Hello, everyone. My name is Madeleine Ashley with
Becker's Healthcare podcast series. Thank you so much
for tuning in. Today, I'm thrilled to be
joined by Joseph Buchanan, senior vice president of
clinical network at Matrix Medical Network.
Joe, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much
for joining us. Thanks, Madeleine. Happy to be
here, and I appreciate being invited back.
Of course. So let's kick things off. Just
if you could start with a little bit
more about yourself and your current role in
your organization, that'd be great. Sure. Absolutely.
So I spent, you know, the early part
of my career as a hospice nurse,
and I'm board certified as hospice and palliative
care clinician.
Probably for about the last dozen years or
so, I've been in leadership roles leading large
clinical teams, like I am today,
in organizations that specialize specifically in bringing care
into the home.
And, you know, one of the things that's
always really excited me is the significant impact
that the right leader can have on improving
the quality of care that patients receive.
You know, I've been with Matrix Medical Network
now for just a hair under 2 years,
and really being able to leverage my background
to implement, you know, best practices and enable
what I call the world class care that
our clinicians provide, and improve patient outcomes on,
like, a large national scale,
is exciting. It's really what makes my heart
happy.
I don't know if if everyone listening is
familiar with Matrix Medical Network, but if not,
I'll I'll tell you a little bit about
us.
We did pioneer the 1st national in home
clinical network.
And today, we stand as the only independent
provider of in home assessment serving people across
the nation. Right? We're an extension of the
services that our client partners, you know, health
plans,
provider groups, you know, at risk organizations
provide.
And we enhance their benefits,
you know, that they provide to to their
members by, you know, caring for those individuals
where they're most comfortable.
And where they're most comfortable is typically wherever
they call home.
Thank you so much for giving that overview
there, Joe. And to to kinda kick things
off, you know, at home and virtual care
remain at the forefront of many payer organizations'
clinical and growth strategies.
This in mind, can can you share, you
know, an overview of Matrix Medical Network's approach
in this realm and and in your view,
what factors or maybe considerations are essential to
providing this high quality care for in these
settings?
Yeah. Absolutely, Madeline. A lot of things are
essential, and we can kind of talk through
some of those. But, you know, at at
Matrix, our mission really is to partner with
people on their journey towards better health. Right?
And that means that they're gonna need the
support. They're gonna need the education
and and the care, you know, that they
need to be able to do that. Now
from a clinical standpoint,
I think one of the things that's essential
is that you have a network that's made
up of, you know, health care leaders and
professionals who are really committed to to using
their clinical skill and their judgment at the
point of care, right, to improve the lives
of those patients that they see. You know,
that's being clinician led,
and that's what we do. You know, being
clinician led is, you know, really one of
the factors that leads to the high quality
care.
So, you know, we ensure that our our
providers are highly trained, you know, they're experienced,
they're board certified,
and they're they're employed by our organization. They're
w two employees of our organization. So, they're
really the eyes and ears of our patient
care.
You know, we make sure that we have
the technology to facilitate their work,
but, you know, it's their experience and their
judgment of each individual situation
that really prevails in in how they advocate
for their patients and how they care for
them.
You know, because we're in the home,
one of the things that I just love
and and why I've spent so much of
my career in in home care
is that when we're in the home, we
get to see things other people don't. Right?
And we're able to assess some you know,
someone's health in all of its dimensions. You
know, we we get to see the real
person in their daily environment. And, you know,
they're typically, you know, striving to feel better.
They're trying to do more. They wanna live
a fuller life.
And, you know, we we typically will uncover
medical and social gaps in care and
and find out what are those incompatibilities
that we find when we're in the home,
you know, between that person's care plans maybe
and and their individual lifestyle or their environment.
So I think that's a really important component
of in home care. And and regardless of
the situation,
you know, our providers will thoroughly document everything
they see, and they, obviously, will diagnose acute
and chronic and, you know, sometimes transient or
even emergent conditions.
And, you know,
as we keep talking about what's essential to
providing that high quality care, you know, anyone
that is providing what you would consider high
quality care to another person,
you know, they have to have that strong
commitment to quality and accuracy. No commitment to
do the right thing and and always do
things in the right way, and that needs
to be unyielding, and there are no exceptions
to that rule.
The last thing I'll tell you here on
the the topic is,
you know, quality is essential, and it needs
to be built into every single process in
an organization.
