Snowline Hospice Leverages Tech Partnership to Drive Patient Engagement

California-based Snowline Hospice is entering a collaborative partnership with tech company CareFlash LLC to provide patients and their families with enhanced supportive care. The collaboration is designed to allow for greater connectivity and help patients and families navigate logistical aspects of end-of-life care.

Hospices have increasingly leveraged technology to ramp up family and patient support. As more tech savvy generations care for aging parents and eventually come to need end-of-life care themselves, the trend towards an expanded technical scope of services is expected to continue.

Through the agreement, Snowline Hospice provides patients and families access to CareFlash’s platform of online caring communities. Deemed “The Careopolis,” these are aimed at enhancing the “quality, depth and durability of supportive connectedness” as loved ones approach the end of life, according to a recent announcement.

Snowline first began working with CareFlash in November 2020. After seeing increased patient and family engagement with the online communities, the partnership has grown deeper roots, according to Teo Weldon, marketing and communications manager at Snowline.

“We view The Careopolis as part of a pervasive shift in the‘ standard of care in the hospice industry,” said Weldon. “We have been pleasantly surprised by the growing numbers of families adopting and using the Careopolis tool. Seeing the impressive growth among families using it, we know people find this helpful and even needed.”

Each caring community website is multilingual and created and operated by patients or their caregivers who invite friends and family to join. The websites contain connective features such as collaboration calendars, photo-sharing capabilities, 3-D medical animations, community blogs and voice-driven storytelling tools.

The collaboration builds upon the hospice provider’s efforts to educate its communities about “the timeliness, accessibility and value of dying with dignity, peace and comfort,” according to Weldon.

Based in Austin, Texas, CareFlash arose in 2005 out of founder Jay Drayer’s personal experience when a family member faced chronic illness.

The tech platform company partners with hospice and palliative care providers, as well as those in the home health, acute, post-acute, chronic, cognitive and senior living spaces. CareFlash also partners with payers and faith-based, funeral and professional services organizations.

The collaboration with CareFlash is a way to enhance “whole-person care” for patients and families during the final stages of life, according to Snowline Hospice CEO Tim Meadows.

“We offer The Careopolis at no cost to our community and see it as an engaging way for family and friends to connect online and celebrate their loved one’s memory throughout the challenging time following a loss,” said Meadows.

Established in 1979, non-profit Snowline Hospice provides community-based care across roughly 60 cities throughout El Dorado, Placer and Sacramento counties in California.

Snowline also collaborates internationally with Hospice Ethiopia to improve access for patients in that east African nation.

Hospice utilization among Medicare decedents reached 45.2% during 2018 in The Golden State, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. This was slightly below the national average of 50.6% that year, MEDPAC reported.

Demographics could swell demand for hospice in the next few decades. Seniors represent nearly 15% of California’s overall population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This number is anticipated to double to 30% by 2060, according to a report from the California Department of Aging. The agency also indicated that a majority of the state’s counties would see increases of more than 100% in this age group.