goal.”
Live Well at Home provides a suite of services for older adults who have yet to make the move into an Eskaton community.
For a membership-based fee of $300 a year, individuals can access social events and classes each month, as well utilize the services of screened service providers in a variety of categories ranging from housekeeping, electricians, landscaping and financial planners, to name a few, Peifer says, while extra services, like hourly health care, are charged at an additional fee.
“Live Well at Home is like a mini Angie’s List,” she says. “If someone needs a garage handyman, for example, then they can go to the online portal and see a list of 3-5 providers that have been vetted.”
Lifelong learning workshops, including classes geared toward preventative health and evidence-based self management programs for diabetes or depression are also available for members, if needed, as well as access to Eskaton’s care coordinators, which can be called upon to arrange services such as transportation and recommendations to various healthcare providers or vendors.
Since the formal launch of Live Well at Home in 2012, six members of the program have moved into Eskaton Village Carmichael—a CCRC located near Sacramento—while attracting leads to non-residents that have utilized Eskaton’s home health and post-acute rehab services.
Apart from the consumer-focused facet of the Live Well at Home initiative, the program also features a business-to-business aspect, which Eskaton plans to extend to other senior living organizations and health systems.
The organization already has plans in place to begin tracking metrics related to individual care management in efforts to help physicians direct patients into the Eskaton program, conduct a risk assessment and put that information into the Live Well at Home software.
In June, Eskaton will be enrolling 250 individuals directed by two major health systems in the greater Sacramento area as part of these efforts.
“We will be monitoring efficacy and interventions over six to 12 months and we’ll be able to show how valuable these interventions have been,” Peifer says.
Though Sacramento will provide an initial “test bed” for this project, Peifer says the company is hoping to expand this data-tracking pilot to various parts of the country in the future to help others in the senior care space monitor their residents’ health and well-being to prevent hospital readmissions.
“This platform will be easily replicated in other communities and parts of the country,” she says. “We’re aiming to create a financially sustainable program. The point is that it must achieve replication and scale, and be easy to purpose across other communities.”
Written by Jason Oliva
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