Medically Home Looks to Expand Business Model After Landing $110M Strategic Investment

The hospital-at-home enabler Medically Home announced Monday that it was on the receiving end of another strategic investment, this one totaling $110 million.

The Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente made a $100 million investment into Medically Home in May of 2021. Before that, the company had raised $64 million.

The most recent investment was led by Baxter International Inc., Global Medical Response and Cardinal Health, with the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser again contributing.

“The big picture is that everybody has been very focused on decentralizing care into the home,” Medically Home CEO Rami Karjian told Home Health Care News. “What started initially as in-patient hospitalization at home has now been broadening. What this announcement really represents is us going to the next level and being able to scale.”

In other words, the hospital-at-home enabler Medically Home wants to be more than that. At this point, while hospital at home is clearly still a focus, the company wants to be a leader in bringing more advanced care into the home in general.

Based in Boston, Medically Home provides health systems with the tools to care for patients by navigating reimbursement models, implementing technology and providing the clinical services needed. More than 7,000 patients nationwide have been cared for under its model.

Its new investment partners come from a wider variety of backgrounds.

For instance, Baxter International has a portfolio of diagnostic, critical and kidney care solutions, along with a suite of hospital and surgical products used in patient homes, hospitals and physician offices. Global Medical Response (GMR) is a provider of medical care, primarily in the areas of emergency and patient relocation services. Cardinal Health, meanwhile, is a distributor of pharmaceuticals, medical products and digital health solutions.

All three companies have worked in at-home care previously. Cardinal Health, in fact, already has an at-home care solutions arm.

“Mayo and Kaiser represent the health systems and integrated systems that want to do more decentralizing care into the home,” Karjian said. “GMR represents 30,000 paramedics that have an integral role to play in getting care into the home. Particularly given the nursing shortages that we’ve seen, that represents net new capacity for care that wasn’t previously available. Baxter and Cardinal represent the goods side of what it takes to get care moving from institutional facilities – like hospitals and SNFs – into the home.”

The new investment capital, which Medically Home feels will help it significantly expand its network and capabilities, comes at a time when many hospitals across the U.S. are reaching capacity.

The Omicron variant of COVID-19, although milder than previous strains, has been transmissible enough that it is causing familiar stress on in-patient hospitals.

Currently, the majority of states are reporting hospital capacity over 70%, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Close to 78% of in-patient hospital beds are in use. Over 18% of those are occupied due to COVID-19.

Karjian believes the investment will help Medically Home get to more health systems faster, help it expand into rural areas and also potentially expand its reach outside of the U.S.

“This investment is going to allow us to bring more technology and more products to [our partners] and enable them to help the patients they care for,” he said. “It’s also going to help us as we think about expanding beyond the U.S., and even within the U.S. We’re very excited about rural health, … and we think it is a really big deal in terms of where health care needs to start to address more of the health equity and disparity challenges we have.”

All five companies involved in the investment reiterated in statements the importance of further bringing care in the home.

“Enabling health equity and decentralized care for patients to receive hospital level care is no longer health care of the future – it’s here today,” Suzanne Foster, the president of Cardinal Health at-Home Solutions, said in a statement. “Cardinal Health is devoted to working closely with Medically Home and its partners to collectively provide optimal, in-home patient experiences and outcomes.”

Medically Home, Mayo Clinic and Kaiser are all founding members of the Moving Health Home (MHH) coalition. The group’s focus is to advocate for favorable legislation for home-based care in Washington, D.C.

As Medically Home attempts to expand its reach and influence, Karjian also said that he is confident in forthcoming legislation put forward by MHH that would help enable home-based care players across the spectrum.