The pandemic spurred major growth for the home health sector — investments in these companies shot up from $2.2 billion in 2020 to $4.7 billion in 2021, according to a recent report published by 7WireVentures. The venture capital firm predicted that the healthcare industry will continue to shift more toward more home-based care offerings.
A major reason for this is that home-based healthcare solutions hold great potential to improve the patient experience while enhancing the accessibility, quality and convenience of care, according to the report. The report also pointed out that home health opens doors for extending care to underserved populations, thereby addressing healthcare disparities alleviating the burden on health systems.
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In the view of 7WireVentures, embracing home-based care is a key step on the journey toward a more patient-centric and efficient healthcare landscape. The firm provided three predictions on how it thinks the home health sector will grow in coming years.
- The more the healthcare industry moves toward home-based care, the more patient demand for this modality will increase. This creates a “virtuous cycle towards value-based care.”
The rising interest in value-based models will foster the widespread adoption and acceptance of home-based healthcare, favoring companies and solutions that hold providers accountable for cost and outcomes, 7WireVentures argued.This will require better integration of various home healthcare platforms and tools, as well as investments in technologies that can synchronize care, collect aggregated data and flag gaps in care. 7WireVentures noted that the success of home health companies will depend on their ability to effectively integrate with existing disparate solutions and adapt to various clinician types and specialties.
- Due to the persistent shortage of healthcare workers and limited access to preventative care in traditional settings, established healthcare stakeholders will be forced to extend their services into home-based settings to meet patients’ needs.
In order to grow and survive, large healthcare stakeholders are increasingly partnering with digital health startups and other non-traditional players. Examples include CVS’ $8 billion acquisition of Signify Health and Amazon’s plan to buy One Medical for nearly $4 billion.
Health systems are doing this too — for instance, Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System in April announced a major joint venture with AccentCare, a provider of tech-enabled home health and hospice services.
Partnerships like these will play a major role in ensuring the sustainability of home-based care models, 7WireVentures predicted. New primary care models from non-traditional players could make up as much as 30% of the $260 billion primary care market by 2030, the report pointed out.
- With improved capacity to gather more comprehensive user data, healthcare providers will gain a deeper understanding of their patients. This will enable providers to adopt a personalized, holistic approach to delivering care.
Effective personalized care will encompass not only health metrics, but also social determinants of health. This shift will also facilitate a greater emphasis on preventive interventions at earlier stages, resulting in reduced costs in the long run, the report noted.Companies like Netflix and Starbucks have already leveraged personalization to make their businesses better, but the healthcare industry is in the early stages of adopting this approach, 7WireVentures said.
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