Delivering High-Touch Care in a Digital Age

You can’t know from inside a doctor’s office if a patient has a proper bed to sleep in at home.

You can’t see from a phone call if a patient has more food in her refrigerator for her pet than she does for herself.

And you can’t notice on a video call if a patient has a new wound on his body that he just didn’t bother to mention.

When it comes to caring for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), primary care providers, nephrologists, and other specialists can’t be everywhere and see everything – even with technology.

An Extension for Providers

That reality is why Strive Health’s teams serve as an extension of a provider’s office. As the nation’s leader in value-based kidney care, we help fill the gaps in day-to-day needs for patients with CKD and ESKD by both building strong relationships with them through digital communication and visiting them in person to gather valuable firsthand insights about their well-being.

With healthcare becoming more patient-centered and outcome-based, Strive leverages this unique combination of high-touch care and advanced technology to offer an “anywhere, anytime” data-driven delivery system that supports the entire patient journey and ensures seamless integration with local care providers.

“We’re here to augment the care that providers deliver,” explains Renee George, senior vice president of market operations at Strive Health. “We do that by giving providers additional information about a patient so they can make the best care decisions for them and also by building relationships with patients so they understand all that is going on with their disease.”

A Comprehensive Kidney Care Model

At Strive, our value-based kidney care model includes a dedicated nurse practitioner-led team, in-person and virtual visits with patients, and local provider integration.

Virtual visits are a vital tool for serving as many patients as possible, but in-person visits also are key as they allow our care team to assess patients firsthand and check their home environment for health needs or safety hazards that might not be apparent from a video or phone call.

For example, a Strive team member recently learned during an in-home visit that a patient was no longer able to get to his upstairs bedroom and was sleeping on a couch that was far too small for his body. The team arranged to have a properly sized bed delivered and set up on the ground floor of his home. With another patient, the team discovered during a visit that she was forgoing her own health and well-being to take make sure her pet had food. Our team helped ensure that she had groceries for herself as well.

Firsthand insights – and subsequent actions – like these can be invaluable for a provider when managing a patient’s disease.

High-Touch Meets High-Tech

In some instances, Strive dispatches a nurse practitioner to remote regions for a week-long tenure, facilitating one-on-one visits with numerous patients who might otherwise lack access to such care.

For other patients, Strive will send a community health worker to the patient’s home if they aren’t proficient with a computer or don’t have the necessary technology to set up a video visit with a member of the Strive care team. During these visits, the community health worker can also conduct an eyes-on assessment of the patient’s physical health and overall environment. The assessments include checking everything from basic needs and food supply to fall hazards, transportation and more.

During video calls, a Strive team member can assess a patient’s clinical needs, answer patient questions about their kidney disease and help meet health needs that other providers simply may not have time to address in an office setting. Our team is then able to share timely information with the patient’s doctors to help them make fully informed decisions about their care.

Fewer Barriers, Better Care

“It’s all about how we can remove any barriers that are getting in the way of the patient and get them the best care they need to slow the progression of disease,” says Renee George.

“What’s really exciting is how we have digital and high-touch care working in conjunction together, which means more patients are able to be supported by Strive.”

In this digital age, Strive is working in multiple ways to continue to be as high-touch as possible to keep patients healthy and their providers efficiently informed.