Soleo Direct uses data to keep patients home

FRISCO, Texas - A new program that seeks to get patients started on infusion therapy without a hospital visit is coinciding with an inflection point in health care created by the ongoing pandemic, says Soleo Health CEO Drew Walk.

As COVID cases spike in certain markets across the country, hospitals are looking for alternatives to bringing patients in for treatment, he says.

“The value of home infusion has been accelerated,” he said. “They now feel more comfortable keeping the patients away from the hospitals to protect patients and employees and reduce spikes.”

The company's new program, Soleo Direct, uses proprietary algorithms to determine targeted diagnosis-related groups and establish care paths for specific diagnoses that can be safely treated with intravenous or injectable medications in the home or at an alternate site setting.

Cellulitis is a good example, says Craig Vollmer, chief commercial officer.

“These are patients that are ultimately getting IV anti-infectives,” he said. “We can simply target (for that diagnosis) to keep those patients out of the hospital. We can also look at the savings, specific to cellulitis (for the hospital).”

Soleo Direct builds onthe company's Solemetrics clinical outcomes program, which allows Soleo Health to demonstrate its value using data it continually collects, says Walk.

“We view ourselves as a post-acute provider of infusion therapies to take care of patients in a high quality way in the most appropriate site of care,” he said. “This is one more peg in that and the hospital can focus on the critical patients.”

The health care system is at inflection point, says Walk, one which he believes will drive more care to the home.

“The pandemic has created a lot of discussion points about the best way to move forward,” he said. “We are (well positioned) in that space to provide complex therapies outside of hospitals. This is one more step in the transformation.”