That's something that I've been very dedicated to,
Matrix is dedicated to, and and I'll just
give you an example.
You know, our processes for things like ensuring
coding accuracy. Right? Things that we don't always
all think about,
but our processes for doing that,
you know, they're rigorous and they're relentless and
they have to be and they should be.
And they establish
consistency across the organization,
and really provide the best outcomes.
You know, we'll then, you know, transparently share
all of the information from our visits with
our health plans and primary care providers.
And having
that structure,
and those processes,
you know, allows us to do things like
maintain a greater than 99% coding accuracy rate
over the years. So incredibly important as we
talk about what really is truly essential.
And, Joe, you you kind of already touched
on, you know, the clinician led approach, but
to dive a little deeper here, how does
this approach to in home assessments benefit payers'
broader aims, you know, to what you were
touching on a little bit, patient
experience, quality, health equity, and and care access.
You could dive deeper here. Yeah. Absolutely. It's
it's incredibly important. So, you know, being clinician
led means that you really are centered around
that whole person care model. Right? And that's
that's the model we have at.
You know, it's a comprehensive
model. You know, it's it's a home based
clinical care kind of model focused on assessing
and addressing
all of the patient's needs. Right? So it's
not just what you see when someone walks
into a provider's office,
but it addresses the physical, the emotional, the
spiritual, the social, even the environmental needs,
so that people can be connected with the
right providers and the right resources.
You know, one of the things that and,
again, I I'll just keep saying how much
I love care in the home,
because we get to witness things that are
complicated by life situations. Right? We can see
obstacles that, you know, maybe can be navigated
by providing, you know, access to some practical
solutions.
You know, we'll get to hear each person's
unique story, see what their individual challenges are
firsthand.
You know, and and that allows us to
do certain things. Right?
So in addition to being able to, you
know, support someone that might be medically complex,
you know, we get to connect people with,
you know, pharmacies maybe if they can't get
out of the home and they need
a mail order. We connect people to food
banks, transportation, you know, things like that that
aren't always common in a lot of health
care settings because, you know, someone's health has
a lot of layers, and it's personal to
everybody.
You know, we we have the opportunity as
well to to spend a lot of time.
Right? So no matter how long it takes,
one of the goals that that we talk
about in the organization
and that that all of our clinicians have
is that no matter how long it takes,
we always, 100% of the time,
wanna make sure that people are in a
better place when we leave than when we
walk through their door.
So these are the things that I mean
when I kind of talk about that clinician
led, that whole person care model and approach.
Right? It's really kind of all of these
things and being the bridge between the care
teams, insurers, and and the community support resources
that people need. So kinda going back to
your question,
it means the patient experience, you know, the
quality care, the improved health equity is addressed
and and positively benefits, really, the entire ecosystem.
So that's the patient, the payer, the family,
all involved.
I could keep going and and talk about
this for days.
No. Definitely. It's nice to hear some passion
here in this area. And, you know, we've
talked about, you know, the in home,
care and virtual care here.
So now let's look towards the future here.
How do you anticipate this this world to
evolve?
I will tell you, Madeline, I wish I
had a crystal ball, but I'm pretty confident
that some of the evolution that we're gonna
see is that more and more care is
gonna shift to the home, and and we
all need to really embrace that. You know,
there are several reasons.
The first is access. It's critical. Right? So
there are a lot of people
that are not able to get out of
their home, either because they're homebound, they don't
have reliable transportation.
Maybe they are not near a provider's office
that they're comfortable getting to. Right? So access
is a big deal. You know? And then,
you know, if we're doing these things in
the home, there are no waiting rooms. You
know? There are no trying to figure out
that transportation. And, you know, sad to say,
a lot of people ignore their health care
because they just don't know how they're gonna
get to that doctor's office, or they're afraid
of going into that doctor's office.
You know, second,
we know more now than we have ever
known before about how someone's living situation can
affect their health. Right?
I remember a few years ago, I went
into a patient's home, and and this gentleman
was a diabetic,
poorly controlled.
And when I went in, there were 2
glaring problems.
One, you know, I was able to spend
a pretty good amount of time with him,
and I found out that
besides not understanding diet very well and needing
some education there, which he got,
he didn't really have a way to store
healthy food,
nor did he have a way to store
his insulin because he had a broken refrigerator
and he couldn't afford to get it fixed.
So we had to work through that and
figure out in this person's unique situation,
how do we make these things happen?
