Last week I kicked off the blog series, “Delivering Better Outcomes for Seniors”, with an introductory blog post on the research behind Delivering Better Outcomes. The research showed that more than 50% of failures in the senior population were actually caused by non-medical factors such as home safety issues or not getting everyday needs met.

This week I want to talk about the results of the research and how the research is implemented with an assessment model used by Senior Helpers called LIFE Profile (which stands for Life, Independence, Function & Evaluation).

LIFE Profile adapts more than 18 years of observational data on the social and functional causes of avoidable hospital admission into the following 5-factor assessment framework:

1.      Medical Condition Management

2.      Safety (Person, Environment, Task Performance)

3.      Independence & Autonomy

4.      Burden of Care on the Primary Caregiver

5.      Quality of Life

Each of the 5 aforementioned critical areas of success are measured and receive their own score in the assessment process for the senior. These scores allow a plan of care to be developed with the family that will subsequently increase the chance of success for the senior by working together to move each individual score to a safer zone. For example, if there are 60 safety risks identified (trip hazards, poisons, bed height) we would want to reduce the number of safety risks to 40 or below to increase the chance of success for the senior in their environment.

To illustrate the power of the LIFE Profile in delivering better outcomes, a study was commissioned that assessed approximately 200 seniors in Houston, Texas to show the correlation of the Independence/Autonomy score vs. 6 month hospitalization rates.

Table 1: LIFE Profile Autonomy scores & related hospitalizations within 6 months

Source: PBHS Study of 196 patients in Houston, TX 1-1-2017 to 6-30-2018

The results are in Table 1 above. It is easy to see that if we can work with the senior and their family to implement a plan of care to drive the Autonomy Score up, there is a remarkable chance for success! The same is true for the other 4 success factors listed above – move the scores in the right direction and the chance of successfully Aging in Place increases dramatically!

Future posts in this blog series will look at each of the 5 critical components listed above in more detail including the scoring model. For example, the Safety assessment looks at 144 statistically significant safety factors which will take more than a single post to talk about!

In between the detailed blog posts discussing the 5 critical factors of LIFE Profile we will be posting shorter “how to” informational pieces on what we are looking at when we score our clients here at Senior Helpers. Here is the first example.

To learn more about the research and LIFE Profile visit the Senior Helpers Knowledge Center where you will find our whitepaper Micro Social Determinants of Health & LIFE Profile and a number of case studies.

Frank Hayes is the Owner of Senior Helpers in greater Austin Texas and a Research Fellow with Performance Based Healthcare Solutions. He can be reached at FHayes@seniorhelpers.com . Senior Helpers’ Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/SeniorHelpersCentralTexas/