HEALTHCARE AT HOME:
THE  ROWAN TECHNOLOGY REPORT

by Darcey Trescone

FirstLight Home Care, a leading national provider of non-medical home care services, announced it would join Dina's digital home care coordination network. With more than 200 locations across the country, FirstLight Home Care will leverage Dina’s technology to enhance care coordination with its hospital and health plan partners.

Dina is a health engagement company with a large, growing ecosystem of home-and community-based providers. The comprehensive network enables consumers, health plans, and ACOs to explore, learn and engage with the rapidly increasing number of services that keep people healthy in their homes. 

Ashish V. Shah, co-founder, and CEO of Dina, "We started Dina a little over six years ago, coming off our previous venture where I was a CTO and Head of Product. And that company was Medicity, where we helped build the market leader for healthcare interoperability at that time. Although we worked with health plans, 1,300 hospitals, and 300,00 ambulatory users and practices, we never touched home health, hospice, non-medical care, and the growing number of services that can now be delivered in the home."

"I share that background context because the reason why Dina exists is to help drive greater collaboration with patients in their home and community. Through my work with Medicity, it became painfully obvious that to build real value-based programs, it was necessary to include where the patient was receiving services, in the home and community. Then my father passed away. He received personal care aide services in his home and was frequently in and out of senior centers before passing. While spending time with his caregivers, I learned that the post-acute market had meaningful insights about my father's decline, but that information was not being shared in a way that could have been acted upon." Shah

Dina's digital community includes leading providers of home health care, non-medical home care, durable medical equipment, physician house call services, and providers addressing social determinants of health. Providing a platform that allows healthcare providers to find reputable partners across the care continuum to service patients, Dina also facilitates communication between care providers and patients and analytics that identify insights into a patient's care.

"We have worked with other care coordination platforms, and they were beneficial. We see care coordination as being an ongoing trend. In our conversations with Dina, we felt strongly that they were in alignment with our vision and the trends we see in healthcare." Kerri Pendley, Vice President of Strategy, FirstLight Home Care.

"Working with Dina, FirstLight Home Care will offer care-at-home and other solutions to help its partners improve visibility in the home and deliver higher-acuity services. The partnership will complement FirstLight Home Care’s strategic relationship with Medicare Advantage plans offering In-Home Support Service benefits now and, in the future." Pendley

"Medicare Advantage is an opportunity for our industry, and that is exciting. It may not be the most attractive rates or authorized service hours, but it demonstrates that we are making progress. Pendley continues, I encourage providers to be patient for these things to change. Stay focused on proven outcomes that demonstrate to health plans the benefits of what we do. Get your foot in the door and work with other providers to advocate for progress with the health plans. Be in the now, think innovatively, and embrace the opportunities that we have right now."

About FirstLight Home Care

FirstLight Home Care is a leading provider of home care services, helping individuals achieve the quality of life they deserve. The company has set a new standard in the industry by creating an unmatched Culture of Care that drives client and employee satisfaction. FirstLight is a lifeline not only for seniors but for people recovering from illness, injury, or surgery, adults with disabilities, those with dementia, veterans, and anyone 18 and older who needs in-home support. FirstLight Home Care’s mission is to deliver exceptional, compassionate care provided by extraordinary caregivers so that all those who are served may age with comfort, dignity, and independence in the place they call home. FirstLight also provides the resources and support family caregivers need to care for their loved ones. The franchise network includes more than 200 independently owned and operated home care locations throughout the United States. Visit FirstLightHomeCare.com. 

About Dina

Dina powers the future of home-based care. We are an AI-powered care-at-home platform and network that can activate and coordinate multiple home-based service providers, engage patients directly, and unlock timely home-based insights that increase healthy days at home. The platform creates a virtual experience for the entire healthcare team so they can communicate with each other--and help patients and families stay connected--even though they may not physically be under the same roof. Dina helps professional and family caregivers capture rich data from the home, using artificial intelligence to recommend evidence-based, non-medical interventions. For more information, visit www.dinacare.com. 

Darcey Trescone is a Healthcare IS and Business Development Consultant in the Post-Acute Healthcare Market with a strong background working with both providers and vendors specific to Home Care and Hospice. She has worked as a home health nurse and held senior operational, product management and business development positions with various post-acute software firms, where her responsibilities included new and existing market penetration, customer retention and oversight of teams across the U.S., Canada and Australia. She can be reached at darcey@tresconeconsulting.com.

©2021 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Home Care Technology: The Rowan Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com