STATE COLLEGE — Juniper Village at Brookline recently implemented the Connect4Life model developed by Juniper Communities.
Connect4Life integrates onsite primary care and pharmacy and lab services with social supports and residential care. Juniper’s approach fully integrates with other ancillary services using high-tech/high-touch communications that transfer the resident’s information through an electronic health record. This system ultimately coordinates a resident’s total care through a human navigator.
Studies indicate this model results in better health outcomes. An independent analysis showed that Juniper residents had 50 percent lower inpatient hospitalization rates — and more than 80 percent lower readmission rates — compared to non-Juniper Medicare patients with similar conditions.
The findings are significant, because the number of older patients with multiple health care needs is rapidly increasing. Care for complex patients now accounts for more than half of the nation’s yearly health care costs. Operators of seniors’ housing facilities nationwide are eager to better bridge residential housing with health care services for the wave of aging Americans in need of both, but few have demonstrably improved outcomes or lowered costs.
“More frail seniors are living longer and managing multiple chronic diseases, but current senior care models — whether rooted in housing or health care — aren’t meeting their unique challenges, despite a lot of effort,” said Lynne Katzmann, CEO of Juniper Communities. “The analysis shows that Juniper Communities cracked the code by successfully integrating clinical care with supportive services and top-notch residential facilities.”
The study, conducted by independent researcher Anne Tumlinson, compared Connect4Life results to data in the 2012 Medicare Beneficiaries Survey for similarly disabled and cognitively impacted Medicare populations living in the greater community, as well as those living in seniors’ housing that does not have integrated health care programs. Although Juniper’s residents were older and more cognitively impaired than the overall Medicare population, the Connect4Life model consistently produced better results.
“The findings clearly suggest that integrated seniors housing services programs like Juniper Communities’ Connect4Life have great potential to reduce the cost of care to high-need, high-cost Medicare beneficiaries,” said Tumlinson, who has more than two decades of experience in health care and long-term care policy and research.
“This is incredibly important news for accountable care and managed care organizations who should be working with innovative seniors housing providers to manage population health. Juniper’s Connect4Life model appears able to outperform fee-for-service Medicare for similarly frail beneficiaries living in the community or other seniors’ housing.’
“The findings of this research can have a big impact on the quality of life for frail seniors living in seniors housing communities,” said Robert Kramer, CEO of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care, at whose conference the findings were released.
“Fewer trips to the hospital means a better quality of life for seniors and enhanced ability to do the things they want to do, which includes not being defined by health problems,’ said Kramer. ‘This is a key part of the fundamental value proposition of seniors housing and care communities.”
For more information, visit www.junipercommunities.com.
