virtual acute care at skilled nursing facilities (snf)
The bane of skilled nursing facility (SNF) residents, administrators, and medical directors is the hospital transfer. Whether it is sending symptomatic patients to the hospital or receiving discharged patients from the hospital, the entire exercise is akin to the take-off and landing of airplanes and is similarly fraught with potential for peril. Now imagine doing this in the midst of a smoldering pandemic. Now add in hurricane season (June to November) and Flu season (September to March) and you will begin to see the full potential risk facing Florida skilled nursing facilities.
We bring a unique combination of skills to our SNFs which can help prepare them for the Fall and beyond. Unlike other specialists, we have expertise in long-term care medicine and are familiar with how to care for SNF patients. We are used to managing, interpreting, and responding to data from remote patient monitoring systems. We also know how to optimally use telemedicine to provide virtual daily rounds on acute patients, support and update families, and to increase our availability to nurses for questions and care plan updates.
Importantly, a Virtual Acute Care Program is a very strong differentiator. The ability to obtain a higher level of medical care whenever needed without leaving the facility could make all the difference to families deciding between facilities. Our program is also designed to provide a higher level of care for discharged patients returning to SNFs and manage them through the high risk first week back which can significantly reduce readmissions.
what we bring to your facility
long term care expertise
- SNFs are a different practice environment than hospitals, clinics, or the office.
- We have practiced cardiopulmonary medicine for decades and have specially trained nurse practitioners and physicians assigned to SNFs.
- We treat patients with multiple chronic conditions and don’t just focus on one organ.
- We provide continuity of care and treat our patients in the hospital when transferred.
Reliable partnership
- Each patient has a plan of care and we are renowned for our availability to nursing staff 24/7 for questions related to our patients.
- We are extremely supportive of nursing and provide education and in-services when requested.
- We also help with family meetings and difficult discussions so nurses always know they have backup.
Dedication to Quality
- We created the B.E.T.T.E.R. Care system. Everything we do and every program we offer is designed to be beneficial, effective, targeted, timely, efficient, and reliable.
- We develop metrics to measure each of these areas and our providers are graded on their performance.
- We also share our data and we have demonstrated that our approach raises the performance of SNFs in CMS measures and national scoring.