Cardinal Health on health care: ‘Everything has changed’ 

DUBLIN, Ohio – Cardinal Health’s new offering Velocare will need “an army of partners,” including HME providers, to effectively execute hospital-at-home services for patients, says Alex Hoopes. 

Velocare is a supply chain network and fulfillment solution that the company says is capable of reaching patients in one to two hours with the critical products and services that are required for hospital-level care at home. 

“One of the advantages that we have is, just in the role we play supporting the health care system, we work with a lot of different types of entities and so we have a lot of these relationships that we think we can bring to bear in a very coordinated and orchestrated manner,” said Hoopes, director, Healthcare Innovation, for Cardinal at-Home Solutions. “My mind immediately goes to the HME providers we work with and what role they could play in these hospital-at-home programs. There are a lot of needs as far as supplies, and extensive needs as far as DME, medical devices, infusion pumps, CPAPs and BiPAPs, oxygen concentrators, hospital beds, geri-chairs – all of these products that need to be made available. I see that’s where we can leverage some of the relationships we have, so all the parties that are involved here are doing the things they do best.” 

Cardinal Health is currently piloting Velocare with a health system customer of Medically Home. A handful of companies, including Cardinal Health, became strategic investors of Medically Home in early 2022 to advance hospital-at-home services. 

Veolcare was about a year in the making, Hoopes says, an indicator of its scope. The solution involves everything from a robust ordering platform to “Geek Squad”-like services for tech setups to small format warehouses they’re calling depots to Cardinal Health-branded delivery vans. 

“This is not the typical model for us,” he said. “So, there’s a lot going into this. What I’m most excited about is all that we want to experiment with going forward. We have a very long list of technology that we want to develop – middle-mile and last-mile approaches that we want to test out – so we’re really at the start of a journey here.” 

Cardinal Health’s investment in Medically Home and its subsequent launch of Velocare is proof the company is paying attention to the “signals” that health care is in the midst of significant changes, Hoopes says. 

“The job we have to do, to make sure the right products get to the right place at the right time, hasn’t changed at all – that’s what we do today and that’s what we see ourselves doing in the future,” he said. “However, if you look at it another way, the definition of the right product at the right place at the right time is completely different and so, in some ways, everything has changed.” 

• Hear more from Alex Hoopes on hospital-at-home on the HME News in 10 podcast.
• Read more about how Velocare works.  
• Read why companies like Cardinal Health, Baxter International and others are investing in Medically Home.