One Home Health Agency’s Approach to Self-Management to Drive Wound Care Success

Roughly $108.8 billion is projected to be spent on home health care in the United States this year. At the same time, the home health sector is experiencing huge shifts in reimbursements. Payment model changes are incentivizing systems to move patients to less intensive care settings to help keep them from being readmitted to the hospital. The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), which CMS will soon implement, will alter existing payment models to improve the value and outcomes of home health patients.

In light of these shifts, self-managing wounds is becoming more critical to drive clinical success. With the incidence of chronic wounds expected to rise at a rate of 2 percent annually over the next decade, Advocate Aurora Health’s Post-Acute Division has embarked on a new initiative to help its 400-plus home health clinicians become more knowledgeable about self-management so they can share that information with their patients.

“Wound care is so important because there are many products that can be used, but they do not necessarily help the patient reach the desired clinical outcome. We want to ensure our clinicians and their patients have all the resources they could possibly use. By actively engaging the patient and family, they will know how to properly care for themselves when their nurse is not able to be at the home,” says Katie Riley, RN, vice president, Post-Acute Chief Nursing Officer for Advocate Aurora Health.

To set up for success, Advocate Aurora Health is tapping into a strategic collaboration with Medline to create in-person training based on real life patient scenarios nurses face daily.

“This interactive teaching approach helps promote critical thinking skills. It helps us understand nurses’ thought processes and gain insights into the challenges they may face,” says Jason Cravens, market sales director, Medline homecare division. “We take all this into consideration when designing ongoing education content for a nursing team in order to augment their learning experience.”

The custom program trains clinicians to learn the proper way to identify and treat wounds, then pass that knowledge on to patients and their families. Trainers do more than lecture: they collaborate and interact with clinicians to help ensure the right way becomes the new normal.

By promoting self-management, Advocate Aurora Health will be able to help decrease the number of nursing visits per care episode, reduce the risk of hospital readmissions and help increase quality and patient satisfaction.

Learn more about how Medline is working with skin health teams to standardize best practices.