Mount Sinai Health System and Contessa, the leading comprehensive home-based care provider, announced the extension of their partnership combining Mount Sinai South Nassau's home health agency into their existing joint venture. The new combination offers a full continuum of home-based care that includes home health, hospitalization at home, rehabilitation at home (in lieu of care at a skilled nursing facility) and palliative care at home. The home health agency will be called Mount Sinai at Home.
"This new initiative accelerates our strategic goal of delivering a continuum of home-based care to more Mount Sinai patients," said Aaron Stein, chief operating officer at Contessa. "Mount Sinai at Home provides a strong offering to patients, providers and health plans. Together, we are truly changing healthcare by rendering care where patients want it the most, their homes."
This new entity is the result of a strengthened joint venture between Mount Sinai Health System and Contessa, an Amedisys company (NASDAQ: AMED), which first partnered in 2017 to provide hospitalization at home and expanded in 2021 to offer palliative care at home. Mount Sinai at Home, as Mount Sinai South Nassau's home health agency is now called, currently treats nearly 3,000 patients each year with a 96% patient satisfaction rate and maintains a 4-star quality rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
"Mount Sinai at Home will allow South Nassau to expand our services to patients in the growing areas like 'hospital at home,' home care and home infusion therapy," said Dr. Adhi Sharma, President of Mount Sinai South Nassau. "We have a long tradition of bringing high quality patient care directly to the home where it can be delivered in more comfortable and familiar surroundings, often at reduced cost. Increasingly, this is what patients want and we are pleased to be on the cutting edge of that trend."
Several emerging trends strengthen the case for a broadening the home-based care continuum, including patient and physician preference. A recent Capital Caring Health survey found that 90% of Americans over the age of 50 want to remain in their homes and age in place. CarePort reports that home health referrals have increased during the public health emergency, but skilled nursing referrals continue to decline.
"The pandemic forced healthcare into the home, and it is a trend that is only growing," said Margaret Pastuszko, president and chief operating officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. "Mount Sinai at Home builds upon this momentum and offers consolidated opportunities for patients and physicians, decreasing the fragmentation that often plagues the healthcare industry. It's exciting to be creating a care model that is blazing the trail for advanced care at home."
About Contessa
Contessa, an Amedisys company, delivers comprehensive home-based care in patients' homes. An industry pioneer since 2015, Contessa provides a coordinated suite of services including Hospital-Level Care at Home, Rehabilitation Care at Home, in lieu of being admitted to nursing facilities, and Palliative Care at Home. Combining all the essential elements of an inpatient hospital or rehabilitation stay into the comfort of patient' homes, Contessa allows partners to reimagine care delivery. Contessa utilizes Care Convergence, a proprietary technology platform, to power a seamless solution that is safe, affordable and improves patient outcomes.
