​ADVERTORIAL

I’m often asked about what makes TapestryHealth so special and so successful, and the answer is easy. First, Tapestry hires very dedicated clinicians – like me – who are seeking out this type of position, who have geriatric experience, who are creative and entrepreneurial, and who sincerely want to help both their clients and their patients.

Second, they give us the tools we need to make an impact. We have the technology and the support of doctors and specialists on call when we need them, to deliver life-altering, often life-saving care. And most important, we each have our own group of patients, just like any other PCP practice. I get to know my patients and their history, the nurses I work with and the families whose loved ones I care for. I see these patients regularly for monthly wellness checks, in urgent care situations, for follow-up visits and bedside checks whenever someone “just doesn’t seem right.” I have that old-fashioned doctor-patient relationship that patients, especially elderly ones, respond to so well. It’s really not a mystery, and it’s something that any other skilled nursing facility could add. It doesn’t drive up cost, either; in fact, it drives up revenue not to mention reputation, lowers hospitalization rates, and improves CMS rankings.

Here are three examples of facilities that I’ve been working with for three years or less. They are all located in the mid-west, and they would be considered rural facilities, so I see my patients there via remote technology. And don’t think for a minute that elderly patients don’t like the idea of telemedicine. When I’m rolling down the hall from room to room, I often have my dog with me on the screen, and it’s funny to hear all these people calling out “Hello” to me and my dog and inviting us in for a visit!

• This one is my most impressive stories and one I’m especially proud of. The facility had a disturbingly high rate of re-hospitalizations. It was one of the things on a long list that they wanted us to address and improve when TapestryHealth first joined them. In approximately three years, their hospitalization rate dropped from 36.4 percent to just 2.4 percent. That represents a reduction of more than 90 percent. More importantly, it means that a lot of people weren’t subjected to the stress and the risks of a hospital stay, and the facility was delivering better care and stabilizing its census.

• In one of the facilities where I’ve been working the longest, we have reduced the hospitalization rate by over 70 percent, dropping from 28.5 percent to 13 percent and it’s still coming down.

• Another favorite is a facility whose re-hospitalization rate dropped from 28.3 percent to 13 percent, and we’re still working to get that even lower. That’s a goal I’m confident we’ll reach.

I don’t achieve the exact same numbers in every facility, but we’ve come pretty close. And it’s worth noting that these successes all occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, in some of my facilities we had lower return-to-hospital rates during Covid than we did before, and enviable survival rates. That’s all due to timely care delivered the patient needs it.

If you’re a nurse practitioner, this is the kind of impact that made you want to become one in the first place. If you’re the administrator or an owner of a facility, this is the medical eco-system you’ve always wanted – effective, efficient, and profitable.

Mary Beth Malen is an adult nurse practitioner experienced in geriatric and critical care medicine. If you’d like a clinician like her on your team, email Chief Growth Officer Mordy Eisenberg at meisenberg@tapestryhealth.com or call (203) 721-6822.