If I were to see him in another
care setting outside of his home,
he probably wouldn't have told me about his
refrigerator.
I wouldn't have had his insulin,
his room temperature insulin in my hand.
So that's one of the reasons we need
to embrace
the shift of providing more care in the
home.
Home safety, you know, can be a lot
more comprehensively
evaluated.
Falls, especially in our older population,
can can be fatal,
you know, and and, you know, being able
to look at the home, do a fall
risk assessment, and and really assess that environment,
can really do a lot to keep someone
safe. And there's just so many reasons, why
bringing more care into the home should be
part of the evolution of health
care. Well, thank you so much for sharing
that example, Joe. It's it's so interesting to
hear, you know, how some of these patients,
you know, might come in to see a
provider and and they wouldn't even mention some
of these things. And you get into the
home and you can really see, you know,
what they're working with. You're right. And and,
Madeleine, you know, it's it's funny.
What, is not uncommon
is that when you have someone,
that is trying to put their best forward
so that they can go to their PCPs
office, for example. That might be the only
time that person showered that week and got
out of the home, and that might be
the only person they saw all week. So
they're gonna put their best foot forward,
and someone's gonna get to see them on
what's gonna look like a good day. But
when you actually get to go and see
them in their environment, in their true living
situation,
things might look an awful lot different.
No. So true. Well, Joe, is there anything
else that,
you know, we didn't cover here today or
any additional final thoughts that you might like
to share with our listeners?
Yeah. I'll, you know, I'll I'll tell you
a couple of things. And and you know
what's interesting is that so many people don't
know what their their health plan provides to
them. Right? And I'll I'll tell you a
quick story about my mom, if you don't
mind.
So 2 years ago, she she reached out
to me and she said, you know, someone
called her and asked her to schedule an
in home wellness assessment with a nurse practitioner.
And I said, well, mom, what did you
say? And she said, well, I told them
no because I've never heard of such a
thing.
Meanwhile, this is what I I do for
a living and have done for many, many
years. And I thought to myself, oh, mom,
I have failed you as a son.
You know, you should absolutely say yes to
an in home assessment. So I explained to
her what it was. I explained to her
the importance of it,
and we called them back, right, and and
scheduled a visit. And my mother found it
so valuable. Right? So she actually independently without
my intervention this year, scheduled her second,
annual visit about 2 months ago. And
this is why I am so happy that
she has done this, and I I wish
everybody would.
She's been a smoker for about 50 years.
Right? And she will not talk to me
about it. Right? She refuses. She has never
expressed interest in quitting to me.
But she actually discussed her desire to try
and quit with the nurse practitioner that came
to her to her home,
and that NP spent time educating her. Right?
And it turns out what was stopping my
mom is that she was worried about going
on the patch because she heard that the
patch could cause heart palpitations.
So the NP actually helped her
prepare with questions and what she needed to
think about when she met with her PCP.
So that NP prepared her for that conversation
with her family doctor. Right? So today, she's
actually on the patch and, fingers crossed, on
her way to being smoke free.
The reason I wanted to share this kind
of final thought,
is really two reasons. You know, I see
every day firsthand how valuable in home visits
are. Right? Not just during the course of
my work at Matrix, but in this case,
in my own family's life. Right?
2nd,
we need to do everything possible to ensure
that the benefits that people like my mom
are enjoying
are known to everyone that has these benefits.
Right? We've gotta talk about them with a
megaphone.
Everyone needs to fully understand the power of
meeting people where they are and wherever they
call home, whether you're a health plan, whether
you're a PCP.
This is incredibly important. Right? This nurse practitioner
did 2 things. Right? May have very well
provided my mom with a pathway to a
longer healthier life. Right? All because she was
able to sit in my mom's living room
where she was comfortable and spend an hour.
This visit did a second thing too. Right?
This drove my mom to her PCP.
So now she had a reason to go
to her PCP
to
help improve her health. Right? And this is
something that we see quite often, and it's
incredibly important and a very positive development.
Yeah. And, of course, you know, it's nice
to hear that, people like yourself, Joe, are
championing patients to to to go do this
as well, you know, to to to speak
to someone.
Absolutely.
Wonderful.
Well, Joe, thank you so much for your
time in this wonderful discussion today, and we,
of course, wanna thank our podcast sponsor for
this episode, Matrix Medical Network. And you can
tune in to more podcasts from from Becker's
Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com.