NORTHFIELD, Illinois and SILICON SLOPES, Utah—Medline and CareXM today announced an exclusive marketing and distribution agreement to serve the home health and hospice industry. The partnership between the two companies is focused on leveraging technology to relieve challenges of patient triage to help reduce staff burnout.

Home health and hospice agencies (HHAs) are experiencing increased call volumes, staffing challenges, high burnout and maxed-out resources. While outsourcing patient calls is nothing new for these agencies, it often results in poor care outcomes, inconsistency in service, lower patient quality scores and higher costs, the companies said in a news release. 

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Medline members will receive preferred pricing on CareXM’s technology, which guides incoming calls to available providers, and, when necessary, redirects and supplements these resources with CareXM’s 100-plus registered nurses. 

“Staff retention and burnout is providers’ most urgent problem,” said Shawn Scott, vice president of strategic business development at Medline. “Agency admins need ‘now’ technology solutions to empower clinicians to spend more time on the patient in front of them. CareXM transforms triage chaos by getting patients to the right person and giving nurses the relief they’ve been craving,” he added.

“Medline has long been an industry leader in partnering with best-in-class solutions that dramatically impact the way post-acute care companies deliver care,” said Ellen Kuebrich, senior vice president of business development at CareXM. “This partnership truly provides home care and hospice agencies with an innovative way to handle twice the patient volume at half the cost.”