Seasons Hospice & Palliative Care and health system ChristianaCare have entered into a joint venture designed to expand in-home services throughout the state of Delaware. The JV is branded as Christiana-Care-Seasons Hospice & Palliative Care.
The JV is not Seasons’ first collaboration with ChristianaCare. The two companies have worked together on joint initiatives a number of times during the past 15 years, according to Seasons. In 2012, Seasons opened an inpatient center at ChristianaCare’s main campus in Newark, Del., and last year opened a similar facility at the health system’s Wilmington, Del., hospital.
“Christiana approached us and we thought it was a very good idea to cement our relationships. I will tell you that working with ChristianaCare and their senior team, I’ve always felt like you could have called it a JV without really being a JV,” Carl J. Brodarick, chief marketing officer for Seasons, told Hospice News. “This draws us even closer together, which we’re very excited about.”
Demographic tailwinds are driving up demand for hospice care in Delaware. About 18% of the state’s population was 65 or older in 2019. This percentage is expected to rise to 52% by 2030 and 62% by 2040.
Delaware has the second-highest rate of hospice utilization in the United States, reaching 59.4% among Medicare decedents in 2018, according to the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). The national average that year was 50.3%. Utah led the nation at 60.5%.
“The need for hospice care in Delaware will just continue to become more in demand. It’s more important than ever that we’re able to provide the right care at the right time in the right place, and more and more I think that is in people’s homes with expert teams,” said Ric Cuming, chief nurse executive and president of Home Health at ChristianaCare. “It just made a lot of sense for ChristianaCare to seek a partner that would help us to provide an aspect of the care continuum that prior to this we actually didn’t offer.”
Headquartered in Wilmington, Del., ChristianaCare operates a large network of primary care and outpatient practices, as well as a home health program, urgent care centers, a freestanding emergency department and three hospitals with a combined 1,299 beds.
The company’s portfolio includes a Level I trauma center and a Level III neonatal intensive care unit as well as a comprehensive stroke center and regional centers for heart and vascular care, cancer care and women’s health.
Seasons merged with private-equity backed AccentCare in late 2020. The combined company will employ close to 30,000 workers caring for more than 175,000 patients from 225 locations in 26 states.
Through the new JV, ChristianaCare will be able to provide patients with a full continuum of health care services from birth to the end of life. The partnership with Seasons allows their patients to transition to hospice without transferring to another organization.
Seasons will manage daily care for hospice patients. Three individuals from each organization will serve on a governing board of the joint venture.
“We’ve had situations where we’ve had to refer patients who were looking for in-home hospice care to other providers. When the patient or the family hears that they have to go outside of ChristianaCare to receive it, they see it as a red flag,’ Cuming said. Together with Seasons, an expert hospice provider, we’re now able to offer that care.”
Companies featured in this article:
AccentCare, ChristianaCare, Seasons Hospice & Palliative Care
