The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with PointClickCare. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of senior housing, skilled nursing, home health, and hospice care. To see this year’s Future Leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.

Joseph Brence, head of clinical strategy at Seattle-based clinical software company MedBridge, has been named a 2022 Future Leader by Home Health Care News.

To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40 years old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for seniors and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.

Brence sat down with HHCN to talk about the importance of providing care in a patient’s most desired location and why it’s crucial to relax regulatory restrictions in the home-based care space.

HHCN: What drew you to this industry?

I entered the home health industry about a decade ago. The reason why I joined was actually a non-compete agreement. I was managing outpatient physical therapy practices and couldn’t continue because of the company that I left. I looked at different opportunities and home health looked like a decent opportunity to enter into. Once I began practicing, I realized the value that it was creating for patients.

What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?

It’s the value of treating patients in their most desired environment — which is their home.

I think that the context of where health care is provided is so important. I don’t think that anybody really loves to be in the hospital. When you’re able to bring health care to the patient’s home, it becomes a unique experience in which you are helping them live within the context of their own environment.

If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of home-based care, what would it be?

The level of regulatory oversight that this setting has. While I can appreciate that level of oversight, and a need for that oversight, it sometimes does hinder the ability to innovate. What I’d like to see is CMS having more incentive to build and try innovative care delivery models within the home.

We saw that a little bit with COVID — the passing of waivers and the standing up of things like hospital-at-home models. But I’d really like to see the push for more innovation, and the lifting of certain regulatory oversight to allow that to occur.

What do you foresee as being different about the home-based care industry looking ahead to 2023?

I think we’re going to continue to see an evolution in the use of technology to assist with both the coordination and delivery of care. What we’ve seen is really a significant advancement in the ability to engage patients through technology, as well as a consumer preference shift. Consumers now are expecting and anticipating the incorporation of technology in their care.

If we look back five to 10 years ago, I may have questioned if the home-based population would leverage technology. At MedBridge, we’ve seen a significant adoption of technology by the elderly population. Last year, our technology impacted about 8.5 million patient lives. The average life that we were able to impact was between 65 and 75 years old.

I think we’re going to continue to see the usage of more technology to interact with patients.

In a word, how would you describe the future of home-based care?

Essential.

What quality must all Future Leaders possess?

They must be able to question the status quo and continuously challenge themselves to push the limits in order to improve how home-based care is delivered.

​​If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?

I would tell myself to focus more on what occurs between on-site visits versus just the on-site visits themselves.

I think there is such a focus on the routine of on-site care, but to truly expediate recovery and avoid things like unnecessary hospitalization and emergency department visits, leveraging tools to engage patients between their on-site care visits is critical.

I would tell myself, focus not only on what you’re doing on-site with a patient, but understand what’s happening before your next visit as well.