Hebrew SeniorLife CIO discusses the future of elder care and redefining the workforce

In a recent Scottsdale Institute webinar, Hebrew SeniorLife CIO, Eric Rogers, discussed the foundational elements needed to deliver quality senior care across a continuum and what the future of elder care looks like. As New England’s largest nonprofit provider of senior healthcare and living communities, Hebrew SeniorLife is committed to empowering seniors to live their best possible lives wherever they may be on their care journey.

“As we continue to emphasize the patient journey, the needs of an aging population and workforce challenges grow,” said Rogers. “Healthcare organizations need to make investments today that prepare them for the future of care around older adults as the largest and fastest growing segment of our population.”

Dedicated to innovation
As part of its IT Strategic Plan to tackle the complexities in healthcare delivery, including the challenges inherent within care transitions, Hebrew SeniorLife consolidated the organization’s disparate clinical systems onto Expanse. The move replaced MEDITECH’s legacy acute, as well as four disparate systems encompassing its outpatient clinics, affiliated hospitals, rehabilitation, and home health and hospice services.

In its mission to keep the patient at the center of care, the organization focuses on building a highly collaborative care model that connects multidisciplinary care teams, caregivers, and families. The move to Expanse is also enabling the organization to implement one patient portal for the entire system.

“When you have disparate clinical systems, it’s not possible to have an integrated patient portal,” explained Rogers. “When we made the decision to collapse all of our different systems into Expanse, we knew that would allow us to broaden our engagement strategies to include caregivers and family members. Family involvement is key.”

Working in partnership with MEDITECH and its family advisory council, the organization is piloting its new Patient and Family Portal that includes both clinical and social appointments via a complete calendar view.Roles-based security will enable families and care teams to work collaboratively when deciding who should have access to what information. For example, some family members might only need access to social appointments, while others need to see both clinical and social information.  

Metrics-Driven
Part of what makes the nature of older adult care so unique are the challenging reimbursement models, plus the fact that geriatric care is universally understaffed.

These are just some of the reasons why managing data is essential to operational efficiency and improving patient outcomes. Hebrew SeniorLife is now focusing on developing dashboards in support of care quality using MEDITECH’s Business and Clinical Analytics solution, to allow leaders to better track performance and quality metrics and enable true data-driven decision making.

“It’s important that we deliver care in the right setting, but it’s also important that it's done at the right time,” stated Rogers.

Given the depth and scope of its services, the organization aims to measure everything — the impact of its research, teaching, healthcare, senior living, and best practices.

Workforce Development
Hebrew SeniorLife prides itself on leading the field of aging.Through its unique affiliation with Harvard Medical School, the organization also provides innovative research, as well as progressive workforce programs to help grow and retain staff. These include initiatives such as English classes, digital literacy courses, and CNA training leading up to LPN and BSN degrees. 

“We have programs in place to support every aspect of recruitment, retention, and staff engagement,” explained Rogers. “Professional development is a strong component of our cultural values.”

There’s no doubt in Rogers’ mind that Expanse is helping the organization with its key foundational elements – creating an integrated digital infrastructure, connecting care teams, and empowering its workforce. 

“We want to celebrate and thank MEDITECH for being the partners they are in helping us get here,” said Rogers. “By implementing an integrated solution that helps us deliver high-quality care across the continuum, we are living by our mantra to empower seniors to live their best lives. They deserve that.”