Firms representing personal care, home health, hospice and palliative care took home top honors Wednesday in the Home Care track of the 2023 McKnight’s Tech Awards competition.
Overall, McKnight’s distributed more than 40 awards across the Skilled Nursing, Senior Living and Home Care tracks.
Here’s a rundown of the Home Care winners in the five categories:
Building Bridges
Gold: Nest in Place
Description: Nest in Place, a home care agency, was looking for a communication platform that would keep the team connected — both on the road and in clients’ homes. The agency found it with Hucu.ai. The partnership has resulted in time savings, more team collaboration and better communication with family members.
Silver: Elara Caring
Quality
Gold: Compassus
Description: In 2021, Compassus launched a home health virtual care product with Health Recovery Solutions to help patients better manage their conditions and stay out of the hospital. With this virtual care model, at-risk patients receive education about disease progression and the tools to monitor their vital signs. Telehealth nurses then use this data to discuss changes in health status and intervene if necessary. Among the benefits? A 38% lower rehospitalization rate among patients receiving virtual care in 18 months.
Silver: 24/7 Nursing Care Inc.
Keep It Super Simple
Gold: Help at Home
Description: In response to disjointed metrics, Help at Home launched a platform that connects multiple data sets across several platforms into a single-use tool. With the help of Microsoft’s Power BI, the program provides real-time updates and visualization of metrics. Consider this stat: From the platform’s launch in February 2022, to December 2022, Help at Home saw a 5 percent increase in utilization — care hours served versus care hours authorized.
Silver: Compassus
Innovator of the Year
Gold: Elara Caring
Description: Elara Caring continues to refine ElaraConnect, which monitors and engages current and previous patients. In 2022, it expanded the program to two new states and added the ability to address social determinants of health, among other changes. The work has paid off: Last year, ElaraConnect doubled the number of home health patient touch points, reduced costs by 25% and cut the hospital readmission rate by more than 50%.
Silver: Crozer Health
Tech Partner of the Year
Gold: Emerest Connect
Description: The pandemic upended the healthcare system and the lives of older adults. Enter Emerest Connect, which helps homebound patients engage socially with their peers. It also keeps track of clients’ vital signs and provides access to clinical professionals 24-7. Over the duration of the program, Emerest Connect has served over 1,500 patients and helped operators reduce hospitalizations and readmissions — and provide loneliness relief.
Silver: Outset Medical
Bronze: Viventium
An independent, national judging panel of 23 key stakeholders adjudicated entries, which were submitted in late spring. Entries were assessed on their overall value in improving resident care and services, impact, relevance, execution and creativity.
Articles summarizing the Senior Living and Skilled Nursing track winners can be found on their respective McKnight’s websites. In addition, the Best of Show winner is featured in today’s McKnight’s Tech Daily newsletter news stack.
Finalists were announced in August in separate Home Care, Skilled Nursing– and Senior Living-focused articles.
Winners were feted during Wednesday afternoon’s ceremony, which will remain available for online viewing in archive for the next 12 months. Medalists also will be celebrated at an in-person ceremony Oct. 2 in Denver, which is open to anyone interested. Anyone planning to attend can RSVP here.
In addition, each Gold Medal winner will be featured in upcoming McKnight’s newsletter coverage.
Wednesday’s announcements concluded a full day of activity. Three thought-leadership webinars preceded the ceremony at the McKnight’s Technology Summit. Session titles were: “How emerging technologies and AI are transforming senior care,” “Staffing in the automation era: Right and wrong ways to use AI,” and “Creating senior living communities that flourish.”
The sessions also will be available for online viewing in archive for a year.
