Ohio’s Hospice and Ascend Innovations have launched a strategic partnership designed to leverage data to improve clinical and business systems in their hospice and palliative care programs.
Ohio’s Hospice is a regional partnership of hospice providers, founded in 2013 with three member organizations and in the intervening years expanded to 10 members, in addition to entering into joint ventures and other community organizations. Regional partnerships such as Ohio’s Hospice help non-profit hospice organizations compete with for-profit entities that during the past decade have come to dominate the hospice market.
“Our partnership with Ascend is an integral part of our long-term technology goals,” says Kent Anderson, CEO of Ohio’s Hospice. “More importantly, building technology right here in Dayton by working with local companies and organizations is important to our organization. We are committed to working together to benefit the community we are privileged to serve and, when possible, provide opportunities for us to share these technologies commercially.”
Ascend specializes in data science as well as software engineering and design. The key focus areas for the company’s partnership with Ohio’s Hospice will be advanced predictive analytics, machine learning and robotic process automation. The hospice provider is in the process of developing a technology road map that will guide its efforts through 20201.
The partnership will also support the technology needs of two initiatives that Ohio’s Hospice recently launched. The organization in 2019 established a National Hospice Cooperative to help take its regional collaborative model nationwide. During 2020, Ohio’s Hospice launched its Pure Healthcare joint venture that rebranded the organization’s range of non-hospice offerings. Pure Healthcare provides community-based care management as well as palliative care and other services in patient homes.
Both Ascend and Ohio’s Hospice are recruiting new staff to manage the technology developments forged through their partnership.
“We started with a few focused projects and now have expanded our work to include larger initiatives,” says Kerry Hamilton, chief strategy officer of Ohio’s Hospice. “We’re excited about the prospective opportunities to collaborate even more in 2021.”
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