Ariadne Labs has launched a Rural Home Hospital Accelerator to help hospitals across the U.S. jumpstart efforts to transform rural healthcare. Through the nine-month program, hospitals serving rural populations will gain access to the tools, expertise, and support needed to successfully launch a home hospital program.
Access to high-quality, high-value acute care services in rural communities is a growing national problem. About 1 in 5 Americans live in rural areas, totaling nearly 60 million people. Yet, access to acute care is limited, with more than 150 rural hospitals closing since 2010, and the quality and safety of the acute care that is available is often lower than in larger urban facilities.
With the recent introduction of the Rural Health Transformation Program, states have an exciting opportunity to transform health care delivery in rural communities across America. This five-year effort from CMS dedicates $50 billion to help states improve access, quality, and outcomes in rural health care.
The Rural Home Hospital Solution
Ariadne Labs’ Home Hospital team has been working for years to design, test, and spread an effective model of home-based acute care. Through this model, a multidisciplinary team provides all the care normally delivered in a hospital including IV infusions, continuous monitoring, and diagnostics, directly to patients in their homes. Conditions treated include the most common reasons for internal medicine admission, such as infection, exacerbation of heart failure, asthma, COPD, and complications of diabetes.
While home-based acute care is growing in urban settings, with 360 urban hospitals across 139 health systems adopting programs, few of these programs operate in rural areas, where there is opportunity for outsized impact. In recognition of the geographic disparities in access and quality of care, and financial distress of rural hospitals across the US, Ariadne Labs launched the Rural Home Hospital project in November 2018 to adapt the urban model and implement innovative technologies, top-of-license personnel, and novel workflows to deliver high-value acute rural care. A randomized controlled trial found lower costs for patients who start care at home quickly, similar safety and quality outcomes, and significantly higher patient and caregiver satisfaction.
The Accelerator
The Rural Home Hospital Accelerator will support states interested in using their RHT funding to launch a rural home hospital program. The Ariadne team will provide expertise in designing and managing home hospital programs. Relying on a Scrum framework for rapid product development, accelerator participants collectively learn, create, and implement together as a community.
In a previous Early Adopters Accelerator, led by Ariadne Labs in collaboration with CaroNova in North Carolina, 18 health systems successfully developed 20 rural home hospital knowledge products over a 32-week period. Findings from the initial accelerator showed that the solutions developed were useful, high-quality, and would improve patient care.
Rural hospital sites will be selected through a competitive process that will assess their readiness for program deployment, leadership buy-in, and contextual factors that will contribute to effective collaboration with Ariadne Labs and a high likelihood of home hospital launch.
By the end of the Accelerator, participating accelerator hospitals will be prepared to launch home hospital programs at their individual hospitals.
Learn more about the Accelerator in our Request for Applications.
Attend an informational webinar to learn more about Ariadne Lab’s expertise and the Rural Home Hospital Accelerator: Thursday, January 29th 3-4pm EST