During the past two years, Northstar Care Community has grown both its patient census and its workforce. It did so at a time when thousands of health care providers were struggling to do either.
Northstar was able to stay nimble in response to rapidly changing conditions. A key component of this was pre-COVID technology investments that helped the organization prepare for a disaster no one knew was coming.
For instance, in late 2019, the company refitted all of its clinical staff with tablets that offered an easier, quicker way for clinicians to complete documentation and other tasks.
“When the pandemic hit, we found that we were going to need to be virtual for many aspects of our work and of our care,” Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Patrick Miller told Hospice News. “That device was set up perfectly to help us pivot. Like many organizations, we moved quickly to Zoom for clinical engagements for some visits. Yet, we still found that Zoom did have some limitations.”
To compensate for those limitations, Northstar began to examine other apps that were available in the market, but none of them were well-suited to the needs of a hospice.
So it started to develop its own custom app.
It rolled out the new app starting in early 2021 and by this coming June will have deployed it throughout its footprint. The system allows for quick and easy communication between patients and clinicians, requests for on-demand nursing visits, as well as texts or electronic chat with hospice staff.
Patients and families can use the app to alert the provider when they are low on medications or need durable medical equipment. Northstar can also arrange orders without taking the time for a phone call.
“As we interact with our patients over the phone, in person or via the app or through a video visit, we’ve got a lot more information available, and we can really avoid a lot of unnecessary questions,” Miller said. “We can make sure that we can take a look at timing, how soon the symptoms abate from when you took a certain medication or how long you have been released, etc.”
This technology was a boon when it came to engaging patients in nursing homes and other settings in which access was restricted. This made it easier for patients to stay more connected with their clinicians as well as their families who were unable to visit.
The ability to evolve to a changing environment is woven through Northstar’s fabric.
Hospice of Michigan was born in the late 1990s through a series of mergers of 10 or 11 smaller local organizations. The combined organization’s leaders found itself operating at a much larger scale than they were accustomed to, with more than 1,000 patients across nearly 50 counties.
“In those earlier years of this century, we made a very intentional decision to invest in technology, whether it was the server and eventually cloud foundation, the devices, the training — the ability to equip and train and communicate with people virtually and over a distance,” Miller said. “So that move in late 2019 to tablets was just part of us bringing better technology to the staff so we could be more efficient with our data.”
During the pandemic, reliance on technology was often a matter of survival for health care providers who could not otherwise reach their most vulnerable patients. But Northstar prospered. The hospice has seen steady census growth during the COVID-19 period.
This includes both care it provided to patients and a suite of services the organization offers to its colleagues in the field.
Northstar provides support to other hospice providers, such as IT services, assistance with electronic medical records, triage and aid to employees. Currently, this includes more than 25 hospices in 18 states. Expanding these aspects of their operations is a goal for 2022.
For the remainder of 2022, Northstar’s priorities also include building on the efforts of the last two years, with additional training for staff and to stay ready to respond quickly to emergent situations.
The organization also seeks to strengthen its connections with employees hired during the pandemic. Staving off the worst of the labor shortages, Northstar saw its staff grow along with its business.
New employee orientation and training has been done virtually. Now, the organization wants to find more opportunities for in-person interaction.
“That’s the key to a great organization — having great staff who are cared for,” Miller said. “What we did find is that, because staff were engaged and doing well, they were prepared to answer for those demands — for admissions, for grief counseling. And we actually saw growth through much of the pandemic.”
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