25 min
Breaking from Tradition: Q&A with Heather O’Sullivan, President, Healthcare at Home, Mass General Brigham healthsystemCIO.com
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- Technology
The current healthcare system is fraught with challenges. Between workforce shortages, regulatory changes, and evolving consumer needs, the ecosystem is “just not sustainable the way it is today,” said Heather O’Sullivan.
The answer, she believes, is close to home. At least, that’s the case for Mass General Brigham, which developed a Healthcare at Home Division in 2022 to offer “a hybrid alternative to traditional care settings.” One of its four verticals, the Home Hospital, has made quite an impact, having served more than 3,500 episodes of care, which equates to some 19,000 bed days saved.
The ability to provide care in the patient home has resulted in “significant cost savings, reduced utilization, and improved patient experiences compared to traditional hospital settings,” said O’Sullivan during a recent interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO. It has also meant fewer lab orders and imaging studies, along with lower readmission rates. The movement has been “resoundingly favorable,” both among patients and families and staff, she noted.
And there are no plans to stop. In fact, Mass General Brigham is looking to increase the eligible patient pool to 10 percent of all current inpatient medical volume. Not an easy feat, but the organization is committed to changing the landscape, according to O’Sullivan. During the interview, she talked about the success her team has achieved, as well as the hurdles they’ve overcome, and what it takes to build and sustain this type of model – from executive buy-in to vendor partnerships to the infrastructure piece.
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Q&A with Heather O’Sullivan, President, Healthcare at Home, Mass General Brigham
Gamble: Hi Heather, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. We look forward to hearing about what your team is doing. Can you start by giving an overview of the organization?
O’Sullivan: Sure. Mass General Brigham overall is a $18 billion non-profit academic medical center comprising three specialty hospitals, seven community hospitals, and two founding academic medical centers: Mass General Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. And the system prioritizes patient-centered care; we’re actually the largest NIH recipient in the country for research. We employ over 80,000 colleagues.
The Healthcare at Home Division was established in 2022 to offer a hybrid alternative to traditional care settings. The Healthcare at Home Division has four service verticals. The first is our largest full acute episode home hospital in the country. We have five distinct CMS licenses for acute level care. The second vertical, which is also the chassis for all of Healthcare at Home, is our Legacy Home Care business. It was established in 2007 and is actually the largest home health entity in Massachusetts.
From a technology perspective, we offer personal emergency response systems [for] infusion care, phlebotomy, in addition to the traditional skilled nursing and therapy and home health aide support. And there are two more emerging verticals in the healthcare home portfolio that are interesting. One is the emergency care for urgent patient needs in the home setting, and the other is home-based palliative care.
And so, collectively, the array of home-based offerings really addresses our system’s key challenges around capacity constraints while emphasizing patient comfort and privacy.
Gamble: So, the HAH Division was established in 2022, but obviously, the groundwork had been in place for quite a bit before then.
O’Sullivan: Yes.
The current healthcare system is fraught with challenges. Between workforce shortages, regulatory changes, and evolving consumer needs, the ecosystem is “just not sustainable the way it is today,” said Heather O’Sullivan.
The answer, she believes, is close to home. At least, that’s the case for Mass General Brigham, which developed a Healthcare at Home Division in 2022 to offer “a hybrid alternative to traditional care settings.” One of its four verticals, the Home Hospital, has made quite an impact, having served more than 3,500 episodes of care, which equates to some 19,000 bed days saved.
The ability to provide care in the patient home has resulted in “significant cost savings, reduced utilization, and improved patient experiences compared to traditional hospital settings,” said O’Sullivan during a recent interview with Kate Gamble, Managing Editor at healthsystemCIO. It has also meant fewer lab orders and imaging studies, along with lower readmission rates. The movement has been “resoundingly favorable,” both among patients and families and staff, she noted.
And there are no plans to stop. In fact, Mass General Brigham is looking to increase the eligible patient pool to 10 percent of all current inpatient medical volume. Not an easy feat, but the organization is committed to changing the landscape, according to O’Sullivan. During the interview, she talked about the success her team has achieved, as well as the hurdles they’ve overcome, and what it takes to build and sustain this type of model – from executive buy-in to vendor partnerships to the infrastructure piece.
LISTEN HERE USING THE PLAYER BELOW OR SUBSCRIBE THROUGH YOUR FAVORITE PODCASTING SERVICE.
Q&A with Heather O’Sullivan, President, Healthcare at Home, Mass General Brigham
Gamble: Hi Heather, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. We look forward to hearing about what your team is doing. Can you start by giving an overview of the organization?
O’Sullivan: Sure. Mass General Brigham overall is a $18 billion non-profit academic medical center comprising three specialty hospitals, seven community hospitals, and two founding academic medical centers: Mass General Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. And the system prioritizes patient-centered care; we’re actually the largest NIH recipient in the country for research. We employ over 80,000 colleagues.
The Healthcare at Home Division was established in 2022 to offer a hybrid alternative to traditional care settings. The Healthcare at Home Division has four service verticals. The first is our largest full acute episode home hospital in the country. We have five distinct CMS licenses for acute level care. The second vertical, which is also the chassis for all of Healthcare at Home, is our Legacy Home Care business. It was established in 2007 and is actually the largest home health entity in Massachusetts.
From a technology perspective, we offer personal emergency response systems [for] infusion care, phlebotomy, in addition to the traditional skilled nursing and therapy and home health aide support. And there are two more emerging verticals in the healthcare home portfolio that are interesting. One is the emergency care for urgent patient needs in the home setting, and the other is home-based palliative care.
And so, collectively, the array of home-based offerings really addresses our system’s key challenges around capacity constraints while emphasizing patient comfort and privacy.
Gamble: So, the HAH Division was established in 2022, but obviously, the groundwork had been in place for quite a bit before then.
O’Sullivan: Yes.
25 min