Toledo, OH-based ProMedica, parent to ProMedica Senior Care, which includes the former HCR ManorCare, Arden Courts and Heartland, is changing its approach to healthcare to prioritize social determinants of health, such as economic stability and education access.
Calling the effort the Healthcare Redefined Initiative, the company is working to improve overall health and well-being by focusing on the environments where people live, work and play. The goal is to help them stay healthy, happy and independent for as long as possible to keep them out of the hospital and reduce healthcare costs across the board.
“It’s a way to create a better understanding of ProMedica’s mission, and part of that redefining healthcare includes the social determinants of health, how we look at care and healthy aging, and then looking at market-specific programs where we can innovate with our partners that are in the local communities,” Angela Brandt, the recently appointed president of the Promedica Senior Care division, told the McKnight’s Business Daily.
ProMedica acquired HCR ManorCare, Arden Courts and Heartland in 2018. ProMedica Senior Care’s skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities, memory care communities, outpatient rehabilitation clinics, and hospice and home healthcare agencies total more than 335.
The idea behind the new initiative is to take a holistic approach to the care of older adults, using data and analytics to best meet resident’s needs.
“By the year 2030, we expect addressing social determinants of health will be the norm when it comes to how the healthcare industry delivers care,” Randy Oostra, DM, FACHE, ProMedica president and CEO, said in a press release.
“We’re extending what we do beyond the four walls of healthcare,” Brandt said. “Practically speaking, that’s going to look a little different for each of the cities we’re partnering with.”
ProMedica, she said, is rolling out the initiative first in seven cities — Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and its headquarter city of Toledo — to customize data and leverage existing relationships “and then scale what we’ve been able to do in Ohio and in Michigan.”
“The reason we’re starting in those cities is that we have facilities there from our senior care portfolio, and we already have existing relationships with communities and hospitals in those markets,” she said. “We can look at specific strategies using data and innovate with those communities. It may look different, and it should look different, based on those unique needs in those communities.”
Brandt said that the company hopes that through the initiative, it can create an economic advantage in communities by helping develop a workforce strategy through a partnership with California-based tech consulting company Bitwise.
“That’s a big challenge obviously, so if we can bring those workforce training programs to communities, that would ideally lead to a workforce for our facilities, perhaps, and for the community in general. That’s the way that we can leverage those partnerships and bring new things to the communities that serve outside of our own health system,” she said.
“This is not new work, but it is new work as we think about challenging ourselves and our communities to think about health differently and think about how we can all work better in our communities to lift equity up to a higher level,” Brandt said.
