Dan Hirschfeld, CEO Whether you ask a physician working on the front lines or take a 30,000- foot view of the industry as a whole, we know that improving the U.S. health system will require the simultaneous pursuit of the triple aims: improved experience of care, improved health of populations, and reduced costs. Several challenges have hindered the industry’s progress towards these goals, including: the costs associated with adopting, implementing and learning new technology, specifically in the older adult population; a lack of reliable revenue sources; and the limited adoption of virtual care methods by providers and patients alike. All of this changed in 2020.

In large part due to the changes forced upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional barriers blocking remote patient care diminished. Virtual care went from being an intriguing option to becoming a mission-critical, and often preferred, necessity of care delivery. Nearly overnight, providers— some of whom had been reluctant to incorporate telehealth for years— were essentially required to embrace these tools in order to continue providing care to meet their patients’ needs. Meanwhile, patients of all ages were left with no other choice but to adapt to these new models of care delivery as stay at home orders, fear of infection and care delays disrupted traditional care delivery. Perhaps no group was more challenged by this change than seniors, among which only 1 in 10 patients used telehealth prior to COVID-19. While rapid adoption was necessary in ensuring non-physical care delivery, it became clear that not all solutions are created equal in terms of quality and accessibility of care for aging adults and the providers who specifically care for them.

Already at the forefront of addressing gaps in care and advancing virtual care for this patient population is Cosán Group, an industry-leading healthcare organization focused on creating new pathways to modern aging with technology-driven preventative care services, through concierge virtual care for older adults on behalf of their provider partners. Since 2015, their team has been developing technology solutions and services to improve the delivery of preventative care for at-risk older adults which support successful aging in place. Never knowing how large and complex these gaps would become in 2020, Cosan’s advancements in the market in years prior had positioned themselves, and their partners, for enhanced success as they responded to this shifting care landscape.

Now that the pandemic has thrust telehealth into the mainstream across all of healthcare, Cosán continues to look ahead at how they can build on telehealth’s momentum to further improve the outcomes for at-risk, aging, and chronically ill patients. At the same time, their approach is also increasing practice efficiency, introducing new sources of fee-for-service revenue, and enabling the shift towards value-based care for providers. The key factor is driving remote patient monitoring and remote preventative care management for more patients.

“Cosán strives for excellence in preventative care services for at-risk older adults to support successful aging in place. In collaboration with providers, Cosán uses advanced technology with a network of healthcare methods to analyze, evaluate, and coordinate care plans to reduce the cost of care, increase practice revenue, and improve outcomes and quality measures while enhancing the quality of life for the individuals we serve and the overall experience of aging,” says Dan Hirschfeld, CEO, Cosán Group.

By building off their rapid adoption of virtual care, Cosán continues to integrate other emerging technologies like AI and machine learning to develop evidence based risk stratification for more efficient, engaging, and easy-to-use tools for this at-risk patient population— the most critical being remote patient monitoring, or RPM.

With over 70 percent of all healthcare dollars in the United States spent on those with multiple chronic conditions— including the 60 percent of seniors who deal with more than one condition— and as our elderly and aging population continues to explode, it’s hard to understate how critical the needs of seniors will be to the future of the overall healthcare technology landscape.