Stephen Parodi, MD, shares Kaiser Permanente model for providing acute care at home

Stephen Parodi, MD, associate executive director of The Permanente Medical Group, sat down with the American Medical Association as part of its COVID-19 Update video series to share Kaiser Permanente’s unique model for providing patients with acute-level care at home.

“This transformation was occurring before the pandemic. In fact, our medical group had been doing exploratory work over a year before, where we had convened focus groups with patients as well as providers to understand, ‘How could we do this?’” Dr. Parodi explained.

In its Northwest and Northern California regions, Kaiser Permanente has advanced care at home programs that leverage physician-led command centers, community care teams, the organization’s comprehensive electronic health records, and remote monitoring to ensure hospital-grade, person-centered care for patients with complex conditions such as sepsis, pneumonia, and coronavirus.

By delivering care in patients’ homes, clinicians and care team members can also gain insight into a patient’s social determinants of health, Dr. Parodi said. Health care teams can identify barriers such as food insecurity and transportation needs and connect patients to support resources.

Dr. Parodi also spoke about the recently announced partnership between Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, and Medically Home, a digital technology platform company that enables the coordination of acute-care-at-home services. The health organizations’ strategic investment in Medically Home is “going to allow us to … essentially expand the platform and get to more patients faster, both within our 2 systems, Mayo and Kaiser Permanente. But our real goal here is to increase access throughout the country.”

Note: Watch the entire AMA interview below. Read more in this story on the AMA site.