Ochsner Health, a nonprofit health system based in New Orleans, recently announced the results of a strategic partnership to deliver acute and transitional care services at home. This initiative is designed to prevent low-acuity admissions from emergency departments and help reduce readmissions after patient discharge.
In March 2024, Ochsner Health partnered with myLaurel to launch the Acute Care at Home program at Ochsner Medical Center-New Orleans. The program focuses on improving patient outcomes, streamlining the operational flow of emergency departments, enhancing observation unit throughput, shortening hospital stays, reducing unnecessary hospital use and decreasing readmission rates.
myLaurel, based in New York, specializes in home-based acute and transitional care tailored to the needs of frail, elderly and complex patients.
The partnership has reportedly achieved remarkable early results, preventing initial admissions or 15-day readmissions for 92% of patients referred from the emergency department and observation units. This success paves the way for expansion to other Ochsner facilities as part of a broader initiative to scale the Acute Care at Home program across the health care system.
“We needed an answer to how we could better align care to patients in a non-hospital setting when their conditions are safe and appropriate for that disposition,” Logan Davies, medical director of hospital access and throughput at Ochsner Medical Center—New Orleans, told Home Health Care News. “Try as we may have, it proved to be time, labor and cost-intensive for Ochsner to home-grow this solution, and we were looking for a partner to help us. myLaurel and Ochsner really have grown together through this partnership and it has been exciting to be a witness to what we’ve done and what we’ve got planned.”
Through this partnership, providers can discharge eligible patients directly from the emergency department and observation units, using myLaurel’s at-home services to avoid unnecessary observation stays or inpatient admissions. This initiative has saved more than 1,000 inpatient days and has the potential to allow for more than 200 new admissions.
Patients receive home visits on the same day or the next day from a virtual physician leading an in-home care team. This team ensures the continuity of IV medications, manages point-of-care lab tests, treats symptoms, provides in-home education regarding treatment plans and conducts medication reconciliation.
Additionally, registered nurses perform seven-day remote check-ins with patients. During these check-ins, care plans are shared with the Ochsner team and the patient’s primary care physicians to coordinate treatment and minimize care gaps.
By monitoring patients at home, myLaurel can closely track symptoms, including those unrelated to the patient’s emergency visit, effectively preventing unnecessary hospital visits.
“The pilot took place for six months, March through August,” Davies said. “myLaurel is a flexible and responsive partner, and we constantly iterate to improve, such as starting in the emergency department and quickly adapting to broader care settings. We’re actively exploring and implementing different use cases as new opportunities emerge.”
Ochsner continues to roll out more use cases beyond just emergency department admission avoidance, including observation reduction and readmission avoidance impacts, according to Davies.
“We are also moving this into additional Ochsner facilities to understand how the program needs to work beyond the context of a large, academic referral hospital where it was launched,” he said. “We have one expansion site in a community setting underway and two more planned by end of year. Looking to 2025, we see exciting opportunities across more facilities and moving this resource upstream supporting alternatives to utilization from clinic, urgent care and even in the home settings. We believe that our patients shouldn’t have to show up to our hospital doorstep to be afforded this incredible resource and we have plans to make this a reality.”
