San Diego is getting grayer. The number of people 65 and older in San Diego County is going to double by 2030. The fastest-growing demographic in the county is residents 85 and older. With the program “UCSD at Home,” UC San Diego Health is trying to meet this increasing need in a way that is better for seniors.
UCSD offers senior clinics as part of its primary care services and houses accredited geriatric emergency departments. But older adults can now opt to receive medical care at home, a move that helps ease transportation burdens and avoid the stress of a hospital visit, says Dr. Parag Agnihotri, UCSD Health’s chief medical officer of Population Health Services.
UCSD at Home also increases seniors’ access to tools like blood pressure monitors or bed sensors to track respiration, which can be installed in patients’ houses. In its four years of existence, the program has had 4,000 participants. Those patients saw their hospitalization rates drop by 30 to 40 percent and reported very high patient satisfaction in surveys.
Additionally, the program aims to keep seniors out of the emergency room by managing illnesses or acute episodes at home. Physicians check on patients daily via video monitors. The ER to Home program has been available for two years and recently served its 3,000th patient. Analysis shows that participants have a 50 percent lower chance of going back to the ER.
“Hospitals are not good for seniors,” Agnihotri says. “There are many studies that show when seniors are hospitalized, the surroundings cause increased delirium and confusion. It increases risks of falls and more confinement to bed, so they lose muscle mass. It leads to avoidable physical frailty.”
The institution also provides digital healthcare at home for younger populations who have diabetes, high blood pressure, or certain behavioral health issues.
While UCSD is trying to keep people out of its hospitals whenever possible, it’s also trying to improve management and outcomes with patients who do come in.
UCSD Health employees utilize an efficiency-boosting AI program in the Mission Control Center
Its Mission Control Center, for example, is powered by AI that uses real-time data and predictive analytics to ensure that patients at any three of UCSD Health’s campuses get needed care efficiently and don’t fall through the cracks or experience undue delays during transitions.
Right now, Mission Control is a prototype focused on increasing efficiency in the hospitals. But the hope, says Chief Health AI Officer Dr. Karandeep Singh, is that it will one day expand to help manage outpatients.
That’s not the only way artificial intelligence is changing the game at UCSD. The institution is using an algorithm to help reduce deaths from sepsis, a severe bacterial infection. It’s brought down mortality from sepsis by 17 percent, Singh explains.
UCSD is also looking into utilizing generative AI to help improve patient safety and quality of care. Right now, to determine how well they’re doing on those two fronts, faculty and staff have to review patient charts and patient safety reports, processing massive amounts of information.
“Can generative AI help us read the charts and identify root causes more quickly?” Singh asks. “Can it help us look at even more charts than what we do now? I think we’re trying to see if AI can be an assistant to our staff to do more breadth on top of the depth.”
