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How industry dynamics and customer demands are shaping the new frontier of home healthcare
In recent years, at-Home Solutions has been making major strides to transform our warehouse operations by focusing on creating a more resilient and efficient healthcare supply chain. With growing customer expectations, an increase in home-based care models, and heavy adoption of automation, it’s more important than ever for distributors to stay ahead of the demand for comfortable care in the home. According to the 2024 United States Home Care Market Report published by Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA), the home care market is currently valued at $286 billion, with a projected surge in demand of 22% by 2034 for in-home healthcare.
Go behind the scenes with Cardinal Health at-Home Solutions for a look at how we’re transforming patient care in the home.
As a Cardinal Health business, at-Home Solutions serves over 5 million patients annually with the direct-to-home delivery of medical supplies, and our team knows exactly how to tackle the challenge of getting supplies to patients when and where they need them.
“Patients’ medical supply orders can’t arrive a day late – they are too important and there’s no room for error,” said Rob Schlissberg, president of at-Home Solutions.
at-Home Solutions’ expertise is built on delivering to patients in need. The patient might be recently discharged from hospital care, recovering from an operation, ordering products for ongoing management of a chronic illness, or requiring certain supplies to remain comfortable while in home health and/or hospice care.
Our business has a variety of customers, including direct-to-patient, all with varying medical supply distribution needs and we support them through three unique and complementary businesses:
- Cardinal Health at-Home: A distributor of medical supplies for Home Medical Equipment (HME) providers, Home Health Aide (HHA) agencies and their patients
- Edgepark: A leading direct-to-patient mail order medical supplies provider
- Velocare: A provider of rapid delivery and logistical services for hospital-at-home programs
These businesses are critically important to the patients who receive supplies, and there is growing demand for all of them, as more patients move towards managing their long-term conditions outside of acute care settings.
Read on to learn how.
at-Home Solutions’ Distribution Network: Investing in the future of healthcare
Our warehouse transformation includes strategic investments in automation and robotics to increase our efficient, speed and accuracy in delivering medical supplies to patients.
“These technologies are key to supporting the growth our business is experiencing; automation technologies make it easier and safer for our warehouse teams to do their jobs and serve our customers,” said Russ Hicks, SVP, Cardinal Health at-Home.
Two new distribution centers (DCs), one in Grove City, Ohio, and in Greenville, South Carolina have added nearly a half-million square feet to our nationwide warehouse capacity. Both are fully equipped with industry-leading robotics, artificial intelligence and automation technologies, and together, they provide the space we need to support customer growth.
New technologies include robots that zip around the DCs picking medical supplies for packages; a fully automated outbound conveyor system that takes picked items through the final labeling and packing steps before the loading dock; and a new warehouse management system to effectively manage labor and process orders flowing to the DCs. The new, technology-enhanced warehouses lay the foundation for planned future expansions.
"Patients expect to click a button and immediately receive their package, or at best, get it the next day,” said Mike DeSimpelaere, vice president of supply chain, at-Home Solutions. "That’s why powerful technology like robotics and automation is essential in the supply chain of today. These technologies are evolving into a ‘need-to-have’ versus a ‘nice-to-have’."
In the coming months, at-Home Solutions will open another DC in Fort Worth, Texas, which will consolidate our two existing buildings in Texas. This new 340,000 square foot distribution center adds nearly 74,000 square feet of expanded inventory capacity to our Texas footprint. This Texas warehouse will feature the same technology, robots and automation solutions as our other new facilities. Read more about this new building.
The addition of these three warehouses, dedicated solely to the delivery of home medical supplies, to our distribution center network is illustrated below. Investments in technology and space, ultimately, bring speed and efficiency to at-Home Solutions’ business operations, and will ultimately enable the business to reach a larger number of patients nationwide. In fact, with the addition of these warehouses to at-Home Solutions’ network, the business can reach nearly 100% of the U.S. patient population in less than 48 hours.
“Our customers and their patients expect their medical supplies to be delivered on time, without fail. and it’s our mission to stay ahead of their growing needs,” said Hicks. “Patients shouldn’t have to worry about when their medical supplies will arrive; we make sure they don’t have to worry.”
DeSimpelaere added, “These long-term investments in our distribution infrastructure position us for a resilient future, one that is prepared for the changes we see in the healthcare industry. When you step in one of our new at-Home Solutions distribution centers, you can feel the momentum we are harnessing and the immense dedication of our workforce. We are proud to be building warehouses of the future.”
Velocare: Harnessing the potential of hospital-at-home
The projected surge in the home care noted earlier is in part driven by the potential for improved patient outcomes: In fact, an article by the American Hospital Association reports that research data published on caring for certain conditions at home can reduce hospital readmission rates, prevent hospital-acquired infections and lower the cost of care.
Hospital-at-home programs began to rapidly take shape during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to constraints on healthcare systems globally. Velocare, a business within at-Home Solutions, was piloted at the height of the pandemic, designed to support the growth of hospital at home Velocare, a digital platform, coordinates all requirements for hospital-level care, and works with leading health systems to enable complex, high-acuity care in the home to thousands of patients nationwide. The goal of Velocare is to deliver and replenish medical supplies at a rapid pace during a patient’s hospital-at-home admission.
“Velocare is more than a platform; it’s a last-mile fulfillment solution revolutionizing healthcare logistics so we can deliver products and equipment to patients in as little as 2 hours,” Schlissberg said.
To take a closer look at how it works, ride-along with a Velocare Technician while he delivers critical supplies to a patient’s home. You can also read this article from our ‘Powering Home Healthcare’ series, here, all about Velocare.
“With this in-home care model, everyone benefits,” Schlissberg said. “Health plans experience reduced overall costs, because it is simply less expensive to care for a patient in the home. Hospital systems gain capacity for patients requiring round-the-clock care when those living with chronic illness can easily manage their conditions more comfortably and safely from home. At the end of the day, people like to be comfortable, and comfort typically starts at home. By further enabling this shift to home-based care, we are both strengthening the continuum of care while keeping patient wants and needs in the center of what we do.”
Beyond medical supply distribution
People want more control over their healthcare, especially when it comes to daily management of chronic conditions, recovering from a medical procedure or receiving hospital-level care at home.
Patients are at the heart of at-Home Solutions. “We don’t take for granted that there are patients who depend on us,” said Schlissberg. “We are laser-focused on investing in the areas that will make the largest impact on patient care. It’s for this reason that we treat each order that passes through our distribution network with an intense attentiveness on quality, efficiency and speed.
“Our ongoing commitment is to provide best-in-class service for the treatment of chronic medical conditions and to enable hospital-level care in the home. We are going beyond medical supply distribution by creating a culture for a more nurturing tomorrow, one delivery at a time.”
Go behind-the-scenes of Cardinal Health at-Home Solutions in this video, here.
This story is part of an ongoing series on the innovation, products and services that Cardinal Health's at-Home Solutions delivers directly to patients. View more stories below: