Orlando Health announced earlier this week it has tapped healthcare technology platform Biofourmis to help roll out a hospital-at-home program across its 23-hospital system. Orlando Health hopes to launch the at-home acute care program early this year.
“Delivering hospital-level care within the patient’s home has been a goal for Orlando Health,” Jamal Hakim, MD, Orlando Health Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement.”This comprehensive solution ensures the safest, highest-quality care as well as ease-of-use for patients and providers. We are confident that our organization’s dedicated focus on patients, clinical excellence, and operational efficiency — supported by Biofourmis’ solution — will drive the growth of a successful hospital-at-home program.”
Orlando Health could become a significant provider of hospital-at-home services in the Southeast. The nearly 2,340-bed system served more than 142,000 inpatients and 3.9 million outpatients in 2022.
Orlando Health is the latest hospital system to team with Biofourmis on a hospital-at-home program. Last year the Boston-based technology company received $300 million in Series D Funding from private equity firm General Atlantic, CVS Health and a number of investors to expand its offering of personal and predictive in-home care to a larger pool of patients. In May, it launched a hospital-at-home program with Wise Health System in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. Biofourmis developed its technology with Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Approximately 350 hospitals and medical systems have launched hospital-at-home programs since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rolled out the Acute Hospital Care Waiver program in 2020 to give hospitals more flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. The future of the program remains murky. It was intended to expire at the end of the public health emergency, now scheduled for the end of April. However, the program received an extension until the end of 2024 as part of omnibus legislation signed by President Joe Biden at the end of last year.
