The home-based kidney care provider Monogram Health has formed a partnership with Memorial Hermann Health System. The focus of the collaboration is to improve outcomes for patients with polychronic conditions.
“Memorial Hermann Health is a well-known, well-established, leading system of population health and hospital-based care,” Dr. Aash Shah, chief growth officer of Monogram Health, told Home Health Care News. “A lot of our population intersects with facility-based care, whether its ER, hospitalization admissions or other facilities, so it made sense for us to partner our model … with their sites of care and networks.”
Nashville-based Monogram Health is a value-based specialty provider of in-home care and benefit management services for individuals living with polychronic conditions, including chronic kidney and end-stage kidney disease.
The partnership expands Monogram Health’s Texas Gulf Coast footprint.
On its end, Memorial Hermann Health System is the largest not-for-profit health system in Southeast Texas. The health system operates 14 hospitals and has joint ventures with three other hospital facilities.
“Monogram Health has consistently proven to be both an innovator and leader in risk-based in-home care delivery and management,” Feby Abraham, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for Memorial Hermann, said in the statement. “We share a common goal to provide whole-person, outcomes-oriented care, and this strategic partnership will further enable Memorial Hermann to adopt an advanced risk platform that progresses access to high quality care for our patients – inside and outside the ‘four walls’ of the health system.”
Last year, Monogram Health raised a $375 million funding round, which was led by CVS Health (NYSE: CVS), Cigna Ventures, SCAN Group, as well as partners like Humana (NYSE: HUM) and Memorial Hermann Health System.
Memorial Hermann Health System’s investment led to this current JV partnership, according to Shah.
The funding was meant to help grow the company at a time when millions of Americans are living with kidney disease.
More than 35 million U.S. adults live with chronic kidney disease, according to data from the CDC.
Additionally, 40% of individuals living with severely reduced kidney function don’t know that they have chronic kidney disease. Kidney diseases are a major cause of death in the U.S., and home-based kidney care is still underutilized in the U.S.
“In the United States, home-based kidney care is roughly 15% or less,” Shah said. “If you look at other industrialized nations, you can see that home-based kidney care, or home dialysis specifically, is around 20% or higher. Our decision to go to the home was built around the reality that these patients are complicated. These patients have access-to-care issues, they have social determinant issues. While they want to be adherent and compliant, life gets in the way. We want to upend the system, and that starts with pushing needed resources to the patient.”
Shah noted that Monogram Health’s home dialysis rate is around 15% or 16%. The company is often working with partners that start at zero and then eventually reach this rate.
Ultimately, Monogram Health wants to be an extension of Memorial Hermann Health System’s reach in the home.
“Our first goal is to be the extension of their existing providers,” Shah said. “Using evidence-based pathways and protocols, we’re going to reduce the variability of any care out there, and make it highly reliable, the highest quality, and consistent.”
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