Stonebrook Risk Solutions and Laguna Health partner to provide transformational post-acute care

Stonebrook is creating a network of best-in-class regional health plans to provide an alternative to the large corporate healthcare conglomerates. Stonebrook serves middle-market employers by aligning risk among multiple non-competing regional plans to expand geographic reach.

Laguna Health is revolutionizing care journeys by fusing member life context into an AI-driven care engine. With its engine, integrative management platform, and member app, Laguna is proven to advance recovery, lower the cost of care, and transform operational efficiency.

A Better Way to Recover

How does Laguna improve member recovery journeys? While the acute care setting was designed to focus on the physiological and biological needs, at home, the social, psychological, emotional, and situational reality of life typically makes it difficult to follow post-discharge instructions and recovery plans.

Laguna models structured life context into the entire patient journey before, during, and after a hospital discharge, effectively mitigating individual barriers to recovery in a dynamic and scalable manner. For example, if Jane has a Stonebrook insurance plan with Laguna Health services, the Laguna system will be automatically alerted of Jane’s admission and engage with her as soon as her surgery is scheduled. Jane’s life context and risk profile will start to be populated and dynamically assessed from this moment in time, throughout the recovery process. Jane’s recovery coach, working on the Laguna integrative platform, and running on the care engine, is the focal point throughout Jane’s journey.

After Jane is discharged, she takes her Laguna recovery support home: The Laguna app analyzes Jane’s discharge instructions and translates them into recovery tasks and automatic reminders. The app also allows Jane to track her progress and log relevant metrics, and these can be discussed with Jane’s coach as their relationship continues when she transitions back home. Together, Jane and her coach work to address potential life-context barriers (things like access to transportation to attend medical appointments, proper nutrition, adherence to medication, home responsibilities, etc.) and set personal goals that drive action and help Jane adhere to the clinical guidance provided by her doctors upon discharge.

As Yoni Shtein, the CEO and Co-Founder of Laguna Health explains, “If people are not adhering to discharge instructions, it often has less to do with their clinical needs and more to do with life. Patients have competing priorities and we look at how all the variables enable or hinder the path they need to take. If Jane has a competing responsibility that is making it difficult for her to comply with appointment follow-ups and therapy, like her work schedule, the engine identifies that barrier and drives what Laguna refers to as ‘micro plans of care’ for Jane and her coach. For example, rather than skipping therapy, the app would suggest “asking for help” content and would engage within a specific plan of care. By systematizing these individual interventions and meeting members where they are, we can help them to avoid traditional recovery pitfalls that lead to failed or slow recovery”.

Identifying the Unavoidable Readmissions Sooner

Not all readmissions are considered bad. Laguna Health’s approach can identify the unavoidable admissions, like infections, sepsis, and internal bleeding, sooner. As Yoni describes, “Laguna’s life-context care model and technology builds an incredible amount of trust with our members and actually encourages them to go back to the hospital sooner, when they need to.” The earlier patients get care for these unavoidable complications, the lower the cost and the better the health outcomes.

The Potential Financial Impact

Poor post-acute recovery is extremely expensive. Hospital admissions account for 40% of our healthcare costs and 25% of patients do not recover well after discharge. For the Medicare population, that number increases to 40%.

Laguna estimates that half of the readmission and poor recovery spend could be avoided if the right clinical model is utilized and scaled. Laguna Health has built a structured tech-clinical model combined with human support, providing members with an evidence-based recovery guide, an engaging app, and recovery coaches that offer critical education and individual life-context support.

Yoni describes their ability to have a dramatic impact on post-acute spending this way: “We have built the clinical model and technology and are infusing so much human and life context data that we are creating a network effect. More data leads to more impact which creates more data that leads to a more economically impactful model. We are charting uncharted territory.”

Shifting Care Reduces Impact of Healthcare Shortages

The shortage of clinical staff has never been more apparent. Clinicians are burning out, leaving their jobs, and not coming back. “Being very deliberate and intentional in care management capability in the most acute and expensive populations has never been more important,” says Yoni. “By structuring barrier identification and clinical interventions, enabling meaningful member interactions outside of the hospital and improving care outcomes, Laguna’s model shifts care away from the overstretched, limited resources in hospitals and into a patient’s home. Covid has propelled the acceptance of in-home remote care, making this the perfect time for the industry to adopt solutions like this.”

A Win-Win Partnership

Stonebrook certainly understands the opportunity from this partnership. Mark Angard, CEO of Stonebrook says, “Avoidable readmissions cost the industry billions of dollars, not to mention unnecessary pain, stress, and anxiety for the patient and their families. Transition from acute care to home is a huge opportunity to reduce readmissions and Laguna Health has proven their effectiveness at doing exactly that. Together, we have the potential to bring better recoveries at lower costs to millions of patients.”

Beyond increasing the scope of patients impacted, Laguna Health is excited to integrate with Stonebrook’s other partners. Stonebrook is building a network of best-in-class innovative solutions that all aim to improve outcomes and reduce costs. Yoni believes “Stonebrook is laying the foundation of what the future will bring to healthcare as a whole. They are building the operational layer where solutions plug in and become seamlessly available to the plans sitting on top of it as well as the employers and their populations.”