Family Caregivers Are Vital, But Often Underappreciated

Dan Ansel, CEO, Active Daily Living

Family caregiving is an emotionally charged issue that creates an opportunity for providers to create highly engaged and valued relationships.

As the shift to value-based care gains momentum and more health systems participate in accountable care organizations and hospital-sponsored Medicare Advantage plans, management of services related to seniors and their caregivers has great potential to improve quality and cost of care — and positively impact the bottom line.

“Caregivers are taking on an increasingly important role, but our research shows that they often feel unappreciated and unsupported when they’re interacting with the health care delivery system,” says Dan Ansel, CEO of Active Daily Living.

“They share similar goals as their aging loved one: maximizing health, maintaining independence, engaging with life, and being safe while aging at home. But we found interesting results when we did a Google search in terms of hospitals and caregivers, family caregivers, and health care. There are over 10,000 hospitals in the United States, but only 25 came up on a search of some combination of ‘hospital and family caregivers.’ Fewer than 230 hospitals came up in a search using the term ‘hospital senior services.’”

“And therein lies the opportunity,” states Alexandra Drane, co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS. “Unpaid caregivers are an untapped resource.” In a survey conducted by Drane in collaboration with Dr. Nirav R. Shah, published by the New England Journal of Medicine, 83 percent of health care executives, clinical leaders, and clinicians said that unpaid caregivers should have a seat at the table and be part of the care team, but only 23 percent said they actually were.

Read the full article now: Family Caregivers: An Untapped Resource in Value-Based Care

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President