Since the beginning of the pandemic 18 months ago, the healthcare industry has undergone significant changes in where and how it provides patients with post-acute care. After the early Covid-19 outbreak in nursing homes, patients (especially the elderly) and their families have increasingly preferred home care instead of institutional environments such as nursing homes, specialized nursing facilities, and assisted living facilities.
For patients who return to the community from a long-term care facility, the provider team must work hard to ensure that the continuity of care is maintained and that patients receive the same quality and level of care at home as they do in the institutional environment—especially because of these long-term care. Nursing providers are facing census challenges as the whole industry transitions to home care. In order to simplify the discharge process, minimize the 30-day re-admission, and optimize the patient’s treatment effect, long-term care institutions can provide patients with behavioral health services after discharge.
After patients go home from the hospital, behavioral health care services are often neglected.However, the readmission rate of patients with behavioral health comorbidities has been shown to be Nearly twice Those without behavioral health comorbidities-and 20% of people over 55 There is some form of mental health, and this percentage is higher in institutional care settings. Consider this situation: Hip replacement patients experience mental health problems-such as depression, during hospitalization in a long-term care facility. Once the patient has recovered from the operation and it is time to return to the community from the hospital, the institution’s discharge planning team, family members, or patient may admit that additional behavioral health services are needed to help ensure the patient’s safe and successful recovery. Family. In order to reduce the gap in patient care, long-term care institutions must provide behavioral services to patients as soon as they return home from the hospital—especially services provided through telemedicine. A comprehensive care model that combines treatment and medication management will strengthen the support system for patients and ultimately lead to a higher success conversion rate. These services benefit patients and providers and other cross-continuous stakeholders.
Telemedicine increases access to behavioral healthcare services
Since discharge planning teams in long-term care institutions work hard to ensure post-discharge health services for patients, finding behavioral health providers (such as psychiatrists) who accept new patients or providers closer to home can be challenging and convenient for patients.Many long-term care facilities are currently understaffed-99% of nursing homes and 96% of assisted living communities have Report Current workforce challenges-and there is no time or resources to discover and ensure the behavioral health services available to patients after discharge in a timely manner. Assuming that long-term care facility discharge planners do identify available behavioral health providers, patients may have to wait weeks, months, or even a year to make an appointment.One Expect a shortage of elderly psychologists in the future, Unfortunately, the shortage of general mental health professionals is Already here; For every 100,000 people in the United States, there are only 30 psychologists and 15.6 psychiatrists. Patients often face unfavorable gaps in care—especially their mental health care—which can hinder patients from successfully recovering at home.
Using telemedicine for behavioral health care, patients can get necessary services immediately; in most cases, within one week after discharge. Eliminating the need for transportation to make appointments, behavioral telemedicine services also reduce the burden on patients and their caregivers. This is an important benefit, because depending on the patient’s stay in a long-term care facility, some people may experience reduced function or mobility and cannot be guaranteed to be transported to a behavioral health provider. In addition, for patients who need home health services after being hospitalized in a long-term care facility, they may hesitate to leave home regularly or leave home for too long when receiving such services. Behavioral telemedicine services eliminate these potentially dangerous care barriers.
Realizing continuity of care through behavioral telemedicine
Behavioral telemedicine benefits not only facilities but also patients. Through behavioral telemedicine services, patients can get continuous care; the nursing manager will contact them shortly after leaving the hospital to schedule an appointment, and patients will get the same quality of care and pace of care in their own homes as they are still in long-term care institutions. For patients who have recently been discharged from the hospital, seamless switching, “soft landing”, and smooth transition to the community may be the difference between successful home rehabilitation and unnecessary hospitalization or costly and avoidable emergency room visits.
Compared with traditional face-to-face behavioral health visits, behavioral telemedicine services are easier to obtain and easier to coordinate, which can reduce the burden on long-term care institution discharge planning teams when seeking post-discharge care for patients. Behavioral telemedicine also provides an “umbilical cord” or safety net for medical service providers to ensure that patients can receive mental health support as needed in a safe home. These services can also simplify the admissions process or increase referrals; by obtaining behavioral telemedicine services at the time of discharge, long-term care institutions are able to receive a wider range of patients who need behavioral health services during hospitalization and after returning to the community.
Behavioral telemedicine and nursing transition
Post-discharge behavioral health services help to provide patients with a smooth transition from institutional care to home care, while minimizing or uninterrupting planning, thereby increasing patient clinical stability and improving outcomes for all relevant stakeholders.
Since elderly patients are unlikely to voluntarily use mainstream consumer behavior telemedicine services, there is an urgent need for care coordination services directly provided by providers. This approach allows the patient’s cross-continuum care team to provide a consistent, highly contact, and warm approach to the patient’s health. Ultimately, a coordinated care model enables providers to ensure that patients receive the necessary care in a timely manner and do not get into trouble between being discharged from the long-term care facility and returning home.
