Netsmart, VNS Health Partner

OVERLAND PARK, Kansas & NEW YORK— Netsmart, a health care information technology provider for community-based care, and VNS Health, a provider of post-acute care services and value-based models of care, have announced a collaboration aimed at transforming end-of-life care through machine learning and predictive analytics. The partnership intends to leverage technology and clinical expertise, prioritize patient visit scheduling, support patient and family experience and improve measures for hospice visits in the last days of life (HVLDL).

“At VNS Health, we work hard to make health care simple to understand, easy to access and meaningful in outcomes for everyone we serve,” said Dan Savitt, president and CEO of VNS Health. “We are proud to be an industry leader in developing evidence-based predictive analytics models that aim to dramatically improve people’s lives. Our partnership with Netsmart helps us scale this innovation for wider impact and supports purposeful conversations about end-of-life care between clinicians, patients and their loved ones.”

As a nonprofit home and community-based health care organization, VNS Health seeks to provide care and treatment options for individuals in need of homecare, including those facing serious illness. This new partnership aims to offer Netsmart clients, as well as the broader hospice provider industry, access to VNS Health’s predictive analytics for HVLDL, which are included in the Netsmart “myUnity” electronic health record platform. The platform includes the capabilities to support value-based payment models into a single platform.

The VNS Health HVLDL algorithm intends to examine each hospice patient’s case history and unveil clinical indicators that occur within a seven-day period. The algorithm, a machine learning model, was trained using more than 1.9 million health records from nearly 10,000 historical patients. Additionally, the platform intends to provide evidence-based care recommendations for delivering care to hospice patients in the last days of life. 

The HVLDL initiative seeks to provide the Netsmart “CareFabric” platform with augmented intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotic process automation and greater automation in health care delivery. The Netsmart suite of AI and automation technologies aim to enhance clinical decision-making, operational efficiency and provider ability to deliver effective and personalized care.

“AI and advanced automation are having an incredible impact on the way we think about solving today’s challenges and opportunities—it’s all progressing at an astonishing rate,” said Mike Valentine, CEO of Netsmart. “Our core strategy focuses on augmented intelligence, providing tools that support staff and clinicians in delivering effective care. Together with VNS Health, we will continue to expand augmented intelligence solutions with additional predictive models to drive efficiency in palliative, homecare and hospice communities.”